Ophira
Eisenberg
"The Gray
Area"
and
"Hindsight"
Wednesdays @ 8PM
September
22nd.
Under St. Marks
Reviewed
by Tara Koppel
Who can forget their
first love? And do we ever completely get over
them? These first loves are the guests who
randomly invite themselves (unannounced) into our
Memory Scrapbook. Sometimes the melody of a song
or the scent of soap allows us to briefly stumble
upon their page. Other times, however, that page
seems to be a permanent fixture in our thoughts
and we find ourselves writing and starring in a
one woman play about them, so is the case of
Ophira Eisenberg, who will be featured on Comedy
Central's Premium Blend this season.
I walked into the
small downtown playhouse, Under St. Marks, excited
about being an addition to the New York Cool Cool
crew, and being here, in the heart of
undomesticated New York City. Yes, I confess… I am
a newyorkcool.com virgin. And when we're through,
please feel free to
light a cigarette.
Under St. Marks is a
cozy, intimate theater, resembling an underground
basement. It seemed hidden, like a secret that I'm
letting you all in on. It feels as though you're
about to watch a show in the comfort of your own
home, but where the performers are much more
talented than your brothers and sisters. They
offered the audience wine. Have you ever heard of
anyone passing up free alcohol? Me neither. And
who am I to break tradition…the play began and I
took a sip.
If listening to sagas
of love is like a roller coaster; then I should
have come prepared with a full case of Dramamine.
In this hilarious and all too realistic
performance of "Hindsight," Ophira invites us into
the highs and lows of her first relationship: the
fighting, the making up, the intense love, the
pissing off, the hating, the crying, the
incredible sex, the needing, and finally, the
knowing when it's time to let go. Sound freakishly
familiar? If this is foreign to you, that's o.k.
Surveys suggest that one out of every twenty
psychos never have a first love. So don't sweat
it! You're in good company.
Instantaneously, Ophira
accomplishes what many performers have difficulty
doing, capturing her audience and taking us along
for the ride. The show did not include what we as
an audience have come accustomed to: special
effects; murders; or people dramatically dying.
The only actress in this play is a single woman;
extending me an invite to her intriguing story,
and I RSVP'd, ASAP!
Ophira's "Hindsight"
details how a person falls "hard" and "messy" into
love. To paraphrase her, the first time you fall
in love you wear a set of window blinds over your
eyes. Every now and then they lift up and you
notice questionable behavior, so you lower the
blinds again right before intuition and reality
sets in. For a moment I thought that the entire
performance was a hoax. Was Ophira a private
investigator that had been following me for years?
How else could she understand my past so well?
Thank God for the lessons of "hindsight," right?
(I am now proud to say that my eyes are clear of
all window treatments.)
Our Memory
Scrapbook, similar to a bank account, ages and
matures, even if our relationships always do not.
This guides us into what is commonly known as "The
Gray Area," the second comedy of the night,
written by and starring Neil Potter and Bethel
Caram. This real life couple have been "committed
to non-commitment," existing in the gray area, the
locale where a relationship is ambiguously
defined.
Receiving bad directions reminds
me of this gray area that Neil and Bethel speak
of. You're lost: possibly in the vicinity, but
still don't exactly know where you are. In a
relationship, the gray area means that you are a
couple, although not completely established, nor
do you always want to be. The only problem lies in
that the rules are flexible and often unclear, you
don't know what direction the relationship is
headed, and you can't turn to an atlas for
guidance.
Neil and Bethel have been in this
noncommittal relationship for eight years. (No,
that is not a typo; I did in fact say eight.) They
admit that being in the gray area is a possible
outcome from being "afraid to grow up." They can't
figure out their relationship because they haven't
figured out themselves yet. This probably accounts
for the hours of soul searching they invest their
time in. Neil is a groupie to motivational speaker
guru, Tony Robins, while Bethel reads self-help
books like The Power of Now, which made
most of the audience laugh at the pitiful ness of
it all. (I didn't feel pathetic when I read that
book…twice…and bought two copies; one for reading
and for decoration.)
Within its dialect,
"The Gray Area" comedic ally captures the essence
and confusion of the differences between men and
women. For example, Bethel suggests that they each
say something nice about one another. She begins
this exercise by saying she enjoys his wonderful
"zesty" personality. Neil replies by telling her
he likes her apartment…(enough said.)
The
"Gray Area" provokes my curiosity about men and
women and if we're truly bred from separate
species: belonging to two different animal
kingdoms. If so, this certainly explains a great
deal. (Now it makes sense why when I communicate
with men, they respond by swinging from tree
branches while scratching their arm pits and
pulling gnats out of their hair.)
There is
no gray area about it: both plays were creatively
written and had impeccable comedic timing. And in
hindsight, I have learned two things about love:
the first is that, although love can seem
torturous at times, it is vital to us like water,
air, food, and porn. Actually, that's not
accurate…we can survive a while without food. And
the second is that, although our Memory Scrapbook
may look messy and unorganized, time and growth
will eventually make our future scrapbook into a
fine piece of artwork, as are these two
performances.
Under St. Marks
|94 St. Marks (8th
Street)
(between Ave A and 1st Ave)
