Tucked away on West 72nd Street between Broadway and Columbus Avenue is the 130-seat Triad Theater. Inside, actors make their Off-Broadway debuts, celebrities take the stage with friends and audiences are always entertained by an eclectic variety of shows, from Erotic Broadway to the smash hit Celebrity Autobiography. We spoke to owner Peter Martin about what to expect there.

Peter Martin

West Side Spirit: How did you get started at the Triad?
Peter Martin: I was the company manager of a show called Forever Plaid at the theater; it went on to become one of the five most successful shows Off-Broadway—the producer put in $135,000 and it grossed $300 million worldwide. It seemed like a great business. In 1995, when I was 30, I had the opportunity to buy the theater. I was able to get in at the right time.

The theater was a black box originally. About four years ago, I redesigned it based on 1930s movie palaces. I love those kinds of theaters and did a lot of research. I recreated the bathrooms, added a VIP performer lounge. People tell me, “I’ve seen this in Europe.”

What is the history of the theater?
It started in the early ’80s with Forbidden Broadway. It wasn’t even a theater back then; it was a bar/restaurant called Palsson’s Supper Club. Actor Gerard Alessandrini started writing spoofs of Broadway shows and they were performed there on weekends.

What is your favorite show at the theater currently?
Celebrity Autobiography. Celebrities read from other celebrities’ memoirs in a comedic tone. You’ll have Matthew Broderick reading from Tommy Lee’s autobiography. On another night, you’ll see Kristen Wiig reciting the poetry of Suzanne Somers. We’ve probably had more famous people in it than any show on Broadway.

Have there been any memorable mishaps?
There were two sold-out shows one New Year’s Eve and the coat check girl misplaced all the numbers. People were trying to get their coats out from the first show while others were coming up the stairs for the midnight show. It was a disaster. Another time, John Simon, a well-known theater critic, came in to review Forbidden Broadway. He checked his umbrella and somehow it got lost. A couple of days later, he sent us a bill for $300.

To what do you attribute your success?
Times have changed Off-Broadway. In the last 10 years, tons of theaters have closed. I’ve really had to adapt by instating a new booking policy. In the course of a month, we can have 30 different shows. I’m always thinking of how I can improve the theater and what’s going on in the entertainment industry. On Broadway, a musical costs about $15 million.

Off-Broadway, you can experiment more. Things get started Off-Broadway then move to Broadway. For instance, there’s a new musical in the works about [’50s teen idol] Dion called The Wanderer. The first reading was at The Triad six weeks ago.

By Mark Peikert

Porgy and Bess has been something like this season’s highbrow Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Both shows came to Broadway trailing a wake of scandal and op-eds—except Porgy and Bess had Stephen Sondheim and the New York Times weighing in, while Spider-Man had the Post. And in both cases, what finally showed up on stage was…underwhelming.

Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis in a scene from Porgy and Bess.

What else could this revision of Porgy and Bess be? Director Diane Paulus and bookwriter/reviser Suzan-Lori Parks have streamlined the original four-hour work into a matinee-crowd-friendly two and a half hours, during which time most of the characters act incomprehensibly.

Set in Charleston’s Catfish Row—designed by Riccardo Hernandez to look like a dank alleyway—Porgy and Bess is the story of the limping Porgy (Norm Lewis), the Bad Woman Bess (Audra McDonald) and the ways in which he causes her to vacillate between being good and snorting cocaine and otherwise being bad with drug dealer Sporting Life (David Alan Grier, who thinks his pimp walk is funnier than it is) and her lover Crown (Phillip Boykin, lacking the sex appeal that would convince us that he has Bess in an erotic thrall).

As she did in Hair, Paulus reveals a weakness for grouping her actors on the stage and then leaving them there. With an array of Catfish Row denizens to work with, she often lumps the men and women into separate groups for their songs, a choice that strips the work of the feeling of community. This isn’t a tight-knit group of neighbors; this is a collection of people who happen to live near one another, which lessens the dramatic tension considerably.

