This August, five groups of Teen Reviewers and Critics (TRaC) ventured out into New York City to take in some culture. After attending a Thursday performance, everyone wrote reviews, then reconvened the following Tuesday for a discussion and workshop. Our work is published here in the second of a five part series featuring writing from the Summer TRaC!

Summer TRaC Session 2 attended Judith Shakespeare Company’s reverse-gender production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona.  Check out the excerpts and full reviews below….

“One could be happy to say that the comfortable and exaggerated acting enabled those who quiver at the name of Shakespeare, to still understand what was going on.” – Nylejah Lawson

Read NYLEJAH’s full review.

“In [the] black box theater, [...] a woman comes out to put her costume skirt on, but then decides to put on pants and a tie.  Little by little the whole cast comes on stage, and the men put on skirts and corsets, and the women dress in male attire.” – Katherine Brannan-Williams

Read KAT’s full review.

“Adding to the satire is the cast’s dramatic, intense line delivery and comedic use of pop culture allusions (most notably, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air handshake).  The unique versatility of the performance is both its merit and its downfall.” - Sharon Mizrahi

Read SHARON’s full review.

“What I inexplicably enjoyed most was the men’s interpretation of women, in love.  Alvin Chan’s portrayal of a lovelorn Julia inspired some of the most memorable performances in the show.  Equally as comical a performance was that of Hunter Gilmore as a gentle and seemingly fragile Sylvia.” - Carol Szwei

Read CAROL’s full review.

“Though Shakespeare’s jokes may now be archaic, when a man wearing a corset delivers them, it’s hard not to laugh.  But the actors don’t need their outlandish costumes to be entertaining […] Yet, at times, these attempts to honor the themes of the play are undermined when routine comedic outbursts overshadow graver events such as rape and betrayal.” – Kirsten Rischert

Read KIRSTEN’s full review.

“Overall this play was a good play. I would definitely recommend seeing this play.” – Eddie Lawson

Read EDDIE’s full review.

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Some shows tug at your heartstrings.  Next to Normal tugs at them, yanks at them, and tears them apart.

The show opens on a seemingly normal suburban family.  The set is flat, three stories consisting of boxes, like a perfect little dollhouse.  A mother, a father, a sister, a brother.  The father goes to work, and the children go to school.  The mother makes the sandwiches.  Living an ordinary, normal life.  Well, trying to.  Before the mother collapses, and is having an “attack”.  Slowly, gradually, the characters’ troubles unfold before us.  The isolated daughter, the hampered, and so sad and tired father.  The mother, [SPOLIER ALERT!!] haunted visions and hallucinations.  And they bring you into their wretched life, striving desperately to be normal.  The emotion of the characters, the story, and the music draw you in like a dream where you are within each character, living out a part at a time.

Here is the mother, facing her illness. Illusions haunt her.  The symbol of her mental illness follows her everywhere, haunting the whole family.  The actors and directors did an excellent job  showing you, as an audience member, what it is like to fight against a sickness of the mind and within.   When that sickness follows you everywhere, and you cling to illusions desperately, escaping reality and living in a dream while reality crashes down around you.  The hallucination is shown to you, audience member, and haunts you as it does her, a hole she can’t get out of.  A hole you can’t get out of.

Here is the daughter, lonely and independent, nervous and desperately precise and orderly, troubled by her mother’s neglect, her father’s worry.  A teenager feeling all alone, her emotions strike a familiar chord within you.  And so when things get worse, and she cracks, and breaks, you feel it too.

The mother can’t get better, won’t get better.  They try several treatments, several different ways.  The father is desperate.  The mother is getting worse.  The hallucination, personified and singing desperately to draw the mother into a happy dream, is chilling.  The mother drags them all down with her.

Oddly, though a tragedy, there are funny parts just as the story is pulling at your heartstrings.  Rather than detracting from the emotional value, however, the funny moments even as the situation is worsening, make the musical more like life itself.  Therefore, when it crashes slowly down, it affects you all the more.

