Friday Night on the Upper West Side: Hudson Warehouse presents "Richard III" at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Riverside Park

We waited too long, until the last performance last Sunday night, to see the Hudson Warehouse's production of The Rover, so we made certain to be at opening night for the company's spectacular debut of a stirring, bloody Richard III, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, whose coherent, seamless melding of character and action give the complex historical drama a stunning depth of meaning.

Having seen a number of excellent Hudson Workshop shows over the last few years, we're always amazed at the high consistency maintained by producing artistic director Martin-Smith (who also played the blithely deluded Hastings tonight), assistant artistic director Susane Lee (who seems to be a master of details), and all the cast and crew, but Richard III is one of the best productions we've been privileged to enjoy.  This is Hudson Warehouse's ninth season, and they've been staging three shows each summer -- two Shakespeare plays in June and August, and another classic play in July -- more than any other of the many fine summer free outdoors troupes out there, and they're always a pleasure to watch.

One of those pleasures is repeatedly seeing the same talented actors in a variety of disparate roles, as in the kind of old-fashioned repertory company that we used to hear about when we were kids in the 60s.  To watch performers like Amanda Renee Baker, Nick DeVita, David Allison DeWitt, Valerie O'Hara and Margaret Catov in different plays makes one appreciate more how demanding the craft of the actor is.

Sunday Night on the Upper West Side: Hudson Warehouse presents Aphra Behn's "The Rover" at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Riverside Park

Tonight we had the pleasure of seeing most of Hudson Warehouse's exquisitely staged production of Aphra Behn's The Rover, a raunchy, rollicking, racy Restoration comedy.

Despite its lurid excesses and elaborate, complex plotting, in the hands of an effective ensemble, The Rover's genuinely funny moments are frequently evident and the play's radical feminist riot grrrl polemic is nicely hidden in plain sight.

We say "most" of the performance because, most regrettably, a hard-hitting thunderstorm in the middle of act four of this five-act play brought everything to a halt, with four or five narrative threads still quite unresolved as cast, crew and audience all needed to leave the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Riverside Park as soon as possible to avoid getting more drenched than we did (and we guess getting hit by lightning isn't fun, either).

This will teach us not to wait until the last performance to see the next Hudson Warehouse production, Richard III, starting next weekend. But we still got much enjoyment from director Jesse Michael Mothershed's version of The Rover, which transforms the English soldiers seeking sex and fun in Spanish-controlled Naples at Carnival time to American soldiers of the South looking for pleasures at Mardi Gras in New Orleans circa 1902, where the 17th-century swordplay, wildly divergent attitudes regarding female sexuality, and the tension between sophisticated cosmopolitanism and brutal feudalism seem perfectly at home.

The play opens as two sisters, Florinda and Hellena, talk about romance and relationships. Florinda pines for Colonel Belville, an English gentleman whom she admires. Helena speaks of her wish to experience romance before she is sent to a nunnery. Their brother, Don Pedro, enters, telling Hellena to banish foolish thoughts from her head. He reminds her that she will soon be a nun, and there is no place for romance in her life.

He then turns his attention to Florinda. He tries to persuade her that Don Vincentio, the man her father wishes her to marry, is a good match because of his wealth and social status. Florinda thinks Don Vincentio is too old, and has her heart set on the youthful and gallant Belville. Pedro, in an effort to insure that his sister make a good marriage, suggests that Florinda marry an esteemed friend of his instead. The friend, Don Antonio, has expressed interest in Florinda, and Pedro sees this pairing as an opportunity to help both his friend and his sister. Having said his peace for the moment, Pedro leaves. With her overprotective brother out of the room, Hellena convinces Florinda and Valeria, their cousin, to find costumes and go to Carnival. Helena is determined to have a taste of excitement before her liberty is confined by convent life.

In the streets -- this is where we came in -- Mardi Gras celebrations are underway. Belville and several bachelor companions have come to New Orleans for the festivities. Belville's friends, Blunt and Frederick, are wondering why Belville is melancholy in spite of the festive atmosphere. Belville admits that he is thinking about Florinda, whom he met several months prior and has not seen since. He pines for her, but fears he lacks the wealth and status to pursue her.

In spite of his romantic troubles, Belville's spirits rise when he runs into his old friend Willmore. Willmore, a nomadic flirt (nicknamed "the rover"), is taking a short break from shipboard service to relax and enjoy the fun of Mardi Gras, especially the ample opportunities for romance.