On the credit side, Paulus and team do have Lewis and McDonald, two actor-singers who try valiantly to make their characters something more than archetypes. They have an easy chemistry together that makes Bess and Porgy’s relationship seem organic, a haven for Bess after the turmoil of Crown. But not even these two can surmount the revue-like structure Parks has left the book. All that trimming leaves the songs intact but the recitatives (and supporting characters) mangled. Joshua Henry is mostly wasted as Jake, the ill-fated young father, while the other characters feel like plot-propelling scenery, there to alert the audience as to which Bess is on stage: bad Bess or good Bess.

Still, there is always that lush score—“Summertime,” “I Got Plenty of Nothing”—from George and Ira Gershwin to prop up the faltering, giving McDonald and Lewis the chance to remind audiences how much they’ve both been missed by fans of pure, character-driven singing. When they duet, every misfire in the production slips away, leaving two stars centerstage, giving powerhouse performances that almost transcend the misdirection and wrongheaded ideas that suffuse the rest of this Porgy and Bess.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Through June 24, Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St. (betw. Broadway & 8th Ave.), www.porgyandbessonbroadway.com; $75–$150.

By Doug Strassler

Certain universal questions arise in every generation: What is the meaning of life? What lies in the Great Beyond? And perhaps most important of all: Are you gonna take me home tonight?

James Kautz, Anthony Rapp and Dee Roscioli in Dedalus Lounge

That last question might be the most pertinent of the three to the denizens of Dedalus Lounge, Gary Duggan’s new music-infused play embarking on a run at Midtown West’s Interart Theater Annex, at 500 W. 52nd St., through Jan. 30. This trio of lost souls—Danny, Daragh and Delphine—connects at the titular Dublin drink joint during the holiday season, a time that would be happy if only these people weren’t so at sea. Delphine is dealing with a sick grandparent and a complicated love affair; Danny, meanwhile, is a devoted Freddie Mercury fan who struggles to mount a successful new Queen tribute band.

According to the playwright, his inspiration comes not so much from what he knows but who he knows. “A lot of Irish theater has traditionally dealt with families and parent/child relationships,” Duggan explained.

Not that Dedalus—making its American bow after a run at Ireland’s Pageant Wagon Theatre Company—is an outright drama. Amid the debauchery and despondence, there is also plenty of humor, which proved to be a winning tone in last year’s acclaimed Trans-Euro Express, also performed at Interart. This production also features new music and choreography not found in the Dublin iteration.

Dedalus reunites Duggan with Trans-Euro director Chris Henry. The Dublin-based writer first met Henry over Skype, where, he avowed, “We developed a quick and easy rapport during the rehearsal period. I was very pleased with Chris’ inventive production, and after that we decided pretty quickly that we’d like to collaborate again. The themes and characters of Dedalus and Trans-Euro have a fair bit in common so I thought that would be a natural follow-up.”

According to Henry, the affection is mutual. “I am drawn to a script with heart and edge, a script where I can give an audience a visceral experience,” she said. In fact, the director and writer are so simpatico by now that the only topic on which they seem to disagree is their favorite Queen song.

Henry was also attracted to the musical elements of Dedalus. She said that while she and the rest of the production were initially disappointed they were not able to acquire the rights to any Queen songs, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The “Queen-inspired songs” penned by co-stars Anthony Rapp and Daniel A. Weiss, she said, “are lively, fun, campy and wild to watch.”

The re-teaming of the creative forces may have been a no-brainer, but Dedalus has also attracted a top-notch cast that includes original Rent star Rapp, Wicked alum Dee Roscioli and James Kautz, best known as a founding member of the estimable downtown theater company The Amoralists. That’s an impressive roster for Interart, given that the Off-Off venue has very limited seating. Why the actorly vote of confidence in Dedalus?

“The play is quite a crazy mash-up of tones, themes and emotions,” Duggan said. “I think that’s appealing to great performers—they get to play with a dynamic range of colors in one piece.” The playwright added, “I think good people like to work intensively with other good people, and there’s a lot of opportunity to do that in this. Plus, the way Chris directs is very dynamic and imaginative, which makes it a very satisfying show to be a part of.”