The rock score composed by Tom Kitt supports the musical while carrying you along with the characters’ feelings during each scene.  Brian Yorkey’s lyrics of the desperate need to get out of the horrible mess the characters are in sound hauntingly familiar to what you yourself once may have said, when upset.  The dollhouse layout and funny moments of life makes the show all mundane and normal while sad at the same time.  Perhaps it is because of this that it affects the audience so deeply.  Unless you’re sob story impervious, the raw emotion of the characters will make you shed tears.

They say that a comedy is only good when it makes you laugh.  Likewise, I’d say a drama is only good when it makes you cry.  There were three shows I have ever seen that made me cry.  This was one of them.  And this was the only show I have ever seen in which the entire audience was weeping.  If you wish to be moved to tears while entranced and see a musical both heartrending and heartwarming at the same time, Next to Normal is the show for you.

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Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind is an attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes.  30 plays, ranging from happy to sad to slightly odd and confusing to a beautiful work of performance art, that The New York Neo-Futurists have written themselves.  Titles include: “a play for Tina Howe,” “apple and anger,” “inquisition,” “mad libs booty am free style for you,” and… 26 more.  The Neo’s are energetic acting group and from the very beginning, they set out to make you a part of their excitement.

The audience was fully interactive throughout the show, being able to choose the order of the plays by shouting a out a number from 1 to 30 from the list of plays, or menu, that they gave us (every play has a number).  Audience members were pulled up on stage to dance with the cast, to fill in blanks to a song, or a cast member would go have a short conversation with a member of the audience.  (Don’t be shy when you go!)

“Success in Under Two Minutes” is about a minute or so of actress Chisa Hutchinson stating all of her failures which ultimately reveals her regret of being a subconsciously selfish, malfunctioning human being; but being satisfied, in the end, that she was successful at stating all of her failures.  Failure breeds success!

In “Tiny Time for Massive Idea: I carved out this play for you Mark Suppes won’t you please please come” actress Jill Beckman talks about a man named Mark Suppes who she is inspired by and how much she wanted him to come and see the play.  She plans for him to come and sit at a table drinking a cup of water and tell us about his experiment but he never comes.  They turn out the lights and she looks for him with a flashlight through the audience, when it turns out he was not there she calls him a “f#cker” and says he’s probably too busy.

The New York Neo-Futurists are a very enjoyable bunch and they’re a privilege to watch.  Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind is a life changing experience and you shouldn’t miss your chance to go see it!

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Overall this play was a good play. I would definitely recommend seeing this play.

In the beginning of the play the first interesting event that caught my attention was when everyone changed their gender.  Even though it had nothing to do with the original Shakespeare play, it was really funny how everyone found an excuse to change their clothes.  It’s interesting how changing your clothes can change a person’s personality.

As the play continued I realized that Julia was hilarious!

As for some of the other characters, Prodeus’ father’s accent could have been made more clear.  The accent that she was trying to convey was a little confusing.  In addition, the love relationships were great.  Prodeus and Julia’s relationship was hilarious!  The main reason for Prodeus’ disloyalty to Julia was because their family put stress on their relationship which may have caused him to stray away.  Valentine and Silvia’s relationship did not start until later on in the play which was a bit baffling.  I did not know if his relationship with Silvia was the reason of his travel.

The drama between everyone began when Prodeus tried to forget Julia in order to convince himself to go after Silvia, who at the time was Valentine’s lover.  If Prodeus did not betray Valentine everyone else in the play probably would not have had all the problems they had later.  It was like a ripple affect, and Prodeus was the start.

In the end everything came to life and all of the truth was let out into the open.  I love how they ended the play with the title they used in the beginning.  The way they sang the title in sync was a great way to begin and end the play.

