Andrew O’Shanick, Jordan Elman and Alain Pierre in What Passes For Comedy (Photo: Reiko Yoo Yanagi)

by Michael Dale

This Week…

What Passes For Comedy at The Chain Theatre through November 19. Tickets $25.

Shared Sentences at 122CC through November 12. Tickets $35/$25 for first 25 seats of every performance. Free tickets available for formerly incarcerated and loved ones of incarcerated people.

F*ck7thGrade at Wild Project through November 19. Tickets $45/$35.

Opening Number…

Though my heart belongs to Sardi’s when it comes to post-theatre imbibing, I’ve been known to venture outside of West 44th Street on occasion, especially when accompanied by alcohol brand ambassador and nightlife tastemaker Yolanda Shoshana, who always knows a cool spot for discussing the evening’s entertainment.

So after taking in director LaTanya Richardson Jackson's lovingly-acted revival of August Wilson's Pulitzer-winning The Piano Lesson (I was especially taken with how audibly empathetic the audience was for Ray Fisher’s sweet and trusting Lymon.), we strolled a block away to Dutch Fred’s to visit their delightfully ingratiating bartender Francesco Dionese.

Named for the NYPD officer who legend says deemed his beat “Hell’s Kitchen”, Dutch Fred’s has a warm, turn of the Twentieth Century tavern vibe; the kind of place where you’d expect Tammany Hall middle-men would unwind after fixing the latest election. I indulged in the house specialty, Working Class Hero, a hearty combination of Teelings Irish Whisky, Antica and House-made Caramel Porter, served in a sealed bottle and topped with an aromatic head of smoke.

When the conversation turned to August Wilson’s elegant drama, set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh during the 1930s, Yolanda, a Black woman, expressed concern that a play like this may soon be regarded as dated. At first I thought she meant how it was a period piece set in the 1930s, but to her the issue is that she’s observed how Black audience members are growing more intolerant of the use of the n-word, even when, as in Wilson’s 1987 play, it’s used by Black characters as a casual way of addressing one another.

“The word holds quite a bit of trauma for people,” she noted. “Many Black people are starting to understand how we need to move away from things that trigger us in negative ways.”

While I’m accustomed to seeing racially charged language by white playwrights cut from revivals of older works, I don’t think I’ve ever considered how a play so recent – despite premiering a full-grown adult ago – and by one of America’s greatest playwrights might also be regarded by some as insensitive so quickly. Of course, this is not an issue that needs my opinion. It’s for me to listen to the opinions of those who it directly affects. And that’s one of the many great things about expanding theatre’s diversity. It increases our opportunities to sit and listen to others.

The two best new plays I’ve seen so far this season were both at the tiny Chain Theatre over on W. 36th Street.

Back in August, there was Sophie McIntosh's macbitches, which begins with the upperclasswomen of a college theatre department shocked to find that a first semester student has been cast as Lady Macbeth. The focus of the play is a night of drinking where the new student is on the hotseat, but rising to the surface are hints of the misogyny of an educational theatre program that sets women against each other.

Now we have G.D. Kimble’s immensely thought-provoking What Passes For Comedy, a play set around a live TV late night talk show in the early 1960s; a time when the turbulent years to come would have the country’s younger generation challenging the ethnically based humor that thrived for the first half of the century, despite being regarded as harmless fun by many of the white majority.

The play begins on the soundstage of The Jack Harrod Show, where bandleader Bunny Brooks, described later in the play as the most famous Black man in America after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is on the air introducing the show’s star. Actor Ryan Brooke Taylor gives Bunny a big toothy grin resembling that of Louis Armstrong and a sharp comic delivery suggesting Eddie Anderson. The playwright gives Bunny the word “boss”, which he calls the host frequently during their on-camera banter.

Though set designer E.A. Frank supplies a multi-colored curtain modeled after Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show drapes, Michael Filisky’s Harrod has an aggressive, alpha male comic persona reminiscent of Sid Caesar. Sound designer Greg Russ supplies the hearty laughter of his studio audience enjoying his opening monologue, which is peppered with ethnic stereotypes. But when the punchline of a joke ends with an anti-Semitic slur, everyone, including the star who just read it off the cue card, gasps in shock.

But how that word got on the cue card is less important than how they’re going to fix the situation while the show is still on the air, especially since one of the evening’s guests just walked out, another is threatening to leave, and the angry telegrams and phone calls are already overwhelming the network.