It’s shows like this that make the rockin’ world go round.

For information, please visit www.royalfamilyproductions.org.

By Doug Strassler

Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now is a play loosely inspired by the Viennese mentalist Eric Jan Hanussen, an occultist in Weimar Republic Germany. West Sider Ildiko Nemeth, founder and artistic director of The New Stage Theatre Company, now celebrating its 10th anniversary season, conceived and directed the show, in which an enigmatic hypnotist beckons subjects onto a stage for group catharsis, a form of therapy that slips into frightening territory. West Side Spirit spoke with Nemeth about what makes Hypnotik an unforgettable affair.

Ildiko Nemeth.

How did you first encounter the life story of Eric Jan Hanussen?
Ildiko Nemeth: Hanussen is a known historical figure in Hungary. Even the famous Hungarian film director István Szabó made a film about him, Hanussen. Mel Gordon, a Berkeley professor and a friend of mine, also wrote a wonderful book, entitled Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant, which was another source to draw from to round out my knowledge of Hanussen.

One of the main goals of the NSTC mission is to challenge its audience. How does Hypnotik do that?
The Seer entices volunteers by promising that he will heal all comers by getting them in touch with their malignant drives. This scenario should seem somewhat familiar to anyone who has watched Dr. Phil or a similar reality TV show. I hope the audience will find the final vision of the Seer to be chilling in that we can recognize ourselves in the projections his subjects have; to see in some new way how we participate in the ugliness of the world and see some of our dangerous delusions anew.

What draws you to the subject of the occult? What, if anything, repels you from it?
Curiosity in the possibility to see the future, to manipulate reality or to gain secret supernatural forces which are hidden from most of us drew me to the topic. If such power does exist, how can this power be used and how can it move and/or manipulate people?

It is fascinating how occultism became a new religion in Weimar Germany. It was a world where people were still in shock from the horrors and utter defeat of World War I and where traditional religion was not sufficient to heal or have answers anymore. Occult palaces and séances were able to enthrall the masses, who were desperate people searching eagerly for answers, certainty and comfort in this new religion. It gives me a chill to know how the occult was used for political gain, how it empowered the “chosen ones” and convinced the anxious and insecure to put their faith in magical mantras, miraculous potions or mendacious leaders.

Do you believe in the power of psychic healing?
Yes, I do believe in psychic healing. The mind can have a big influence on the body. There are many examples of miraculous healing using nontraditional medicines instead of just popping pills. Because of my past work experience, I believe one can overcome psychological problems, troubling emotional drives [and] psychological complexes by bringing them into the conscious and dealing with them head on.

Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now
Through Jan. 15, 2012, Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave. (betw. 9th & 10th Sts.), www.newstagetheatre.org; $18.

By Doug Strassler

Jacques Brel is no longer alive or in Paris, but that hasn’t stopped him from making a comeback. Again.

In the last decade, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, a remounting of the storied 1960s production celebrating the renowned chanteur, enjoyed quite a bit of success in an Off-Broadway run at the Zipper Theater. The man and his music have returned in Jacques Brel Returns: The Music of Brel, Blau, Shuman and Jouannest, a more intimate version of Alive and Well currently celebrating a one-year run at the Upper West Side’s The Triad, at 158 W. 72nd St.

Robert Cuccioli in Jacques Brel Returns. Photo by Sam Morris

Performed several times a month, this adaptation features a revolving cast of performers bringing the reflective, sometimes mournful music of Brel to life. Some of them even appeared in the 2006 run of the show, including Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli (Jekyll & Hyde). Upcoming performances will take place Dec. 30 and Jan. 28.

The venue’s smaller space makes it a perfect fit for Brel’s music, said Dan Whitten, the show’s producer and co-creator with Mark Beigelman). “Jacques Brel sang songs about being alone, about being in love; he voiced feelings on war,” Whitten explained. “He was a really wonderful observer of the human condition.”

