I got my ticket to Mondo Bizarro’s The Way at Midnight on a whim while getting a ticket to something else at 7 Stages. Honestly, I thought that it looked a little gimmicky and scattered from the descriptions, so I wasn’t terribly excited about it. And I guess you could say that it was kind of gimmicky and scattered, but they made that work really well and it turned out to be a very good play.
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I went with a couple of friends to 7 Stages Friday night to see their production of Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. Directed by Rachel Parish, it’s a farce that struck me as kind of like a cross between Steven Soderbergh’s Schizopolis and Věra Chytilová’s Daisies. Performed by six actors, it consists of a series of absurdist sketches that range from silly and accessible to anyone to chaotic and a bit challenging.
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I caught “The Followers: A Retelling of the Bacchae,” a musical produced by 7 Stages, last night. It was well produced and performed and I thought it was a lot of fun to watch. Written by Margaret Baldwin and directed by Michael Haverty, it was a truly enchanting spectacle, though I have to say that I didn’t find much more to it than that.
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“White Woman in Progress” is a one person show in which Tara Ochs, who also wrote the script, explores her own understanding of racism. Ochs’ role in the 2014 film “Selma” as Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered for her role in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, helped her realize her own lack of knowledge of the Civil Rights movement and her lack of understanding of the prevalence of racism, both in society and in her own behavior.
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Directed by Michael Haverty and Bryan Mercer and using the Blitzstein translation of the script, the best thing about “The Threepenny Opera” at 7 Stages last night was the Brecht. There were some good performances, but the production suffered a bit from miscasting and Haverty’s penchant for gimmickry and novelty.
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