On another note, I think the set was used very well, but at the same time I do not think that it created a perfect image of where they were and what time of day it was.
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Check out footage from the TRaC roundtable discussion with guest speaker Alvin Chan, who plays Julia in Judith Shakespeare Company’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”:

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Two Gentlemen of Verona, known as the first comedic play written by Shakespeare was very well reenacted by the Judith Shakespeare Company known for their ‘signature gender-reverse casting’ thus making the play enjoyable.

Though the play seems like it could be  understood by all age groups, with nice touches like a live dog for the possible presence children and even hints of caricature humor for adults, the fact that the entire play was in Old English made it hard to keep some children’s attention- other than, well, the dog, Crab.

The play focuses in on the relationship between Valentine (played by Rachael Hip-Flores) and Proteus (played by the very active Sheila Joon).  With this, the play introduces love and relationships in the boy’s lives and we see how this strains and hurts the friendship between them, and the result it has in the end.  One thing most audience members would take away is the choice Proteus makes on whether to follow his lust or maintain the true real friendship between him and Valentine.  As the audience experiences the bond between the two men, it makes it interesting to watch the end results of Proteus’ decision and how it affects the characters and the play as a whole.

No actor lacked skills in acting from Hunter Gilmore playing the very admirable Silvia to  Natasha Yannacenedo who played various roles throughout the play.  A personal favorite was Suzanne Hayes,who played the loyal, witty and sarcastic Speed, side-kick to Valentine because her jokes were easily understood by the audience.

The fact that the performance space is very small, almost makes it uncomfortable for the audience to directly react, in terms of laughter, to the play.

However, one very interesting point in the play is that idle actors during certain scenes are still involved in the play, physically and emotionally, moving set pieces for scene changes and even laughing along to the jokes, creating a comfortable experience for the audience, even initiating imitation to the idle actors’ response  to the performance.  A great accent to the performance was the guitarist Austin Moorhead who, by strumming tunes ranging from playful to relaxing pieces, set the mood for scene changes, very nicely.

Once again, due to the fact that the entire play was in old English most audience members had no choice but to rely on the actor’s quality of performance.  It seems young audience members enjoyed the comedic facial expressions and the fact that men were playing women’s roles and vice-versa, already created a comedic atmosphere.  One could be happy to say that the comfortable and exaggerated acting enabled those who quiver at the name of Shakespeare, to still understand what was going on.
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Check out footage from the TRaC roundtable discussion with guest speaker Alvin Chan, who plays Julia in Judith Shakespeare Company’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”:

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In a black box theater, with cubes scattered and splattered with colorful paint, a woman comes out to put her costume skirt on, but then decides to put on pants and a tie.  Little by little the whole cast comes on stage, and the men put on skirts and corsets, and the women dress in male attire.

The Judith Shakespeare Company’s Two Gentlemen of Verona at the The Barrow Group Theatre had all the male roles played by women, and vice versa.  The story revolves around two young men who are best friends, and how they get mixed up falling in love with the wrong person etc., in a Midsummer Night’s Dream-esque way.  Since the characters are stereotypical to their gender, the switch added an edge to this mellow play.

At some times, the gender-reverse casting made the whole show a parody of itself.  It was as if it wasn’t taking itself too seriously, which is ultimately a good thing in a comedy.  It also made aspects of the story funnier than if it had been done as usual.  For example, there is one point when a female character (played by a guy) needs to dress as a man, so there is a guy pretending to be a girl dressing up as a guy, which is how it would have been in the old days of theater, when men had to play all roles, including the female ones.

To my surprise, the cast included a real dog and a live guitar player accompanying the action and clowning.  The performances of the entire cast were excellent, and the main two girls (playing guys) displayed their masculinity very well.

When actors were part of the scenery, such as holding a glittery sun or moon with a fishing pole, or an unimportant role, such as delivering a letter, they wore plain black masks, which gender-neutralized them.  This was necessary because since so much of the play involves messing with masculine and feminine roles, the audience needs something to draw a curtain on this and lessen our constant awareness of their own gender as well as the gender of their character.