Cuccioli agrees about the music, which can be emotionally astute and lyrically complex. “These are story songs, and they are great actor pieces. It is heartfelt and powerful, though some of it is also very funny. They’re challenging, as well,” he said. “They are not easy to sing, and there is a bit of a darkness to his music. I like that. I really connected to his work.”

Cuccioli isn’t alone. Brel, the third most successful Belgian artist of all time (trailing only Salvatore Adamo and Frédéric François), enjoyed a passionate fan base that continues despite his 1978 passing at the young age of 49. Jacques Brel Returns features such favorites as “Carousel,” “If We Only Have Love,” Amsterdam,” “My Childhood” and “Ne Me Quitte Pas.”

“People who saw the show in the ’60s and ’70s are now in their sixties and seventies,” Whitten said. “Our audience is full of multiple generations. People who remember the show at the Village Gate [where it ran for over four years] come back and bring their children and their grandchildren. This is the kind of show you can enjoy with your grandmother, mother, big sister or little brother.”

But even for those well-versed in Brel, the current version is more than a mere carbon copy of either Paris production. In addition to making the evening more intimate, Beigelman and Witten have altered the landscape of the revue to make it fresher. The male singers in the show will sometimes sing women’s songs, and some traditional songs have been blended together.

Whatever they are doing, Jacques Brel Returns certainly hasn’t been for want of talent. Recent performers who have appeared in the show include Helen Hayes Award winner Natascia Diaz, Jim Stanek, Ereni Sevasti and Rick Hip-Flores. Hip-Flores, an alum of Broadway musicals like Billy Elliot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, is also the show’s music director. “These are very talented performers. It is a delight to work with all of them,” Cuccioli said.

“Brel’s music is timeless and our aim is to keep it going at The Triad,” Whitten said. “I am keeping the man’s work alive right now. And in 50 years, another producer is going to do exactly the same thing.”

For tickets and more information, visit www.triadnyc.com.

By Mark Peikert

Even with the addition of 3-D technology, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular can only hold your attention for so many holiday seasons. Likewise The Nutcracker and its derivations. This year, break out of your Christmas routine with one of these shows, ranging from new takes on A Christmas Carol to revivals of holiday-themed plays.

Jimmy Kiefer stars as Charles Dickens, in A Christmas Carol, As Told By Charles Dickens (Himself) at Canal Park Playhouse

When it comes to the Charles Dickens Christmas classic A Christmas Carol, it’s all about the approach. Some people like the story straight up, others with a twist. This year, there’s a little of each, with A Christmas Carol, As Told by Charles Dickens (Himself) (through Dec. 24) and 3 Ghosts (Dec. 8–23). In the former, the ghost of Charles Dickens—who passed through the Downtown neighborhood of Canal Park Playhouse, where the show is being produced—recounts his evergreen story for audiences. And the latter, at Theatre Row in Midtown, is an original steampunk musical adaptation by Liz Muller and Collin Simon of Scrooge’s long night’s journey into redemption. Plus, there’s Scrooge & Gilbert & Sullivan, Dec. 9–11 at Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, Pace University, which finds Gilbert and Sullivan songs adapted to tell the story of everyone’s favorite Christmas hater.

Other Christmas musicals include Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s The Toymaker’s Apprentice (Dec. 10–17), a holiday spoof of Donald Trump and his reality show performed at The Wild Project, and Bells of St. Mary’s and The Exorcist mash-up The Asphalt Christmas (tagline: “The power of Christmas compels you”), running Dec. 8–18 at Theatre Row.

At Dixon Place, musical comedy sister duo Vickie & Nickie give Saturday Night Live’s the Sweeney Sisters a run for their money with Vickie & Nickie’s Holiday Sleigh Ride Dec. 3–10, while Jackie Hoffman brings her new solo show A Chanukah Charol to New World Stages Dec. 11–Jan. 2, 2012, in which the comedian is visited by the Ghosts of Chanukah Past, Present and Future—and Yiddish theater star Molly Picon—as Hoffman discovers that she’s a “dark, desperate diva.” Must be all that time in Broadway’s The Addams Family.

