GO Brooklyn: Full articles

Irish import at St. Ann’s Warehouse is truly ‘Electric’

By Gersh Kuntzman — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:20:55 EDT

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Brooklyn Paper

It’s as if “No Exit” kissed the Blarney Stone.

Words, massive amounts of words, strung together into long, gorgeous, meaty, metaphor-laden sentences that combine into spirited, brilliant, heart-wrenching monologues are bouncing all over the walls at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO, where Enda Walsh’s “The New Electric Ballroom” opened last Tuesday for a month-long run.

This claustrophobic play, set in a dour room shared by three sisters in a horrible fishing town, is as hellish as Satre’s Existential drama, but the Frenchman did not have the Irishman Walsh’s gift of gab.

For Walsh, who had a hit last year at St. Ann’s with “The Walworth Farce,” the action of the play, such as it is, is secondary to these words. In fact, the entire play exists solely so its four characters — the sisters, Clara, Breda and Ada, plus Patsy the fishmonger — can relive a singular moment in all of their pasts.

For Clara and Breda, it is that moment, roughly 40 years earlier, when both briefly attracted the attention of Roller Royle, an Elvis-like figure who performed one night at the New Electric Ballroom in a neighboring town.

Clara, the prettier of the two frozen-in-time sisters, first gets to recount her version of the story, the version in which she interrupts the Roller’s make-out session with Breda. Later, Breda spits out her almost-identical version, agonizing over the love affair that was in flagrante when Clara messed it all up.

All the while, Ada, far younger than both her siblings, but no less stuck in her own time-warp, plays a secondary role — evidence that a night in the sisters’ household is a feedback loop every night of their lives (in fact, one of the key props on the sparse set is a reel-to-reel tape recorder).

To sit in the audience of “The New Electric Ballroom” is to be bludgeoned repeatedly with these words — the set paragraphs about the bike ride to the ballroom, the sweat on the girls’ backs, the clatter of the cobblestones, the cannery “turning fish into money,” the “little shoebox” that Patsy calls his bedroom, the confidence that both girls feel from hearing the Roller say the words, “You meet me after” — yet also to be spellbound in a way that only words, stunningly rendered by four actors at the top of their game, can concoct.

The standout in the cast is Patsy (Mikel Murfi), who enters with his fish twice a day and is never invited in “as a guest.”

After what seems like years of this kind of treatment, he is finally invited in — and is stripped down by Clara (Ruth McCabe) and Breda (Rosaleen Linehan) for a baptism, of sorts, that rebirths him as the Roller himself. But rather than be drawn into Clara and Breda’s sickness, Patsy gains a new confidence, and his unconsummated love for Ada moves closer to a satisfactory conclusion.

And then…

Another torrent of words, and the fishmonger reveals his own, heretofore unknown connection to that night at the New Electric. The chance at breaking the pattern that has consumed all four lives is suddenly lost forever as he spins his tale.

It’s an unremittingly bleak finish to a gut-punch of a play. In the hands of a less poetic playwright — and less-talented actors — it would be a disaster. But a one-way ticket to hell, loneliness and dementia can be a great night at the theater when stunning words like these meet great acting.

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These superhero rockers saved rock and roll — in 2048!

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh — Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:34:24 EST

See this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

for The Brooklyn Paper

Jef UK, frontman and lead singer for Americans UK, has never had an album reviewed in Pitchfork, and he hasn’t established an indie following in Williamsburg. But the Gowanus sci-fi rocker has done something that no other band has done: he’s traveled through time to save rock ’n’ roll.

No, really. It’s all documented in his comic books and LPs.

For example, not too long ago, UK’s band had a rumble with the Beatles where John Lennon kicked UK in the groin. That was in Liverpool. The year was 1964.

Sometime afterward, UK and his bandmates found themselves starting a robot revolution in the year 2048 to defeat a pop-musician-terrorist named Stang.

“Sure, I had to rewrite reality for these things to happen,” UK told The Brooklyn Paper. “But I did it anyway. All for you. All for rock.”

Back in Brooklyn — the real Brooklyn, 2009 — Americans UK has continued its mission to preserve rock’s vital essence.

For its debut album, Rocktronic, the band created a 10-song assault on the senses and sensibilities. Its infectious pop beats and post-punk riffs channeled the sonic specters of The Dickies, The Ramones and Electric Six. The lyrics invoked tales of zombie invasions (“Zombies Attack”), dancehall mavens (“Rocktronic”) and bawdy teenage fantasies (“Inappropriate Words To Your Mother”).

“I have one rule for every song we write,” said UK. “It has to make me want to dance.”

Dancing is just one component of the band’s frenzied live performance. On stage, the foursome dons superhero costumes and unleashes “cheesy rock stunts.”

“We don’t just stand there and play our songs,” said UK. “We dress up, we play the part. We dance and pose and posture and head bang and jump around. This is f—ing rock ’n’ roll, you know?”

In addition to cutting tracks and tearing up the stage, UK pens and publishes a comic book series, aptly titled “Americans UK.” The series chronicles the band’s episodes through space and time.

