Applause! Applause! Review of Revolution In The Elbow Of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter at the Minetta Lane Theatre by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of Revolution In The Elbow Of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter at the Minetta Lane Theatre was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

Revolution In The Elbow Of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter
Minetta Lane Theatre 
18-22 Minetta Lane
New York, New York 10012
Reviewed 8/29/14

This Icelandic, surreal, multimedia, indie rock musical is set in the small nation of Elbowville, which is located in the elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson, a Furniture Painter, who loves watching Robert Redford films. Most of the citizens of Elbowville make a humble living fishing lobsters out of Ragnar's lymphatic system and praying to their god Robert Redford (Praise Bob!), whose movies can be seen up in Eyesockette. If they save enough money, the tiny people of Elbowville might be able to afford a vacation to Knee York, Texass or even Penisylvania. However, the status quo is not enough for Elbowville's leader, Manuela, who seeks to bring increased prosperity to Elbowville through the use of a Prosperity Machine that prints an unlimited number of promissory notes the country can then loan out to people at little or no interest. Revolution In The Elbow Of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter is a cautionary tale about the invention and ultimately predictable collapse of the modern financial system. While the musical may have been inspired by the 2008 economic crash and recession that hit Iceland, the relevance to the United States cannot be understated. The Federal Reserve now prints money out of thin air backed by nothing other than the full faith and credit of the United States, government guarantees cause banks to loan out money to risky enterprises and people who are unable to repay the loans, and the result is inflation and defaults that cause people to lose their life's savings.

When you arrive in the Minetta Lane Theatre, you see a video of a schlubby, oafish, unattractive working man projected on the back wall of the stage, who is presumably Ragnar Agnarsson. He moves around in his chair and occasionally scratches himself. The set and projections were expertly and innovatively designed by Petr Hlousek. The set consists of industrial steps on either side of the stage leading to a high bridge on which some of the action takes place. Bright tubing has been installed and/or projected onto the walls to evoke the veins and arteries of the human body. Much of this state-of-the-art production design is used to move the story forward, such as when the bloody revolution is mostly projected onto the walls instead of being acted out on stage. Stunning, imaginative costumes were designed by Hrafnhildur Arnardottir and Edda Gunmundsdottir. Exciting, innovative choreography was composed by Lee Proud and the show was expertly directed by Bergur Ingolfsson.

The musical's three main characters are Manuela, Elbowville's ambitious, power hungry Mayor, convincingly brought to life by Cady Huffman, a veteran actress who won a Tony Award for her performance in The Producers; Peter, played by Marrick Smith, a talented actor, singer and dancer who, in my opinion, is a hot, new Broadway bound rising star on the path to super stardom; and Alex, Peter's brother, sympathetically portrayed by Graydon Long, a charismatic, attractive actor with an excellent stage presence. The entire cast is top-notch and could easily follow the show to its Broadway debut. The Book, Music and Lyrics of Revolution In The Elbow Of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter are by Ivar Pall Jonsson. The band, which appears on stage, is the impressive Revolutionary Cellular Orchestra. I also need to give kudos to Carl Casella, responsible for the Sound Design, who made certain all the microphones were in perfect working order so the audience could clearly hear every word spoken and/or sung. 