If you like your holiday season dark and adult, try Naked Holidays, running Dec. 8–30 at Times Square Arts Center. The evening of short plays includes a conspiracy among Santa’s reindeer to assassinate Rudolph; a Jewish-themed spoof of It’s a Wonderful Life; and a new take on 1984 with Santa as Big Brother. And the inclusive Holiday Stucco (Dec. 15–17), a 90-minute evening of one-acts from members of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, promises that any winter holiday is up for grabs.

For those who just like to dabble in seasonal entertainment without taking the full plunge, a revival of The Man Who Came to Dinner, set during the holidays, is just the ticket. The classic comedy, starring Jim Brochu and Tony winner Cady Huffman, will have audiences laughing through Dec. 18 at Midtown’s Theatre at St. Clement’s.

Site-specific theater, the latest innovation in freeing audiences from the shackles of the proscenium, went from being an oddball concept to full-fledged event this past spring with the premiere of Sleep No More. A radical, immersive retelling of Macbeth, the Meatpacking District warehouse-turned-creepily louche hotel had everyone raving about becoming part of the performance—and producers eagerly booking more intuitive locations for shows.

After Woodshed Collective commandeered West End Presbyterian Church this summer for The Tenant, a trio of theater companies are collaborating on the East Side with David Adjmi’s Elective Affinities, performed in a secret Upper East Side townhouse, the address of which is only revealed to ticket buyers. But though Soho Rep, piece by piece productions and Rising Phoenix Repertory are on trend with their production of Adjmi’s one-person show, Adjmi himself is reluctant to describe the site-specific movement as a trend.

“I don’t think it should be a trend,” he said. “There are other ways of making theater. I love these nonprofit theaters in New York and I like the idea of puncturing the habit of what we think theater has to be. I think it’s important that people come to these plays and they’re destabilized.”

Audience members will be transformed into visitors to the well-appointed home of octogenarian Alice Hauptmann, played here by Tony Award winner Zoe Caldwell. “On one level, it’s a comedy about a very wealthy woman fighting for her way of life. And on a much more profound level, it’s about a surrender to outside forces,” Adjmi explained. “It’s short and it’s very barbed and it’s very funny. It’s kind of whipped cream and razor blades.”

Though Elective Affinities was originally commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre and produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2005 on a stage, Adjmi’s fantasy while writing the play was always that it be performed in an immersive environment. When piece by piece’s Wendy vanden Heuvel—a good friend of Adjmi’s—expressed an interest in including Elective Affinities in a larger festival of plays, Adjmi casually mentioned that he’d always considered the play an ideal candidate for a site-specific production.

Of course, transferring what was once produced on a stage into something that could fit into an actual apartment required some changes.

“I have had to tweak things,” Adjmi said. “It’s a whole event now. We’ve constructed an entire simulacrum of this character’s life. There’s all this new stuff, but [director] Sarah Benson and I are having a lot of fun coming up with what that is.”

Part of that fun comes from working with a theatrical icon like Caldwell. Adjmi—no slouch in the honorarium department himself, having been awarded, among others, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award and the Kesselring Prize for playwriting—described the experience of this incarnation of Elective Affinities as “surreal.”

“I was so scared of her,” he said with a laugh. “And she was scared of me, because she loves writing and she loves doing this play. And then we met and it was like a love affair. She’s so gentle and so unbelievably humble, and she’s rigorous about the text and the punctuation. I find it incredibly refreshing. I don’t write for grammatical correctness, I write for rhythm and inflection and pacing, and she is a genius with it. I feel like it’s really delicious when we’re in rehearsal together.”

Caldwell’s presence—and the chance to watch a pro like her at such close range—is certainly one of the reasons why the entire run of Elective Affinities sold out almost immediately (though some tickets may be made available on the day of performances). But as Adjmi points out, theatergoers are getting a lot more for the cost of their ticket than just stargazing.

“The intimacy of being in the room with the person shifts your relationship with the play,” he said. “There’s a conversation happening, so once you’re in the conversation, it just engages different faculties in people.”

