Captivating Escape: St. Nicholas at Hyde Park Theatre
We've made no secret of the fact that we like Ken Webster. We can't help ourselves. The man is good at what he does. And while we're not going to take credit -- although we have mentioned, repeatedly, that we'd like to see him take the stage more often -- we're happy to see he's turning out yet another one-man show over at Hyde Park Theatre these days.
It's a deliciously odd one, too. From Conor McPherson, the Irish playwright who brought you The Weir, Webster has selected St. Nicholas, a solo piece about an erstwhile theatre reviewer who falls in with a small gang of vampires. Yeah, vampires. We love vampires. Zombies and vampires. So we went into the evening with high expectations. We weren't disappointed.
In many ways, it's a very straightforward work. The Man is a surly, disingenuous critic of the Dublin stage. Using language we tried hard not to take personally -- all the while getting in a good laugh at ourselves -- he describes his fat and not so happy life slapping together nasty grenades of reviews. The story wanders around a bit, takes some hilarious stabs at theatre and many of its superficialities, and, just before the intermission, delivers the goods. The vampires arrive. Finally.
Where the first act is full of wry criticism of, well, criticism, the second digs in for some top-rate storytelling. Every vampire tale requires its vampire rules, and these are laid out naturally in the flow of things. McPherson adds some welcome twists to the old standards. We won't go into them because they're part of the show's charm, which reveals itself at a constant rate as the evening progresses.
Webster, self-directed in this role, sticks to the center of the stage most of the time. Bathed in light that subtly varies from warm to cold -- as in this case, we so frequently find ourselves liking Don Day's understated work -- Webster holds the stage steadily and effortlessly. He changes things up enough to keep the audience from getting shifty, but he also has the presence and skill to sit and stand for lengthy periods without seeming edgy or unnatural. This is the most static we've ever seen Webster, and it came as something of a surprise to us, but it works well with the rhythms of the story. Indeed, vampires are not kinetic creatures, so Webster's decision to imbue the work with a slow, heartbeat of a pace is appropriate, and works very well.
By the end of the piece, the Man, softened and at his most genuinely vulnerable, reaches a breaking point. Things get a tad emotional, and we know there's high allegory to be found. However, we confess that we didn't want to think that hard. Our companion called the evening a "captivating escape," which summed up our feelings nicely. Quite simply, we were happy to sit and be sucked in to a well-crafted, well-performed vampire tale. But let it be known that McPherson's script contains more depth than that. We were just too hypnotized by the story to go digging around for deeper meaning. Perhaps we'd fallen under some sort of vampiric spell? Regardless, we recommend St. Nicholas highly, both for the clever story it tells and the way in which it's told.
St. Nicholas
Thru 9/29, Th/Fr/Sa at 8pm, Sunday matinee 9/24 at 2pm
No performance on Saturday, 9/30
Thursday: Pay What You Can Fr/Sa/Su: $17 ($15 students, seniors, ACOT)
Reservations: 479-PLAY (7529)
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd Street
Image (c) Troy Newell on Stock Xchng.