“Every page of comic needs its verse, chorus and hook like a two-minute punk song,” said UK. “The stories are fast-paced and bigger than life, and in that way, hopefully evokes our songs.”

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The algorhythm: Americans UK

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh — Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:34:24 EST

Note: More media content is available for this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

for The Brooklyn Paper

What kind of music does the Americans UK play? Use our exclusive feature, “the Algorhythm” to figure it out:

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This artist can certainly ‘type’

By Sabrina Jaszi — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 17:16:27 EST

See this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Sabrina Jaszi

for The Brooklyn Paper

Making a tintype is as time-consuming as it is painstaking. But one digital photographer says she’s fallen in love with the Civil War-era process.

“I spend so much time staring at my computer, so when I get home, I want to make something tactile and beautiful,” said the artist, Melitte Buchman.

Her modern tintypes are finding buyers at Swallow Gallery, which stocks them next to vintage ones.

“Looking at a [modern tintype], you feel like you’ve fallen out of the present,” said Urte Tylaite, who works at Swallow.

The artist’s first tintype was of her computer mouse. Portraits followed, even though the chemical process tends to make skin look leathery. Also, subjects often appear stiff since they must hold still for up to 10 seconds while the picture — a direct positive — is being formed on a thin piece of iron.

Still, Buchman thinks that tintypes are worth their weight in gold.

“When tintype portraits were first made, people had never seen themselves before. Modern tintypes retain that sense of discovery.”

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The Civilians have their eye on divorce

By Meredith Deliso — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:50:12 EST

See this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Meredith Deliso

Community Newspaper Group

The latest production from The Civilians troupe, which has delved into the Atlantic Yards project and Evangelical Christians, now turns its eye on something really controversial: divorce.

“You Better Sit Down: Tales from My Parents’ Divorce” was conceived by actress Jennifer Morris (pictured) and centers on a lamp that always came between her divorced parents.

“I find it interesting, arguing about an inanimate object while all this stuff swirls around it,” said Morris. “That was the inspiration for the whole project.”

The final play includes dialogue culled from interviews that all four actors conducted with their parents — who are brought to life on stage by their children.

“It felt like a very personal inquiry when we have the children playing the parents,” said Anne Kauffman, one of the co-writers. “It’s an investigation of marriage from one generation to another.

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These guys are cocoa nuts

By Sabrina Jaszi — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 06:32:14 EST

See this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Sabrina Jaszi

for The Brooklyn Paper

Amateur cooking contests — think last year’s Mac Off or last month’s chili contest — are all the rage. But now it’s time for dessert.

Fortunately, the increasingly eclectic Bell House will host a massive cook-off of all things cocoa: soufflés, ganache, cookies, drinks and moles cooked up by 15 to 25 cocoa-loving amateur cooks.

It’s a feast for chocolate fans — and for chefs. Spots are still available for competitors, but beware.

“Not everyone can handle the pressure,” warned Nick Suarez who co-organized the so-called Brooklyn Chocolate Experiment.

Stakes are high; the top chef will receive $150 and a $600 chocolate of the month subscription. The judge’s panel even has its own Simon Cowell: Andrew Knowlton, restaurant editor for Bon Appetit — the magazine that survived Conde Nast’s Gourmet coup.

“He can be intimidating,” said Suarez, “but we feel that adds to the competitive spirit.”

Suarez and co-organizer Theo Peck savor the competition along with the food. In fact, they were once cookoff rivals.

“It was either him or me winning, so we really started competing against each other at these events,” Suarez said. “Eventually he asked me if I wanted to start our own cookoff. We wanted bigger, better, more organization and larger prizes.”

The Brooklyn Chocolate Experiment is the third cookoff put on by the culinary comrades, and it won’t be the last. The pair says even sweeter things are in the works.

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This magic moment: Jay and the Americans are back!

By Simon McCormack — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:50:12 EST

See this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Simon McCormack

for The Brooklyn Paper

The nostalgia-laced airwaves are full of hits from Jay and the Americans like “This Magic Moment,” “Walking In The Rain” and “Come A Little Bit Closer” — but on Nov. 14, the band will once again bring them to life in Brooklyn, where it all started 50 years ago.

Sandy Deanne, Marty Sanders and Howie Kane all hailed from in and around Flatbush, where legend has it that the only requirement for joining the band was owning a white dinner jacket and being able to carry a tune.

The group inked its first record deal in 1962 and over the next seven years recorded four songs, “She Cried,” “Come a Little Bit Closer,” “Cara Mia” and “This Magic Moment” that reached the top 10.

By 1973, tastes in popular music had changed and Jay and the Americans went the way of the ’60s themselves. But three years ago, Deanne, Sanders and Kane got back on the road, touring the oldies circuit — including the very same Our Lady of Grace auditorium in Gravesend where they performed more than 40 years ago.

“We jumped at the chance to come back home,” Deanne said.

This time, the booking will earn the band more than the $350 it received in 1964.

“The guy who booked us this time asked if we’d play for the same $350,” said Deanne, who respectfully rejected the offer. “We’ve had a lot of hits since then.”

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