Ivar Pall Jonsson and his brother Gunnlaugur Jonsson are jointly responsible for writing the story and this is where I feel the show deserves some criticism. With respect to the financial issues raised, there is a difference between fiat money and the issuance of promissory notes. If the government was merely issuing fiat money, people would have been angry over the devaluation of the currency and not the fact that the promissory notes could not be redeemed. There are also problems in the story as to the dynamics between the characters and the internal logic of the fantasy world the characters live in. Peter, the entrepreneurial, young man trying to do good for his country by creating the Prosperity Machine, need not have been written as a morally bankrupt asshole. The brothers Jonsson would have done better to write Peter as a sympathetic character, who was just trying to bring prosperity to his fellow citizens without realizing the consequences of his actions. This would have made his ultimate fate more understandable. His brother Alex could have been written as someone who foresaw the potential financial crisis and who left to take a job elsewhere, only to return when he heard the financial collapse had endangered the life of his brothers and their families. Elements of this scenario are already in the script as when Alex says Peter "acted in good faith" and only "wanted everyone to have the good life." As for the internal logic of the fantasy world, why do babies have such a long gestation period, why did the Mayor bronze her uterus and hang it on the wall, and why do some men want shoulder implants while others prefer cuddles? Those aspects of the story need to be better explained and made more internally consistent. It is not enough to be outrageous just for the sake of being outrageous or for a cheap laugh. All that takes place must occur in the context of a well-written story.

The Prosperity Machine enables the government of Elbowville and its banks to give out loans to just about anyone who wants cash and for a while, the country rises on a wave of borrowed wealth. Everyone becomes instantly rich through the magic of easy credit until the tide turns. Inflation causes everything to become more expensive because of all the cash out there chasing a limited number of goods. Mandrake, an out-of-town Bank Examiner, hilariously played by Rick Faugno, then arrives to audit the books and eventually announces that Elbowville's credit rating has been severely downgraded. The government of Elbowville can no longer honor the promissory notes it has issued and they are placed in the position of having to borrow money at a high interest rate to pay off a small portion of its debts, a situation described by Manuela as "needing a loan to pay a loan to pay a loan to pay a loan." Citizens start defaulting on their loan payments resulting in repossessions and general civil unrest. Some pray to Robert Redford (Oh, dear Bob of Hollywood, Protect Us!) while others take to the streets in a bloody revolution. 

At this point, in the last ten minutes of the show, it is very unclear what the ultimate message is. On the one hand, there is a democratic election, where the winner appoints former Mayor Manuela, the cause of the past financial crisis, as Financial Regulator of the new revolutionary government, which looks quite fascist, with flags and security and Manuela standing on the high bridge looking like Eva Peron. Is the message that ignorant citizens will be fooled and will elect leaders from the very same class of professional politicians that caused the financial crisis in the first place or is the message that a right-wing nationalistic government will arise from the ashes as Hitler rose out of the failed Weimar Republic? Even a third scenario is suggested when Alex decides to leave Elbowville given the new fascist government that has taken power. Where is he heading? Galt's Gulch? It is unclear what was intended but the end does leave the audience unsatisfied with respect to outcome and fails to give them closure. 

Revolution In The Elbow Of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter features a cast with extraordinary talent and an excellent soundtrack. This rock musical is artistically and intellectually smart with a message that is insightful and relevant to many financial problems our country faces today. I strongly encourage you to see this show. You will have an enjoyable evening and will leave with a number of interesting questions regarding our current financial system that may haunt you, as well as provide you with insight, for years to come. 

Applause! Applause! Review of The Normal Heart at The EastLine Theatre by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of The Normal Heart at The EastLine Theatre was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

The Normal Heart
The EastLine Theatre 
2123 Wantagh Avenue
Wantagh, New York 11793
Reviewed 8/22/14

Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart was first produced by Joseph Papp Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on April 21, 1985 and ran for 294 performances. There was a 2004 Off-Broadway revival at the Public and on April 19, 2011, the show had its Broadway premiere for a limited 12-week engagement at the Golden Theatre. It won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. A film adaptation debuted on the HBO premium pay cable channel on May 25, 2014. 

The play focuses on the rise of the HIV/AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984 and the struggle of some early gay activists to obtain funding for research and treatment. The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer, who helped found several AIDS-activism groups, including Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). After most performances of the 2011 revival, Kramer personally passed out a dramaturgical flyer detailing some of the real stories behind the play's characters. Kramer wrote that "the character 'Bruce' was based on Paul Popham, the president of the GMHC from 1981 until 1985; 'Tommy' was based on Rodger McFarlane, who was Executive Director of GMHC and a founding member of ACT UP and Broadway Cares; and 'Emma' was modeled after Dr. Linda Laubenstein, who treated some of the first New York cases of what was later known as AIDS." It was clear the character 'Ned' was based on Kramer's own experiences.