While this reunion unfolds, Florinda and Helena arrive with their cousin Valeria, costumed as gypsies, to join the party in the streets. Florinda is delighted when she spots Belville, the object of her affection. Helena is quickly intrigued by the handsome stranger (Willmore) she sees with Belville. Helena and Florinda separate to pursue their respective interests. Helena, in her gypsy garb, engages Willmore in conversation. He is enchanted by her wit and intrigued to know her real identity. Helena preserves the mystique for the moment, but promises to meet him at the same spot later in the day on the condition that he does not fall for another lovely lady before their date.

While Helena carries on her flirtation with Willmore, Florinda tries to set up a late-night rendezvous with Colonel Belville. She has to be careful because Callis, governess to Florinda and Helena, is keeping a watchful eye on her. Taking advantage of her disguise, Florinda pretends to be a fortune-teller and reads Belville's palm while quietly revealing her true identity. Just as Belville realizes who she is, Callis announces the arrival of Pedro. Florinda slips Belville a note that instructs him to come to her garden gate later that evening. She wants Belville to help her escape her brother's control and her imminent arranged marriage. Helena rejoins Florinda and they exit with Callis to avoid rebukes from their brother for being out at Carnival against his wishes.

After the sisters leave with their governess, Belville shares Florinda's note with his friends, including Willmore, and asks them if they will meet at Florinda's garden gate later that night to help her escape. They agree to help. This settled, talk turns to Angellica Bianca, a famous courtesan (okay, high-class prostitute), who has come to New Orleans and who will be "entertaining" gentlemen at Mardi Gras. The men have heard that her charm and beauty are worth the high fees she commands. While the others talk of the revered courtesan, the less-than-dashing Southern rustic Blunt is delighted to find a costumed woman named Lucetta paying attention to him. Blunt is quickly seduced by Lucetta, and as Belville and his companions exit to dine and see more Mardi Gras sights, Blunt and Lucetta leave together for an amorous liaison.

And that's our adaptation of a summary we found of just Act One! There are still four acts to go, but the complications are funny and they moved fast in the Hudson Warehouse production, with especially good performances by Amanda Renee Baker - whom we've enjoyed in a variety of roles over the past few years -- as Lucetta, Chris Behan as Willmore, Christopher Travlos as a hapless Ned Blunt,

Sydney Stanton as Hellena, Elizabeth Alice Murray as Angelica Bianca, and Amber Bogdewicz as a sprightly Florinda. But the Hudson Warehouse performances are always tight-knit ensembles with even the "minor" roles being played well, and perhaps the best moments of The Rover include not just the comic romantic interludes but the wonderful fights and group set pieces where there are half a dozen or more actors interacting onstage.

Also, as usual, the productions use the north portico and its steps, balconies and ledges fluently. Even those of us in the back were sometimes in the "front" of the action as the characters stood nearby. We're sorry rain interrupted the last act and a half, but we still enjoyed The Rover and at home we read the rest of the play (and skimmed the first three acts).

We've often assigned to classes something we first read about 40 years ago, Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. This 1929 polemic set into motion ideas that would forever alter the reception of texts written by, for and about women. Yet as many times as we've gone over it, we'd never understood fully before tonight why Woolf proclaims Aphra Behn to be the figurehead of gendered equality within the literary profession:

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.

Now we do, thanks to Hudson Warehouse's fine adaptation of The Rover. (Video courtesy blueparrotable)

Thursday Night on the Upper West Side: Hudson Warehouse presents "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

Everything seemed to work perfectly tonight in the Hudson Warehouse's blithe, colorful presentation of The Taming of the Shrew at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, not least the magic which kept the ominous clouds and claps of thunder at bay for the entire performance, with not a drop of rain falling on the parade of clowns, self-admitted or not, who populate Shakespeare's battle-of-the-sexes frolic.

This was the sixth Hudson Warehouse performance we've seen in the past three years, and the company's work is consistently excellent. It's interesting for us as a part of the audience to see actors multiple times in very different roles, inhabiting disparate characters onstage.

Our own "acting" experience is limited to a 1966 summer class at the Little Theatre School on Flatbush and Caton Avenues in Brooklyn (several years ago, our boyfriend in Miami discovered that our teacher, Joanie Edwards, is still teaching!), two senior-year semesters of Advanced Drama at Midwood High School in 1967-68 with Harris Sarney (later, longtime principal of Bayside High School), and an Acting class with Catherine Myers at Brooklyn College in 1970. So we are amazed at the range of the actors in the Hudson Warehouse company.

The Taming of the Shrew is not one of the masterpieces in Shakespeare's canon, with a lot of one-note characters, and the last time we saw the play, we detailed our own and others' problems with this comedy of good and bad manners. But it also can be very entertaining when done right, as in this rewarding production.