Two Gentlemen of Verona has, as Wikipedia says, “traditionally been seen as one of [Shakespeare’s] weakest plays.”  So why would the Judith Shakespeare Company perform this one? Perhaps for a play to be done in gender reversal, it needs some specific elements, such as a comedic tone, and the amusement of a girl dressing up as a guy.  Also, it’s helpful for the story not to be too deep or complicated, so the switch can just be for laughs and not be too confusing.  Overall, the production outshines the play itself, but maybe that is exactly the point.
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Check out footage from the TRaC roundtable discussion with guest speaker Alvin Chan, who plays Julia in Judith Shakespeare Company’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”:

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Two Gentlemen of Verona, performed at the The Barrow Group Theatre, marks the Judith Shakespeare Company’s first full Shakespeare production in six years as well as their first gender-reversed romantic comedy.  But the company is no stranger to gender-reversed casting.  In the past, their productions of Richard the Third and The Tempest have explored non-traditional casting.   Likewise, Two Gents features women playing men and vice versa.

Two Gents masterfully fulfills the non-for-profit performance ensemble’s mission with their excellent casting alone.  By allowing women to play men, JSC successfully expands the “presence of women in classical theater.” To the same effect, the vivid stage presence brought by a gender-reversed cast enlivens “Shakespeare’s language to life with clarity and vitality,” though several critics consider the play as one of Shakespeare’s weakest works.

Luckily, JSC knows how to make do with what they’ve got.  One of the greatest challenges when adapting Shakespeare to the theater can be making the content relevant and comprehensible to the audience.  Two Gents executes this Herculean task almost flawlessly.  Though Shakespeare’s jokes may now be archaic, when a man wearing a corset delivers them, it’s hard not to laugh.  But the actors don’t need their outlandish costumes to be entertaining, exaggerated mannerisms mimicking a whiny mistress or a foolish gentleman are just as amusing.  The actors also expertly use the entire stage and aisles of the intimate theater, sometimes jumping atop paint-splattered boxes or climbing restlessly on a ladder during a long speech, perhaps hinting at the absurdity and folly of their own words.

Yet, at times, these attempts to honor the themes of the play are undermined when routine comedic outbursts overshadow graver events such as rape and betrayal.  A lack of sound portrayal of distance and time add to this effect, so that the play ends abruptly after a brief apology and reconciliation.  Unfortunately, the lack of a strong catharsis takes a large toll on the confused audience’s conception of the play in its entirety.  Without an emotional connection, their fragmented memories of a few laughs are too easily forgotten.

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Check out footage from the TRaC roundtable discussion with guest speaker Alvin Chan, who plays Julia in Judith Shakespeare Company’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”:

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Traditional Shakespearean theatre made use of male actors for both male and female characters—The Two Gentlemen of Verona, performed by the Judith Shakespeare Company, offers a tongue-in-cheek take on the original style: cross-dressing.

While the script stays true to the original Shakespearean text, the performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is brimming with ingenious surprises.  All men in the play don skirts and exaggerated corsets over their t-shirts, while the women are dressed in button-down shirts and ties.  Adding to the satire is the cast’s dramatic, intense line delivery and comedic use of pop culture allusions (most notably, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air handshake).  The unique versatility of the performance is both its merit and its downfall.  The Two Gentlemen of Verona is studded with great satirical, slapstick, and classic theatrical elements, which stand strongly on their own.  However, the consecutive incorporation of so many tactics loses its freshness by the first half of the three-hour long play.

