New York International Fringe Festival
Mefisto Theatre Company presents
MISCAST
By J.S. STANILOFF

Charas/El Bohio Teatro
214 605 E. 9 Street (Bet. Aves. B & C)
Reservations: Spin Cycle - (212) 505.1700

August 17 through 26, 2000

Directed by JARET CHRISTOPHER
Assistant Director CURTIS MARK WILLIAMS
Produced by WEIL RICHMOND and LORA CHIO

Cast
Meg......................................................KELLI K. BARNETT
Female Voices............................................KATRISHKA KING
Male Voices..............................................ANDREW ROBBINS

Theatregoers who were fortunate enough to attend Mefisto's recent production of EAT THE RUNT will find the familiar faces of Kelli K. Barnett, as a tormented soul, and Katrishka King in this production of J.S. Staniloff's MISCAST.

Unnerving and sad at the darkest points, the play examines Meg, a struggling actress, and phone sex worker, inside and out. Tormented by her past, and filled with a mounting sense of paranoia, she is a needy person who finds herself rejected at every turn. Not a hopeful scenario in any sense, the inherent dread and unpleasant fate of Meg mounts palpably during the course of this hour long one-act.

Limited enough in terms of scope to work as a short drama, in MISCAST the supporting characters have been written to be aloof and cryptic, functioning as archetypal representations instead of tangible people. A little more than caricatures, this choice enables the audience to focus attention on Meg, the only character with any depth.

Definitely in keeping with Mefisto's mission to produce edgy material, MISCAST presents itself as being part of a different, darker world. -

Kessa De Santis -

LAVINIA SPEAKS
by Jennie S. Redling

TWO BOARDS AND A PASSION
PAINT IT BLACK and LAVINIA SPEAKS
Directed by Michelle Macau
The Sage Theatre
Equity Showcase (closed)
Reviewed by David Mackler, OOBR, the off-off-broadway review. April 1999

Two terrific performances in two fine monologues were on display at The Sage Theatre. Disparate in subject matter but not in theme, PAINT IT BLACK by Mark Victor Olsen and LAVINIA SPEAKS by J. Staniloff Redling were good examples of what can be accomplished with one actor and a good script. Both were well directed by Michelle Macau.

Billy (Jase Draper) is fresh out of the fourth grade and full of plans for the summer -- a ceramics class, and a basement production of "Flower Drum Song." Fate and family intervene, and he tells of his family's cross-country drive, where the Rolling Stones' latest song, "Paint It Black," is on every radio station. Father is a silent type who tries to impress manly virtues on Billy, yet Billy goes out of his way to make allowances for his father's limitations, and fantasizes getting closer to him. Mother tries ineptly to keep everything running smoothly, and his indeterminately sexed twin siblings simply denigrate everything he does. When they reach their destination, Billy starts to see the phoniness of his family's behavior, and he discovers his own anger - and independence. This is not an easy course of action for Billy, and Draper manages the hairpin turns beautifully, making Billy's actions funny, frightening, and very real. He is also good at navigating the dual needs of the play, being both narrator and character. At the end, when Billy rides a rollar coaster by himself (something he would never have considered before), he is one determined angry young man, and the audience's heart goes out to him.

The audience's heart also goes out to Lavinia (Carol Denise Clark), as her life unfolds in LAVINIA SPEAKS. She doesn't have to discover her anger; it's all she can do to keep it in check to get through the day. And she doesn't just speak, the words come out in torrents. Alternately and simultaneously angry and resentful, she somehow manages to balance her various identities as legal secretary, teacher, actor, musician, daughter, African American, feminist -- she is particularly fierce about depictions of black women. Yet, as embodied by Clark, Lavinia glows. LAVINIA SPEAKS is not as linear as PAINT IT BLACK, and it juggles several different stories -- making it just like your life and everyone you know. Director Macau kept the action moving quickly, with Lavinia in constant motion between four different playing areas. The play is very well constructed, never over-explanatory. Plot points are mentioned here, picked up adroitly there, until there is a recognizable, fallible, very real woman. Lavinia invokes one of her namesakes, from TITUS ADRONICUS, whose hands were cut off and tongue cut out. This Lavinia, though, communicates very expressively, even when she is tied in knots. Her life is not always pretty, and certainly not easy, but definitely worth listening to.