By Doug Strassler

At a time when best-selling children’s books are as dark as Twilight and The Hunger Games, both of which burned up the bestseller lists and landed high-profile movie deals, a beloved childhood favorite has managed to carve a place for itself in the busy New York theater scene with a family-friendly show that offers pure fun—and a few lessons.

The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, the Musical, a stage adaptation of The Berenstain Bears, the nearly 50-year-old series of children’s books created by Stan and Jan Berenstain, continues what was to be a limited summer run of performances with a move to the Upper West Side’s Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater.

Scene from The Berenstain Bears LIVE! Photo by Aaron Epstein

This move comes after an initial Off-Broadway production at the Manhattan Movie and Arts Center (MMAC) that exceeded all expectations. “We thought we would have a nice summer run and then that would be it,” explained producer Matt Murphy. “We had no idea how popular this show would prove to be. We are finding audiences from all over—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, New Jersey—it is even starting to attract a tourist audience now!” Murphy credits positive critical reviews for much of the show’s attention.

With a book by Michael Borton and Michael Slade, music and lyrics by Borton and direction and choreography from Devanand Janki, Berenstain melds three books—The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food, The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble at School and The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers—to create a live-action version of Bear Country.

“The Berenstain Bears are superstars,” Janki said. “After all these years, they truly have become part of the American culture. They have great stories with lessons that everyone can relate to.”

“It can be a tricky thing to adapt something as sacred and well-known as The Berenstain Bears,” Janki said, “but we had a lot of material to go on. We were very careful not to stray too much from the book, but we did have fun adding modern twists to help tell our story.” The company will make very few alterations to the show in the Marjorie S. Deane space, and will keep the grassy knoll seating section in front at the foot of the Bear Country stage.

Janki says that while there is much for the younger members of the Berenstain audience to learn, the show has something for everyone. “I am very proud of what we have created in the live show. Kids of all ages get to see these iconic characters come to life right in front of their eyes. We have even thrown in some humor for the adults, so everyone can enjoy the show.”

Berenstain offers entertainment beyond the show itself—children also get to have their faces painted and take photographs with the bears following the show. “It makes their memory of the show that much sweeter,” according to Murphy.

Just why does the Berenstain team think their characters have proven so enduring? “A number of reasons,” Murphy said. “First of all, Stan and Jan Berenstain deserve a lot of credit for creating a loving family of characters that people from all walks of life can relate to. Second, the message in the show about living a healthy lifestyle by exercising and eating healthy foods has really resonated with the New York community.

“Last,” he added, “the upbeat music and colorful choreography make for a great musical theater experience for young boys and girls. Parents love our show because it keeps kids’ attention for the whole hour-long story. With kids these days, that’s not an easy thing to do!”

For more information and a performance schedule, visit www.berenstainbearslive.com.

The play’s the thing, or so claims the old adage from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. And yet, after centuries, there are still many who feel trepidation at the thought of experiencing one of the esteemed playwright’s many canonical works. In the mid-1990s, one group of actors decided to perform Shakespeare’s works in a way that both involved their audiences and still made the work accessible.

Erick Gonzalez, Eric DySart, Vivien Landau and Amy Frances Quint in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Photo by: Jim Baldassare

Frog & Peach Theatre Company emerged from a mutual frustration shared by married couple Lynnea Benson and Ted Zurkowski, both Actors Studio members, about the way Shakespeare’s productions were—and more to the point, were not—being performed.

“We had some very definite ideas about what Shakespeare had to offer a modern audience, but we weren’t seeing it on stage,” said Benson.

Since 1995, Frog & Peach has mounted more than two dozen productions, usually one in the fall and one in the spring. Their current production, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, runs until mid-November at the West End Theatre on 86th Street.

“Ted and I had been lucky to find Shakespeare at a young age, and we were determined to pass that love on to our community,” Benson explained. The company uses First Folio versions of Shakespeare’s original scripts, which lack any changes or improvements that modern editors might have added to the works. The Folio editions find the actors breaking the fourth wall, directly addressing and even making eye contact with the audience.

“It’s a tender, complicit, sometimes scary relationship,” Benson acknowledged. “But the audience response has been phenomenal, especially among young people and working families in our neighborhood.”

