Blogging About Cat Stevens

Monologues appeal to the voyeur in us. Details of someone else's life - we can't ever get enough of them - especially when they're presented in such a persuasive way as in this collection. A few themes run through the 12 lives on view. Blogging is one. Private thoughts made public; it's as if blogs were invented for exhibitionists. Just like these actors. Another theme is pain, but usually that's told to us only after the character gets us through the more mundane part.

Denise Fiore (Video Queen) gets beat up for acting like a guy. As a contrast, gay yuppie Matthew Fisher (Guppy) takes great pains to keep his alternative life style carefully hidden. Joanne Tomasso (Poetess) laments that her best audience is her cat. In one way or another, nonconformists always suffer. Maybe all except Quincy Koffel (Slash), convincing as an improbable Texas transplant cowgirl who lassos and hogties unsuspecting bridge-and-tunnel strays West Village.

These pieces can be played only for laughs, and Larry Myers's writing has loads of hilarious moments. Maybe more than either the audience or these young players can handle effectively. Both manic blogger Frank Marzullo (Blogging) and graffiti star Clark de los Reyes (Keith Haring) get across less comedy from their material than some of the others, but they compensate by showing a more sensitive side to their characters. Too many themes in Danielle Spataro's plastic surgery from cosmetic lifts to NYU student screenplays prove a challenge to hold together. Blissful ignorance with a heavy dose of comic irony lets Michael James Stamberg's "Promise Keeper" rest easy in spite of the character's built-in contradictions.

Another theme is inevitable in this post-September 11th period, religion. Billy Baraw takes a lighter look at Pennsylvania's "plain folk" in "Amish Guy" but also makes sense out of their beliefs in the process. He does double duty ("Censored") as a traumatized AIDS Buddy and model for Calvin Klein underwear. In "Cat Stevens," Michael Freeland muses on the tribulations of the pop idol now known as Yusuf Islam, now seemingly barred permanently from the US for having thumbed his nose at the world's superpower. Theo Ellis' calm, level-headed approach in Muslim to an incendiary topic is precisely the kind of voice we need to hear at this time. And taking a page from the sufis, he invites us to burn in the fire of love.

Jarrat Bogart's direction keeps the energy high for the evening, and the sequence of monologues made for interesting contrasts of acting styles and overall ability. In this case, brevity helps us move through this whirlwind of personalities and ideas.