Here at Gothamist theater, we tend to let the weather affect our views on shows to see more than is perhaps logical, though when there’s so much to see, at least it gives us some way of deciding. Anyway, this being the case, naturally outdoor shows have a special place in our heart, and this week one of (if not the absolute) the first outdoor shows is on: the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre’s The Bass Saxophone, which was actually just about the *last* outdoor show of 2005 – we noted it in mid-October. Josef Skvorecky’s story, which the production is based on, tells of young jazz aficionados’ daring in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. If you missed it in the fall, this would definitely be a great way to greet the still-lollygagging spring.
Grand Army Plaza Memorial Arch // Prospect Park, Brooklyn // through June 25, Sat. 2 & 7pm, Sun. 2 & 5pm // free, but you can pay for reserved seats at Smarttix
One pastime that’s good year-round is cross-dressing, especially when you’re a gangster. OK, maybe not. But in All Dolled Up, written by Bobby Spillane (son of the gangster Mickey), we get to hear about at least one such prototypically macho mob guy who got in touch with his flouncier side: Sal(ly) from 1960s Bensonhurst, played by Michael Basile alongside John F. O’Donohue. This sort of fetish isn’t the sort of thing that can stay hidden for very long, but when Sal is found out the results are more uproariously funny than dire, which isn’t that surprising for a show that lists Colin Quinn prominently as a producer.
Acorn Theater // 410 W. 42nd St. // Through June 11, Mon. & Wed.-Sat. 8pm, Sat. also 2:30pm, Sun. 3:30 & 7pm // Tickets via Ticket Central
Increasingly, it’s hard to say there’s a festival season, because there are so many pretty much every month. But summer is still the nostalgic choice, and Ensemble Studio Theatre was there with their one-act play festival long before the current glut, and this kind of seniority is no bad thing as long as the product stays fresh, which EST is quite good at ensuring. Marathon 2006, the group’s 28th edition, has a high quotient of widely recognizable names among the playwrights: David Ives in the first series, David Mamet and Will Eno in the second, and Stephen Adly Guirgis in the third, are all presenting new pieces mixed in with work by lesser-known but rising stars to show the best the format can offer.
Ensemble Studio Theatre // 549 W. 52nd St., 2nd Floor // Through June 25, tickets and schedule at Theatermania
If you ask us, it’s always a good time to see something by Samuel Beckett, but there are extra opportunities this year because of the range of festivities going on to celebrate the centennial of his birth. Kaliyuga Arts is staging Beckett’s All That Fall, which he wrote for radio and using an uncharacteristically large cast, as its first New York production. The story is of a fat old Irish woman who goes to bring her blind husband home from the train station. As he always managed to do, Beckett created mesmerizing scenes from such banal ingredients using little more than his inimitable way of playing with language.
Cherry Lane Theater // 38 Commerce St. // Through June 3, Tues.-Sat. 7pm, Sat. also 3pm // Tickets via Smarttix
The Gothamist pick of the week is Christian Simeon’s Hyenas, an unseasonably dark yet irresistible one-man play in which Daniel Pettrow portrays the young Frenchman Theodore-Frederique Benoit, who in 1832, when Paris was being ravaged by cholera and civil unrest, was convicted of the murder of his mother and lover, and sentenced to death; here we see him in his cell the night before he is to go to the guillotine. You can imagine the sort of anguished thoughts going through his mind, and Simeon, via Pettrow, gives voice to them in a way that is sure to leave an indelible impression on the audience – at least, it has done in its showings in France, Greece, and LA, and we New Yorkers aren’t so callous as to be unmoved by a condemned man’s final existential howlings, are we?
Duo Theater // 62 E. 4th St. // Through June. 18, Thurs.-Sat. 8pm, Sat. & Sun. 3pm // Tickets via Theatermania
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