JULY 29, 2011

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BY YI FAN AND ALEC WANGEPOCH TIMES STAFF

NEW YORK—As the curtain falls in East Harlem’s Poet’s Den Theater, and the new musical “Soldier’s Song” com-pletes its last rehearsal, direc-tor Angelica Torn, composer Jim Cohen, and Joanne Lee Drexler Cohen, who wrote the book, applaud and embrace the performers.

Produced by Raphael Bena-vides Productions, this musi-cal tells a touching love story. Jose (J.W. Cortes), an up-and-coming singer and songwriter, meets beautiful Erica (Christi-ana Little) and falls in love.

But Jose goes off to Iraq with Erica promising that she will wait for him. Unfortunately, while Jose is on a mission in Iraq, he is caught by al-Qaida, and no one knows if he is alive or dead. Erica, pregnant with Jose’s child, learns that Jose is missing—so she marries the wealthy boy next door.

Unexpectedly, Jose returns

home and devastated by the news of Erica’s marriage begins his singing career, which takes off. Eventually Erica divorces her husband, and Jose and Erica start a new life.

“Soldier’s Song” has 15 songs and is accompanied by piano and guitar. Composer Jim Cohen and writer Joanne Lee Drexler Cohen are a loving couple who have devoted a year to the project.

Cohen initially told his wife the project couldn’t be done, but he had to concede his wife was right: “She was right in that it was possible to do and do it successfully. I was right that it was much more work than either of us ever dreamed. And then we were terribly lucky to get Angelica Torn … [to] come on and be our director.”

Cortes seems born for the role. He is Puerto Rican and served as a U.S. Marine in Iraq, participating in danger-ous, life-threatening missions. Moreover, he always dreamed of being a singer and perform-er. Like Jose, he prayed to God

to let him return home alive. Since Cortes’s return to the United States, he works at night to support his family, and dur-ing the day he performs and works on making films.

Understandably, Cortes is thrilled to be working on

“Soldier’s Song.” With Angelica Torn directing and the Cohens so open to suggestions, Cortes thinks it’s “a big plus for us. … That’s the biggest thing we’ve got going for us,” he said. Cor-tes believes that the artistic team acts like an army sup-porting the actors onstage. For him, it doesn’t take a village,

“it takes an army.”The charming singer and

actress Christiana Little plays Erica. She says that this project is an old-fashioned musical and love story. Because it is an all-new production, and every-one is working in rehearsals to make it better through constant revision, the chal-lenge is to learn and remem-ber all the different changes. But, because of this, the final product “will be the very best possible version. … It will be

battle-tested.”Angelica Torn is an American

director and actress. Her last production was “Lucky Days” in 2010. Torn has performed in dozens of films. Most recently she was nominated for her second Helen Hayes Award (Best Actress 2010) for her critically praised portrayal of Ivy Weston in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning

“August: Osage County” on the Broadway National Tour. Angelica Torn also acted in the movie “The Sixth Sense.”

Torn is the only child of actor Rip Torn and Oscar-winning actress Geraldine Page.

BY JUDD HOLLANDER

N EW YORK—Actor David Greenspan takes center stage and owns it, in “The

Patsy” and “Jonas,” two very different one-person works presented by the Transport Group at The Duke on 42nd Street.

Written by Barry Conners as a multiple character play, “The Patsy” had a respectable 245 performance run on Broadway in 1925.

It is the story of the Har-rington clan: a father who makes a living selling gro-ceries; his wife who likes the finer things in life and who’s humiliated that she has to take a streetcar wherever she goes; Grace, their pretty and spoiled daughter, who is engaged to marry Billy Caldwell; and Patricia, the not-as-pretty, quieter daughter who’s in love with Tony Anderson, a former beau of Grace’s.

Originally billed as a com-edy in three acts, the story has been abridged somewhat by Greenspan, Jack Cummings III, and Kristina Corcoran Wil-liams and turned into a vehicle for Greenspan who plays all the people in the story. He also drops in stage directions when needed and presents the entire work in 1 hour and 25 minutes (without intermission).