The Taming of the Shrew is a simple-to-understand farce and there's a lot of rollicking slapstick comedy with a number of clownish characters. But it's the conception of the production and the quality of the actors that can make or break the show, and the Hudson Warehouse has made this workhorse of a farce seem truly fresh, buoyant, and absorbing.

The director, Jesse Michael Mothershed, wisely dumped the prologue, and has set the play in what seems somewhere between the 1930s and early 1950s, judging by the costumes (terrific designs by Emily Rose Parman).

The pacing is fast, and the rapid-fire verbal fireworks and the knockabout physical comedy keep the play moving.

Vince Phillip as Petruchio is no dreamboat, but his virile arrogance and obvious immediate romantic feelings for the obdurate "cursed Kate" (played with panche by Amanda Renee Baker, whom we saw last month as Masha in The Seagull). Apart from all the fun, for us the pivotal moment in this production was when Katherine and Petruchio first set eyes on one another.

The chemistry is immediate and stuns both of them, and from that moment, you never doubt that whatever the intense ferocity of their battles, this is a couple who are deeply attracted to one another sexually and more. At least to the audience, it's obvious that Petruchio, to his surprise, actually loves Katherine.

Kate and Petruchio clearly admire one another's bluntness, and during the "taming" process, as the slinky, haughty, handsome Kate is reduced to a bedraggled mess, Petruchio never seems all that cruel; it's clear to us, and probably to Kate, that his bad temper is somewhat feigned and that his solicitousness toward his bride prevents him from crossing the line, even as he denies her more than a spoonful of food and makes maddening, contradictory demands of her.

The play's buffoons are some of the best we've seen. There are moments when the mercurial, clownish physical antics and alternating exasperation and resentful spite of Petruchio's servant Grumio threatens to run away with the show due to Robert Colpitts' limber, hilarious performance: he seems to have eight legs like a spider, only they're going in all directions at once.

Nathan Oesterle's comic flamboyance as a fussy Biondello gives another, more cerebral and less slapstick, level to the clowning,

as do Nick DeVita as Tranio, impersonating his master with insouciance and intelligence, and Roger Dale Stude as the hapless schlemiel Hortensio. (Both actors were excellent last month in The Seagull.)

As the ingenue couple whose subplot drives much of play's clowning apart from Petruchio and Kate, Sydney Stanton made a fetching, giggly and somewhat mischievous Bianca, and Chris Behan as Lucentio was likable, devoted and shrewd. Their chemistry was evident, too, though it's of a different nature altogether than that of Bianca's older sister and her seemingly tyrannical husband.

David Palmer Brown never ceases to amaze us. This is the fifth time we've seen him in a Hudson Warehouse production, and his chameleon-like ability to thoroughly play such different characters seems remarkable. Here he's a hearty if somewhat befuddled Baptista.

Demetri Bonaros gets a lot of laughs as the creaky old codger, Gremio; like the other performers, his acting is never coy or self-conscious, as it easily could be in a role that lends itself too easily to easy laughs. Throughout the play, the laughs, and there are a lot, are earned.

But it's not all knockabout comedy; there's a nice underlying mood of sweetness inhabiting Padua. This is a play without villains, and everyone, including the deceivers -- and that's just about everyone -- seems to have a big heart.

Sarah Doudna effectively plays both the sneering Widow and the Tailor; David Allison DeWitt was funny as a fusty Pedant; and Charles Baker makes a late appearance, playing Vincentio with a slightly faded sense of authority. There's an autumnal feel as the play's various subplots move toward resolution, and beneath all the hijinks, you see real love in all its disguises.

As we said, at times during the last hour, it seemed as if we all, actors, those behind the scenes at Hudson Warehouse, and the audience on the steps of the monument's north portico, would all suddenly be drenched in a tremendous downpour. That the rain held off until the performance reached its satisfying conclusion seemed something of a miracle. We're grateful it did, and to everyone connected with this valuable theater company and its work.

Saturday Night on the Upper West Side: Hudson Warehouse presents Chekhov's "The Seagull" at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

Tonight we had the great pleasure of attending the opening of Hudson Warehouse's riveting, thoughtful and delightfully entertaining production of The Seagull, directed by Tom Demenkoff and featuring this company's always wonderful actors. We immensely enjoyed this innovative version of Anton Chekhov's dark, meditative but often very funny comedy.

First of all, we have to acknowledge the Hudson Warehouse's brave and daring choice of this play; it's not an easy work or one that easily ingratiates itself to audiences. We first read it as a teenager, maybe 43 years ago, when we were taking Advanced Drama at Midwood High School, reading Stanislavski (thanks to our brilliant teacher, Harris Sarney, who assigned his book on the "Method") and every play in sight.

