Philip Glass visits a bakery to buy some bread, and the scene is replayed as a chanted Glass opera. In a cage, three monkeys grouse at their typewriters, condemned to stay there till one of them pounds out Hamlet. Ives is a wondrous wordmaster and, as spiffily directed by Jason McConnell Buzas, these elfin works could be called Stoppard Lite. But they are really Beckett Brisk, for they are about the creative process, frantic and forlorn, of getting through life. They suggest that all human existence is an improvisatory rehearsal for some grand opening night that may never arrive.
Panic is the universal language.
And yet, as Ives shows, rewriting life can produce a happy ending. Meantime, here is an evening of great pleasure and promise. Time Inc. All rights reserved.