Email Author Alexis Soloski

1999 Stories by Alexis Soloski

• Shakespeare Takes the Rap

  published December 21, 1999

  MC Hendelberg, an Orthodox goldsmith in a puffy parka and payess, asks Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus the riddle of the sphinc. (Yes, the... More >>

• Mae Day! Mae Day!

  published December 7, 1999

  On February 19, 1927, Daly's 63rd Street Theater featured a most unusual encore. The actors in Mae West's hit Broadway show had just exited the... More >>

• Satyr Day Night Special

  published November 16, 1999

  Lola Montez settles into her chariot, a character half silent movie heroine and half goth-girl goddess. Swathed in shiny black-a tight top,... More >>

• Tent Show

  published October 26, 1999

  I chose Luis because his program bio said he had trained as an acrobat and trapeze artist. He met me in the anteroom. He was handsome—brown... More >>

• Trick and Treats

  published October 5, 1999

  Derek Hughes is not particularly Mephistophelian. Though he's tall, slim, and draped in black, his comely looks and unaffected mien lend him a... More >>

• Lazzi Come Home

  published September 28, 1999

  Playwright Carlo Goldoni prances at the head of the funeral procession. A line of weeping, wailing players— hunchbacked and garbed in white... More >>

• A Tree Grows In Dunsinane

  published September 14, 1999

  Amid the baby-powder stink of the smoke machines and the screech of the techno soundtrack, actors in halfhearted kabuki makeup file onstage.... More >>

• Garden Varieties

  published September 7, 1999

  "That's a mean rat!" cries an affronted eight-year-old girl. The rodent in question— personated by a strapping man in a furry suit—... More >>

• Pure Pop for Now People

  published August 17, 1999

  Playwright Marc Spitz is getting his ass kicked. Jonathan Lisecki— best friend and erstwhile roommate— slaps the flippers feverishly.... More >>

• Garage Music

  published July 13, 1999

  Two black-lit paintings of staring cyclops hang suspended. On a video screen a tiny crown twists itself into words. A looped recording emits... More >>

• Macbeth

  published July 6, 1999

  The bridges, lawns, and concrete paths of Fort Tryon Park may not much resemble the moors, heaths, and woods of medieval Scotland, but don't tell... More >>

• SparkleFEST 2000

  published June 8, 1999

  Esquivel plays, the backdrop glitters, attendants traipse through the crowd dispensing Jell-O jigglers in the shape of hearts and stars—... More >>

• A Midsummer Night's Dream

  published June 1, 1999

  The lights dim and a swarm of latecomers rush to seat themselves. The conductor enters the pit, the music starts, the curtain rises, and two guys... More >>

• The Escapist

  published May 25, 1999

  Somewhere in 1914 Albania, Giorgio, a destitute cabaret perfomer (his act: accompanying himself on a guitar strummed with his erect member),... More >>

• Rank Stranger

  published May 18, 1999

  A ferocious energy possesses writer-performer Stanya Kahn. Eyes flashing, mouth straining, feet skittering, she seems to move even when she's... More >>

• True Confessions

  published May 18, 1999

  Inside Webster Hall a mystery lurked. The suspects offered fuzzy alibis, flimsy excuses, changing stories. Still the question burned: why exactly... More >>

• Euripidames

  published May 4, 1999

  What diva doesn't dream of playing the Greek leading ladies—those lusty, bloody heroines and villainesses? A lucky girl may get to act a few... More >>

• Hi, I'm Brittany, and I'm Rotting!

  published May 4, 1999

  Rachel Arieff, dressed in jeans and a hairnet, steps onto the stage and into character. "They should make a sitcom about my life!" she squeals.... More >>

• Euripidames

  published April 27, 1999

  What diva doesn't dream of playing the Greek leading ladies—those lusty, bloody heroines and villainesses? A lucky girl may get to act a few... More >>

• Ex Arcadia

  published January 26, 1999

  Pastorale (HERE), Deborah Eisenberg's dawdling audit of '70s world-weariness, actually falls into the tradition of the antipastoral.... More >>

• Sex Shirkers

  published January 12, 1999

  The premise of Lyz! (Samuel Beckett Theater), a new musical adaptation of Aristophanes's Lysistrata, is not devoid of comic... More >>