The set (uncredited) and lighting (Krista Stella) for LAVINIA SPEAKS were particularly effective and expressive."

RIDE THE DARK CARS by Jennie Staniloff-Redling

MAIN STREET ARTS THEATRE HAS A WINNER
Theatre Review, by Norman Garfield, The Rockland-Westchester Journal News

"Seldom in recent memory does a relatively young Rockland County playwright develop a stage thriller that is interesting to viewers, challenging to performers, and provocative. Such is the case with Pearl River playwright J. Staniloff Redling and her two-act play (making its world premiere), "Ride the Dark Cars." Under the sharp, clean direction of Billy Rattner, the five character cast is clearly delineated. The actors are allowed time and space to demonstrate their crafts in this original production; a show of which MSA Theatre, and everyone associated with it, can be justifiably proud.

The opening curtain (unlike other county live-talent theaters, there actually IS a curtain!) reveals an attractive single setting of a New York City apartment living room, resplendent with small bar, couch, ottoman, and other traditional niceties one might expect of a working-class couple sans children. Nicki (Anne Kornreich making her debut with MSA) enters and attends to the living room window drapes. She had been in the bedroom talking with husband Joey (John DiGiacomo). After a quiet moment he calls still out of sight in the bedroom, the first words of the show: "And?!?!" Nicki, short for Nicola, responds, "And?" Joey, on the brink of frustration, reminds her, "Ya know. What we were talkin' about.... "AND???"

This is delicious dialogue from playwright Staniloff Redling. Yes, husbands and wives actually talk like that. It demands viewer's attention. (Remember the late George C. Scott as "Patton" standing before that huge flag.) The audience, at that moment, is drawn into the action.

With foul language, frequent threatening glares to his wife and his muscular build in a sleeveless undershirt, there is little doubt Mr. DiGiacomo's Joey is a wife-beating-champion bully who is also an avowed bigot. Things muct be done his way immediately. As his caring wife, Ms. Kornreich is physically tiny and, despite the violence, she has loved Joey since they were high school sweethearts. However, she harbors deep secrets not to be shared with him nor her dearest friend, Suzanne. During a brief visit, the tall stately blonde Suzanne (ably played by Anne Connolly) admits that she, too, is a victim of violence. Joey lusts for her whenever she appears. But Suzanne has her own secrets. Paul Andrew Perez gives a bravura performance as Charlie, an entertainment industry bigwig who stops by. In another scene, Mr. Perez (sans wig and makeup) plays a police detective who has suspicions concerning Joey's occupation and alleged wife-beatings. The second act interrogation scene is powerful in timing, suspense, and performance.

This is a beautifully constructed ensemble thriller where secrets are revealed and questions answered. RIDE THE DARK CARS is a study of power and the abuse of power with further ramifications within the vary narrow confines of one couple."

THE HARVEST by Jennie Staniloff

A concert reading of THE HARVEST, a musical, in collaboration with DeeAnn Macomson, is slated for 2009.

About DeeAnn Macomson DeeAnn Macomson

BYELORUSSIAN ROULETTE
by JAMES STURZ, THE FORWARD, May 28, 1993

The photograph of a 17-year-old girl in a museum in Minsk is the centerpiece of "The Harvest," a volatile new play by Jennie Susan Staniloff, directed by Hugh O'Gorman at the Mint Theater Company. The girl, Masha Bruskina, was a member of the resistance executed by Nazi troops in 1941, and her black-and-white image has been reproduced time and again in Soviet textbooks, encyclopedias and magazines. But Byelorussian authorities have resisted a two-decade-long campaign to identify her by name, despite testimony from surviving relatives and experts. Officially, Masha is "nietzvitnaya," a nobody, a war hero better left without an identity; for while she was hanged as an intrepid partisan, she was also a Jew.

