The Knotty Issues of "The Alice Complex"

As much as I love seeing plays, I’m usually delighted when I learn that a show is just one act. Getting out early raises the odds of getting a table for an after-show dinner at a good restaurant. And one act means fewer people climbing over me as they head out to, and return from, a bathroom, cigarette or cell phone break during the intermission.

Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way because producers are beginning to pick up on this growing preference, collapsing old three-act plays into two and commissioning shorter new works in which everything gets wrapped up in one. But, as my grandmother used to say, you’ve got to be careful what you wish for. I’ve seen two very appealing shows this month that suffered from trying to cram a full night’s worth of theater into half an evening’s amount of playing time.

A.R. Gurney’s Buffalo Gal, which I’ve read actually started off as a two-act piece, was whacked down to an anemic hour and forty intermissionless minutes by the time I saw it at Primary Stages. And then just this past week, my pal Bill and I caught The Alice Complex, an intriguing 75-minute piece by the playwright Peter Barr Nickowitz during its final performance in this year’s New York International Fringe Festival.

Inspired by a real life incident in which one of her students held the famous feminist writer and professor Germaine Greer hostage for a few hours back in 2000, The Alice Complex muses about relationships between women, the evolution of feminism and the responsibilities that artists and academics should bear for the works they create. Nickowitz, himself a professor of literature and cultural studies, is a smart writer and his characters sound like real people—better yet, each one sounds like a distinctive person.

Director Bill Oliver, whose program bio indicates more film work than stage experience, brings a nice cinematic flow to the action. And the talented actresses Lisa Banes and Xanthe Elbrick (a Tony-nominee for last year’s ill-fated Coram Boy) work hard, playing not only the main parts of the besieged professor and her disillusioned student, but portraying 9 other women, including influential figures in the main characters’ lives and, in a meta-twist, actors in a play similar to the one we’re watching as well as audience members who’ve seen the show.

The play has emerged as one of the hits of this year’s Fringe festival. But it has too many underdeveloped themes and unresolved storylines to declare it a true accomplishment. Instead The Alice Complex comes off as a promising outline rather than a fully developed work. Of course, this was my first Fringe show and so maybe it’s customary for the festival’s productions to be presented in embryonic form.

Whether that’s true or not, Nickowitz is a talent worth nurturing, which already seems to be happening. His program bio say he’s just been named the Harold Clurman Playwright-in-Residence at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Good for him and good for us theater lovers too. Any guy who writes roles for women as potentially rich and complex as the ones he attempts here deserves encouragement.

He also deserves the ability to stretch out in longer works and the kind of theatergoers who won’t be rushing off to the next big thing or—chastising note to self—to grab a table at Orso.

Sympathy for "Coram Boy"

Coram Boy would seem to have had everything going for it to become one of those must-sees for every highbrow theatergoer. It's based on an award winning British novel, albeit one for teens. It is directed by a wildly inventive director who taps into the story theater techniques that combine drama, music, dance and narrative recitations that were the rage when I was in school and many of today's theater critics were also coming of age. It is infused with Handel's majestic music, most notably "The Messiah". It was a huge hit in London. And my former actress friend Ellie, who would rather run naked through Times Square than sit through even half an hour of a show like Legally Blonde, loved it so much that she began calling and emailing friends as soon as she got home from the Imperial Theater where the show is playing and urging all of us to see it.

Yet about a third of the way into the first act, I noticed that my 26 year-old stepdaughter Anika, a trained dancer who now promotes music concerts and would rather run naked through Times Square than sit through even half an hour of a show like Legally Blonde, had her head in her hands and her shoulders were heaving up and down. I thought she was overcome with emotion. And she was, but not the emotion I had assumed. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “ I just can't take any more” and then she subsided back into silent laughter.

The critics are as divided in their opinions of Coram Boy as Ellie and Anika are. And me? I fall somewhere in the middle. The ghost of Charles Dickens stalks this play. Jamila Gavin’s young adult novel is the story of orphaned boys in 18th century England (click here to read about the real-life Coram boys and girls) who encounter an assortment of colorful highborn and lowborn characters who challenge their innocence and ultimately reinforce their humanity. The production, adapted by Helen Edmundson and directed by Melly Still, evokes the celebrated stagecraft of Trevor Nunn's 1981 epic version of Nicholas Nickelby. I couldn’t afford the $100 ticket for Nickelby back then and so have no comparison but, like Ellie, I was dazzled by moments of Still's staging; I hope I don't spoil it for anyone who is going to see it by saying that a drowning sequence is one of the most stunning images I've ever seen on a stage. I did read "David Copperfield" when I was 12 and although Dickens isn't fashionable these days, I have remained a Dickens fan and so Coram Boy's melodramatic plot and one-dimensional characters didn't bother me the way they did Anika. But I can't say Coram Boy ever really touched me either.

Still, I admire big ambition, even when if falls short. And the creators of Coram Boy aimed high. The cast includes a 20-member chorus. The themes range from the plight of unwanted children and the cruelty of the slave trade to the glories of music and the redemptive powers of love. I can imagine my 12 year-old self seeing this show and swooning with all kinds of emotions. And so if you know a bright, sensitive tween or teen this just might be the show for him or her. The producers seem to think so too. They've initiated "The Under 18 Project," which offers half price tickets for kids. If there's one you want to take, click www.broadwayoffers.com and type in the code, CBFAMPK.