Zurkowski, who composed the musical numbers for Verona, concurs. “Our shows are about clarity, simplicity and entertainment value,” he stressed. “We are about entertaining instead of educating—if people are entertained, that’s when their minds open and they take things away from the show.”

Both Benson and Zurkowski agree that a fundamental requirement to enjoying any of Shakespeare’s works is to break down perceived boundaries about them and realize how universal his characters and stories are. “He’s not an elitist playwright at all,” Benson maintained. “The problems facing his characters are very modern, from bullying to difficult stepfamilies to emotionally scarred war veterans.

“We stay true to the plays,” she added. “The tragedies are filled with comic moments and the comedies have scenes of real heartbreak.”

Plenty of local performers agree. The Frog & Peach staff numbers around 50, and the company has attracted such big theatrical names as Karen Lynn Gorney, Earl Hyman, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Austin Pendleton. An Oct. 4 benefit reading of Julius Caesar at The Players Club featured Shirley Knight, Tom Noonan, Estelle Parsons and Rip Torn.

And even a popular musical talent helped write songs for the Caesar fundraiser and Verona with Zurkowski: Ian McDonald, founding member of the bands King Crimson and Foreigner. “I’d never been involved in theater before,” the musician admitted, “but we became good friends and I’d like to work with them again.”

Clearly, Frog & Peach has made good on its goal. “It’s unfortunate that so many people buy into the idea that Shakespeare’s plays are inscrutable or just for Big Smarties,” Benson said. “Frog & Peach is putting an end to that notion, one production at a time.”

For more information and a performance schedule, www.frogandpeachtheatre.org.

By Mark Peikert

The case of Sybil, the pseudonym for a young woman suffering from 17 multiple personalities as the result of some Gothic child abuse at the hands of her monstrous mother, became a cultural touchstone almost immediately upon the 1973 publication of Flora Rheta Schreiber’s nonfiction account of her treatment.

Sally Field became an actress to reckon with in the 1976 made-for-TV movie, breaking free from the shackles of The Flying Nun. Women everywhere suddenly remembered, with the help of their eager therapists, childhood abuse and “fugue states,” in which they lost all memory of what they did or said. But in Debbie Nathan’s compulsively readable Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case, the whole thing is proved as a massive fraud perpetrated by an ambitious therapist, a lonely young woman and a determined writer.

After some intrepid sleuths outed the real Sybil as Midwesterner Shirley Mason, Mason’s medical records were unsealed, allowing Nathan unprecedented access to her treatment, history and the sad fallout from her pseudonymous fame.

Raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist, Shirley Mason found sin at every turn. Creating art, reading fiction and, especially, sex were dangers to the immortality of her soul, plunging her into hysteria. By the time she started meeting with Dr. Connie Wilbur at Wilbur’s Park Avenue apartment-cum-office, Mason was desperate enough for a female mentor to create alternate identities.

Wrapped in their mutual dependency, Mason and Wilbur convinced themselves—often at Wilbur’s prompting while Mason was heavily drugged—that Mason’s childhood was fraught with molestation and physical beatings. And despite her doubts and the facts she unearthed, Schreiber went ahead with the story they spun, adding a few twists of her own and writing a blockbuster bestseller in the process.

Nathan’s deeply researched account of the behind-the-scenes drama—easily as dramatic and shocking as Sybil itself—reveals itself as an exploration of the warped ways in which women at the time struggled against the categories with which they were defined. Wilbur persevered as a woman in a mostly man’s field; Mason struggled to carve out a place for herself amid a ruinously strict upbringing during a sexist era; and Schreiber ruthlessly exploited the fictions she was fed to elevate herself above her status as a magazine freelance writer of fluff.

Female readers responded to Schreiber’s story of a repressed woman breaking the rules, attributing their own often conflicting desires to multiple personality disorder, a disorder that has been all but discredited by the medical establishment by now. Forget Field in Sybil; what audiences really want is a film adaptation of Sybil Exposed, in all its messy, complicated glory.