The juxtapositions of distinctly urban culture with Shakespearean style and sharp wit with classic drama—though individually clever and poignant—clash and muddle when used in conjunction.  The Two Gentlemen of Verona is similarly unbalanced in execution, leaving viewers overwhelmed and unsatisfied.
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Check out footage from the TRaC roundtable discussion with guest speaker Alvin Chan, who plays Julia in Judith Shakespeare Company’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”:

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Hundreds of times it has been said that Shakespeare is not for everyone.  And how can this not be true when the playwright’s heightened language seeps into society unaltered by time.  Hundreds have also said that Shakespearean literature is just too unrelated to today’s modern world.  I beg to differ.  It’s the times that have changed, not the audiences.  This is precisely why I highly commend the Judith Shakespeare Company‘s production of Two Gentlemen of Verona at its TBG Theatre on 36th street.  I wasn’t just treated to their rendition of the timeless classic.  I was given a fresh outlook with a gender-reversed cast, and that made my experience so much better.

Dealing with the themes of friendship and infidelity, this romantic comedy takes the show to a whole new level. Surprisingly and not surprisingly, the gender-reversed did not fiddle with the integrity of the play, but it did up its comical aspects.  What I inexplicably enjoyed most was the men’s interpretation of women, in love.  Alvin Chan’s portrayal of a lovelorn Julia inspired some of the most memorable performances in the show.  Equally as comical a performance was that of Hunter Gilmore as a gentle and seemingly fragile Sylvia.  The same can be said for fellow leads Rachael Hip-Flores (Valentine) and Sheila Joon (Proteus).

Body language is key when imitating the opposite sex, and this challenge was successfully achieved by mostly all in the cast.  Lance (Alexandra Devin) and his dog Crab (Candide), the scene stealing duo, instantly won over the crowd with their wonderful onstage relationship.  Candide’s comic timing was impeccable.  I was stunned at first but I quickly came to the realization that this pooch was truly a great actor.  Visuals and setting played an excellent part in setting up scene for scene almost fluidly.  A guitar player for live music was also a clever added touch for  mood music.

Joanne Zipay’s version of The Two Gentlemen of Verona was certainly favorite presentation of a Shakespearean play.  Of course, there was no difference in the actual play itself.  All content was the same as it’s ever been since it was written by the great “Bard” centuries ago.  Yet this company dared to cross boundaries and investigate a change in sexes.  My fascination with this turn of direction only grew with its blunt casualness.  This show made it okay to experience Shakespeare without feeling overwhelmed and half-witted.  This just shows that there is always more than one way of doing things.
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Check out footage from the TRaC roundtable discussion with guest speaker Alvin Chan, who plays Julia in Judith Shakespeare Company’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”:

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Me at the show!

It was like a party.

On Wednesday June 9, 2010 I went to Harlem, NY with my mom to see Amateur Night at the legendary Apollo Theater.  I had an great time at this show.  The performances were exciting.  The show was hosted by great comedian, Capone.  I also enjoyed was the DJ, named DJ Jess.  He was playing really cool songs and everyone was dancing in their seats.

And that was just the pre-show.

When the show really got started, they had even more entertainment with the house band Ray Chew and the Crew and an emcee.  They pulled four people out of the audience to participate in a “soul train” line dance competition.  Whoever got the most applause got an Apollo T-shirt and the runner up got a Coco-Cola T-shirt, as they are the sponsors of Amateur Night.

Next up was the kids competition and three amazingly talented girls came out and sang different songs.  The host informed us not to boo them because they are children and they were here to showcase their talent and the audience voted for the best girl (check her video out below).  Then the main competition began.  We voted for the best act with cheers.  Only this time we were allowed to “boo” the acts that we didn’t like.  And if there were enough boos, then they pulled off of the stage in an embarrassing manner.  The host provided witty commentary and was hilarious throughout the show.  There was also a video dedication to Michael Jackson, who performed at the Apollo Theatre with the Jackson 5.

Overall, the Apollo was amazing and I would love to go back any day, especially on Amateur night.  It’s every Wednesday at 7:30, but be sure to get there by 7:00 to enjoy the pre-show.

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Highlights from the winner Vanessa Alvarez’s performance.   (The Apollo posts videos of Amateur Night every week on their website.)

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