At first it’s somewhat discon-certing to watch Greenspan switching from one charac-ter to another, but it quickly becomes apparent which per-sona he’s assuming, using at different times elements of parody and realism to open a window on a time long ago.

Greenspan not only brings to life each of the characters, but also the era in which the tale takes place—a time when streetcars actually ran on a

set schedule and kept to it; when $12 was a lot of money; and where “all the world’s a stage—but most of us are only stagehands.”

Greenspan and director Cummings also give the work touches of melodrama, parental angst, sibling rivalry, and most of all, heart. The sequences between Patricia and Tony are quite touching, as they begin the flowering of a romance with a kissing scene that is as poignant as it is funny.

While “The Patsy” is ground-ed in its basic framework and depends a lot on the physical movements of Greenspan, things take a sharp turn into the shadows of imagination with “Jonas.” It is a monologue written and performed by Greenspan.

In “Jonas,” the actor tells “of a character I once played” named Jonas, someone who was 50 years of age in 1927. Jonas then recalls a charac-ter named McQuaid and McQuaid’s life in raucous bars and honky-tonks—a world of narrow streets where unsavory characters roamed; of ciga-

rettes with smoke that spiraled to the ceiling.

Sitting on a stool for the entire 40-minute piece, Green-span seamlessly switches from one point of view to another, while also wondering if he did justice to his interpretation of Jonas in this play he once did. He also wonders if he, Green-span, had as much a hand in the creation of the character as did the writer and director. Greenspan says all of this is done without a hint of self-absorption (“it’s all about me”), a common trap befalling many one-person shows.

As Greenspan says at one

point, “I have often thought in a play it is not a matter of what is probable, but what can be made believable.” It’s the effective execution of this idea that makes one believe Jonas is 50 years old in 1927 and 133 years old in the present day.

At one minute the audience is walking down those narrow streets in 1927, and in another they’re feeling the pain of unrequited love from Patricia Harrington as she tries to win the man of her dreams.

His ability to make each character believable is why in

“The Patsy” we quickly find our-selves pulling for the romantic

leads, and why in “Jonas” we eagerly follow Greenspan’s circular and complex narra-tive in order to see where the tale leads.

Direction by Cummings for “The Patsy” is quite good, working hand in glove with Greenspan in giving new life to a somewhat old story.

Dane Laffrey’s set of the Harrington living room is fine, the space looking at first like a diorama into which Greenspan literally inserts himself.

Lighting by Mark Barton is well done and the sound design by Michael Rasbury—deliberately made to appear as if it’s coming from an old-fashioned recording—is appro-priate.

While both shows are quite entertaining, this is not nec-essarily something everyone will enjoy. But for fans of

David Greenspan and Trans-port Group, not to mention a chance to see a completely new take on a 1925 comedy, they’re definitely worth a look.

Judd Hollander is the New York correspondent for the London publication The Stage.

DIORAMA SET: David Greenspan performs the entire play himself in “The Patsy.”

CAROL ROSEGG

A MONOLOGUE: Written and performed by David Greenspan, “Jonas” keeps the audience moving from one character and setting to another.

CAROL ROSEGG

“The Patsy” and “Jonas”

The Duke on 42nd Street229 West 42nd Street

Tickets: 646-223-3010 or www.transportgroup.org

Running Time: “The Patsy”: 1 hour, 25 minutes; “Jonas”: 40 minutes

Closes: Aug. 13

Theater Review: ‘The Patsy’ and ‘Jonas’One actor makes all characters believable

HAPPY EVER AFTER: Erica (Christiana Little) and Jose (J.W. Cortes) in the musical “Soldier’s Song.”

COuRtESy Of RAphAEL BEnAvidES pROduCtiOn

Musical ‘Soldier’s Song’ Opens in NY

“Soldier’s Song”

Poet’s Den Theater309 East 108th Street

Tickets: 212-352-3101 or www.soldierssongmusical.com

Closes: Aug. 28

The sequences between Patricia and Tony are quite touching, as they begin the flowering of a romance with a kissing scene that is as poignant as it is funny.