The bulk of the play is centered on the young three-man writing staff that was recently hired to replace the retired seasoned vet who used the script the whole show himself. Though corporate clean-cut Will (Andrew O’Shanick), of Scottish heritage, is the least effective joke-writer, Harrod treats him like the head of the staff over Jewish gag-machine Zep (Jordan Elman) and Tory (Alain Pierre), a Black Harvard graduate hired exclusively to write for Bunny.

The play’s most volatile scenes evolve from Tory’s desire to supply Bunny with more socially relevant material and the elder entertainer takes the young writer’s objections to his traditional brand of humor as a personal slight, disrespecting the doors he’s opened performing that style of comedy. Their differences are emphasized by designer Debbi Hobson, who dresses Bunny in a show-biz tux and Tory in an outfit resembling that of a young Dick Gregory.

While there are certain types of humor that the great majority of us will agree can no longer be deemed appropriate, the debate over what passes for comedy continues on as new generations exercise their comedic expression. Kimble’s play will surely provoke discussion on the subject.

Back when I was in my late 20s and 30s, many a wild night of theatre…

…began by passing through the red doors of P.S. 122, the abandoned public school on First Avenue and 9th that was transformed into a hotbed of the performance art movement, where shows like Karen Finley’s We Keep Our Victims Ready, Annie Sprinkle’s A Public Cervix Announcement and Penny Arcade’s Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! would be brimming with the kind of social commentary and sexual politics that would send uptight D.C. Senators and Representatives into conniptions.

There’s a fancy new entrance to the building now, which has been christened 122CC, but after going up the elevator to the second floor, I always find myself feeling the excitement I felt back then walking that familiar school hallway to a classroom turned theatre where the unexpected was routine.

There a good one playing there now; Emily Joy Weiner’s Shared Sentences, centered around members of a support group for people with incarcerated loved ones and those are adjusting to life with someone formerly incarcerated.

David Anzuelo and Emily Joy Weiner in Shared Sentences (Photo: Russ Rowland)

Directed by Lisa Rothe for Houses on the Moon Theater Company, I’d call this more educational theatre than traditional drama. The playwright herself is cast as a new attendee of the group’s weekly meetings and through her assimilation the audience learns of the presumptions that are often made of the incarcerated and the common issues those who care for them must encounter.

The play was developed through workshops with loved ones of incarcerated people, with their stories incorporated into the script, such as the young woman who has spent her entire life visiting her father in prison and the man whose career and finances all revolve around getting his brother sufficient legal support. Though presented with compassionate humor, there are also disturbing scenes of the unfeeling ways visitors are treated at detention facilities.

Full disclosure: When the press release for Jill Sobule’s F*ck7thGrade described her as the singer/songwriter of “the original ‘I Kissed A Girl’”…

…I thought that meant Katy Perry’s hit was a cover of her song. (Yeah, I’m not all that pop culture-savvy.) So for me, the story and songs of her rock concert with a plot, F*ck7thGrade, was all new. And I had a great time.

While the details will vary, Sobule’s story, worked into a mostly narrated book by Liza Birkenmeier, will be relatable for anyone who felt like an outcast during their adolescent school years. In her case it was a matter of not suddenly taking on the traditionally feminine characteristics and interests of her female classmates, preferring to rock out on her guitar and cruise on her chopper.

Kristen Ellis-Henderson, Jill Sobule and Nini Camps in *F*ck7thGrade* (Photo: Eric McNatt)

After a brief period of acceptance from a cool “bad girl” classmate, Sobule started accumulating fans at a local open mic, and when a record executive decided her queer anthem “I Kissed A Girl” had hit potential she seemed on her way to becoming a ground-breaking role model. That is until the song’s music video, co-starring Fabio, portrayed her as a straight woman just having a little experimental fun.

Playing at the cozy Wild Project over by Avenue B, director Lisa Peterson’s production has a casual garage band feel, with Sobule backed by musician/actors Nini Camps on bass, Kristen Ellis-Henderson on drums and music director Julie Wolf on keys.

Played with sardonic exuberance F*ck7thGrade is an uplifting show about sticking to whatever works for you. This former shy, bullied kid who found solace in musical theatre totally gets it.

Curtain Line…

“Hollywood is a place where some people lie on the beach and look up at the stars, whereas other people lie on the stars and look down at the beach.” - Noel Coward

Michael Dale's Theatre Crawl - "Opening Number…"

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