The Normal Heart clearly reflects the pain, frustrations and loss suffered by those who had or knew someone who had the as yet undefined virus that attacked the immune systems of mostly gay men. The struggles for recognition of their plight and to obtain funding for research is interesting all on its own. But for me, this play succeeds best in showing the divisions within the gay community with respect to strategy and historical perspective. While Ned, the Larry Kramer character, wants to warn the gay community to stop having promiscuous sex, Mickey, who works for the New York City Board of Health and is a veteran gay activist, argues that after being closeted for so many years, gay liberation means having gay sex without shame and that it is "the only thing that makes us different." Ned, on the other hand, argues that the culture gays have brought to this world for thousands of years since Socrates and Aristotle is very substantive and that "we need to be a proud united community willing to fight back" and that "gay culture needs to be defined by something more than just our cocks." There are other strategic differences featured in this play such as those activists who want to be more accommodating and work within the system versus those willing to take to the streets. Perhaps, as the character Tommy says, "all movements, to succeed, need both." Larry Kramer's character Ned told his brother the new organization, Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), would be a cross between the League of Women Voters and the United States Marines.

There are no weak links in this cast. All the actors performed admirably and put their heart and soul into their respective roles. Most impressive were Michael H. Carlin, who played Mickey, and Matt Rosenberg, who was Tommy Boatwright. Both accurately portrayed the perspectives and mannerisms of their characters so well that I felt I had met individuals similar to them many times throughout the years. Excellent performances! Evan Donnellan was so strong as Ned that he gave me new insight into Larry Kramer's motivations and activism. His performance is a tour de force. Kevin Kelly was Felix, Ned's lover, and Kevin Shaw played Bruce, Ned's nemesis at GMHC. Both handled their roles extremely well. Other cast members contributing to making this play a delight to watch were Michael Schlapp, Lisa Meckes and Patrick A. Reilly.  

EastLine's The Normal Heart is a top-notch, high quality production. It features an extremely talented cast. Whether or not you have seen other productions of this play, I highly recommend you make time to see this show at The EastLine Theatre. You will be moved by the thought-provoking dialogue and impressed with the acting abilities of the performers. The time will fly by and you will be enriched by the experience. Visit EastLine Productions' website at www.eastlineproductions.com for more information.

Applause! Applause! Review of The Boston Tea Party Opera at The Loretto (Sheen Center) by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of The Boston Tea Party Opera at The Loretto (Sheen Center) was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

The Boston Tea Party Opera
The Loretto (Sheen Center)
(18 Bleecker Street, NYC)
Reviewed 8/13/14

Matthew Zachary Johnson composed and produced The Boston Tea Party Opera, which is a part of this year's New York International Fringe Festival. It is a very well researched piece of theater featuring an extremely talented cast. It is also a cautionary tale that the same governmental abuses of excessive taxation, illegal search and seizures, and the lack of respect for the liberty and individual rights of the colonists exhibited by the British Crown may have parallels in some of the same challenges we are facing as a society today. 

I am not certain which version of The Boston Tea Party Opera I saw. It was entered into The New York International Fringe Festival as a three and one half hour production. By opening night, it shrank to two hours and twenty minutes and by the time I saw the show, it had been cut to under two hours. Clearly, songs were being added and dropped right up to the last minute and it appeared more changes were being made every day. There were no sets to speak of and only half the cast members were in colonial outfits. The latter may have been intentional in order to drive the point home that there were analogies you were being invited to draw between then and now. In case you were completely dense, the British officials were outfitted in modern S.W.A.T. gear colored black, red and white. 