Chekhov's major plays were exhilarating to us at age 17 on the page, but we could see how difficult they could be for actors when we watched other students try scenes in high school and college and saw a few productions. As Ben Brantley -- who's name-checked to fun effect as one of the contemporary theater references in this Seagull -- said, if you leave a production of a Chekhov play thinking of only one person, even if that person is Judi Dench or Meryl Streep, it hasn't done its job.

Here is where the Hudson Warehouse Seagull succeeds magnificently, by avoiding any particular star turns (the applause-needy, overly dramatic actress Arkadina can overshadow the others) and working together as a troupe, yet letting even the minor characters have their sublime moments. Mr. Sarney used to quote Stanislavski on there being no bit parts, only bit actors.

This production has neither bit parts nor bit actors. In some ways and at some times to us, it seemed to be on one level the story of a rebellious, artistic son, Konstantin (Nick DeVita, with just the right blend of passion and petulance), who fails to connect with his equally rebellious, artistic mother, Arkadina (Roxann Kraemer, who balances her egotistical flamboyance with a pathetic vulnerability). Neither of them is as artistic as they think they are, and Chekhov's play is sort of a meditation on the creators and interpreters of theater, literature and the other arts.

The rest of the cast is also superb. We're a big fan of David Palmer Brown from previous Hudson Warehouse productions, and we probably would have cast him as Sorin, too. His obvious physical decline with each act is less heartbreaking than his older man's regret at having missed out on the things he once dreamed about. But he seems aware enough to know that he made the safest choices and allows himself a little self-criticism in the form of occasionally bitter humor.

Amanda Renee Baker, as Masha, settles for less than her dreams too, marrying the hapless, annoyingly helpful schoolteacher Medvienko (Roger Dale Stude) instead of waiting around for Konstantin to notice her. Like many of the other characters in The Seagull, she can simultaneously express regret and rage.

Alex Viola's Nina, most associated with the symbolic eponymous bird killed by Konstantin (which appears first as the chalk sketch of the seagull at the start of the play; you can see it on the program's cover), transforms from the young, ditsy, exuberantly sexy girl she is at the start, in the opening play-within-a-play, to a tragic figure, worn by the waste of time and death and failed relationships, in a way that the characters who've remained on Sorin's estate do not.

By the way, the north portico of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument makes an excellent setting for The Seagull. Director Tom Demenkoff and the actors use the wonderfully idiosyncratic space to good advantage, as is almost always true of the Hudson Warehouse productions. (Equally true is that during the performance, a few random people with bicycles, stollers or skateboards walk across the stage, trying to appear as unobtrusive as possible. This is part of the charm of these productions, and they become as much the invisible background noise as the M-5 buses on Riverside Drive, which we don't even hear anymore.)

In some ways Dorn, the affable doctor who in Michael Selkirk's portrayal, can turn on a kopek from bemused detachment to passionate involvement, is the fulcrum of the play, its raisonneur (a term we learned in Prof. Spencer Roberts' Russian Literature class at Brooklyn College).

Margaret Catov as Paulina, Masha's mother, is another of Chekhov's characters made poignant and somewhat bitter by disappointment

while life's regrets have made her husband, Shamraeff (David Allison DeWitt), querulous but eloquent in his misplaced nostalgia. Each of Chekhov's characters is both silly and profound, a hero and a villain.

Or are they? Brad Coolidge gives a dynamic performance as Trigorin, the nearest thing to a "villain" in the comedy -- but he gives the pretentious, fashionable novelist, more thoughtless than heartless, the same sense of the ridiculously tragic that permeates the lives of everyone on Sorin's country estate.

When it opened in 1896, The Seagull outraged some people; many in the opening night audience in Moscow hissed and booed. The first reviews were equally negative, causing Chekhov to wonder if “I had lost all sensitivity.” But as Ben Brantley has written,

at least one member of that first audience, the jurist and literary aficionado Anatoly Koni, believed the play had achieved something new and important. “It is life itself onstage,” wrote Koni to Chekhov, “with all its tragic alliances, eloquent thoughtlessness and silent sufferings — the sort of everyday life that is accessible to everyone and understood in its cruel internal irony by almost no one.”

Spoiler alert: Later in Riverside Park, as the four boys -- close to our age when we first read The Seagull -- who watched from their perches onstage with rapt attention -- were wildly playing soccer after sitting still for so long, we heard them talk about how they "didn't expect an ending like that" -- with a suicide -- in a play its author labeled (correctly, we think) a comedy.

For us, the surprise was how fresh and contemporary the Hudson Warehouse production made this Russian classic. We're grateful we went, and you should too: it will be playing every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening for the rest of July.