Ms. Staniloff gives Masha much more than a face. She gives her history, life and identifiable passion. Miss Staniloff's Masha, played by a skillful Paula Godsey, is an aspiring film star, a finalist in Minsk's theatre competition who dreams of going to Moscow to become a matinee idol. Her idol and obsession is Marlene Dietrich - a sultry doppelganger to the teen-age girl, played convincingly by Barbara Reierson. THE HARVEST's Dietrich is all husky voice, chiffon, rhinestones and cleavage, gliding across the stage with her dinner-jacketed leading man, played by Stephaun Paul (an actor with Errol Flynn good looks). The captivating couple is everything Masha wants to be: cosmopolitan, genteel and, above all, untouchable. But perhaps the playwright should have chosen another film star; the real Marlene Dietrich entertained Allied troops and made anti-Nazi broadcasts during the war. In THE HARVEST, she is a cool betrayer.

The jewel of the production is Miss Godsey, who possesses the ineffable emotional and erotic presence of a star. Her Masha is relentlessly compelling -- equal parts impetuous child and grande dame. Groping her boyfriend on a cramped couch or an equally cramped garden spot, she chatters beguilingly: "Put your arms around me, hold me, touch me, feel how soft I am here," and "Kiss me, come on, here in the dirt." It is somewhat frustrating when the play shifts to Enemy-of-the-Party talk.

Masha's boyfriend Anton (T. Thomas Brown) eagerly joins the Byelorussian resistance and draws a reluctant Masha in after him. "They just need a cause, these silly students," she scoffs. Anton worries about the deteriorating conditions for Jews, but Masha prefers to think about clothese and movies, to stop time, to indulge her young girl's capacity to remain cocooned. When she learns from Anton's sister about Polish Jews wearing stars of David, she pouts: "This is the day I've waited for all year, and I won't let you spoil it." But ultimately Masha learns that the worst truths don't occur on celluloid, and that acting doesn't make them go away. By the play's end, she is galvanized into a hero.

THE HARVEST is at its best when Miss Godsey's passion is permitted to fly; it is almost a disappointment when she is not on stage. Blacklisted from acting because she is Jewish, Masha becomes a nurse and takes a new name to pass as a religion-less Byelorussian. "I've met a doctor and I'm going to make him fall in love with me," she declares. The doctor is played by the appealing Mr. Paul, and for once Masha's interest seems more affectionate than selfish. But the doctor is a German and she is a Jew. "This is 1941, not the dark ages," says her brother early on. And he is right: 1941 is worse.

As for the real-life Masha, the struggle for her identity continues. By coincidence, an installation devoted to Masha Bruskina by the artist Nancy Spero currently covers two walls of the biennial show at the Whitney Museum where -- in contrast to Minsk's Museum of the Great Patriotic War -- Masha's name is readily visible. The Mint Theater's program for "The Harvest" says the company will install a permanent plaque commemorating "Masha Bruskina, Heroine" in its lobby. But the repertory's performance inside the theater is tribute itself.

QUIPS

At the finish of filming "Bill of Divorcement," Katharine Hepburn turned to John Barrymore and said, "Thank God, I don't have to act anymore with you!" "Oh," he replied, "I didn't know you ever had, darling."

W.C. Fields has crowned perhaps all other estimates of Hollywood with one observation. Someone asked him whether he had ever had the D.T.'s since coming to Hollywood. "I don't know," said Fields, "I don't know . There's no way of telling where the D.T.'s leave off and Hollywood begins."

James Thurber attended one of Hollywood's super-colossal premieres. When they were leaving the theatre Thurber asked a writer friend what he thought of the picture. "I thought it stank," replied the friend in no uncertain terms. "What did you think of it?" "I can't say I liked it that well," replied Thurber."