The Boston Tea Party Opera covers the period of time from when King George III of England in 1763 sought to tax the American colonies as a way of recouping the war costs of obtaining victory in the French & Indian War through to the Boston Massacre in 1770 and eventually the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Well-known historical figures appearing in the opera include Sam Adams, John Hancock, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, James Otis, Richard Clarke, Crispus Attucks and Paul Revere. The libretto covers the tragedies, victories, acts of defiance, acts of patriotism, and even the romances that might have taken place during this period. The best description of the events contained in The Boston Tea Party Opera is in the Synopsis, printed in the program, which I will quote here in full: In the sweep of events leading up to the America Revolutionary war, loyalist Boston Governor Thomas Hutchinson seeks to clamp down on the increasingly rebellious Sons of Liberty. He seizes tea smuggler John Hancock's ship, the "Liberty." Orator James Otis gives a passionate courtroom speech against such arbitrary exercise of power, only to be attacked by British soldiers. Sam Adams leads the colonists in a boycott of British goods -- which the town's women support with their own efforts. Mrs. Adams is forced to house a threatening group of soldiers. In an incendiary outbreak of violence, colonists are fired upon by the soldiers in a horrific massacre. A great debate, with the leading agitator Sam Adams fervently defending the Rights of the Colonists, leads to an impasse. And finally in the inevitable climax of open rebellion, Paul Revere leads the epochal event that initiated the American Revolution -- the act which preferred the destruction of the tea cargo to the principle of colonial subjugation -- the act that no longer bore, but instead began to cast off the mounting injustice. 

The entire cast was inspiring in light of the talent each possessed. My favorites were Kerry Gotschall, who was particularly strong as Elizabeth Adams, a role intended to encompass the two wives named Elizabeth that Sam Adams married. Colette Boudreaux tenderly played Molly Pitcher, who may not have been a real person but instead a composite image inspired by the actions of a number of women who carried water to men on the battlefield and who, occasionally, may have picked up a musket themselves. In this opera, Molly Pitcher is smitten with Captain James Scott, a smuggler charismatically portrayed by Scott Joiner. Ms. Boudreaux and Mr. Joiner sing a memorable duet together entitled Smuggling Men Can Be So Fine. Finally, Charles Armstrong did an amazingly good job portraying the very pressured Richard Clarke, consignee of the tea that was thrown into Boston Harbor. I am told his background lies in musical theater instead of opera but his presence on stage caught my eye because he gave complexity and depth to the historical character he played.

Matthew Zachary Johnson has said The Boston Tea Party Opera straddles the line between opera and musical theater. He has said he feels future productions will more likely be staged in an off-Broadway setting than in Opera Houses throughout the world. That may very well happen since this show should be able to obtain pro-liberty investors and has a core group of potential patriotic audience members eager to be supportive of the underlying message of the show. For me, however, The Boston Tea Party Opera doesn't work well in its current form as either opera or musical theater. The audience members I spoke to during intermission and after the show were not at all pleased with the production and shared with me criticisms and opinions with which I was in agreement. Having actors playing dual roles was confusing. The sets don't need to be elaborate but the show certainly needs more than a British flag, a desk, two milk cartons and some blue and red ribbons. The costumes need to be all colonial or all modern. I would favor all colonial but I would keep the British authority figures in their S.W.A.T. gear to make the point that the challenges faced by our colonial ancestors are universal in all times and countries.

I think the show needs to be re-imagined as Boston Tea Party: The Musical, a non-operatic piece of musical theater produced with a book or distinct vignettes. The opera singers need to go and the show needs a director to pull things together more tightly. The length of the production is not the issue. It can be two hours or three and a half hours as long as it's good. Only in this new format can the quality of the writing and composing be best evaluated. The underlying story is worth telling and I commend Matthew Zachary Johnson for attempting to tell it. The show portrays a part of history with relevance to the citizens of our country and suggests we need to be on guard against a government not fully respectful of our individual rights and liberties. That's a message everyone needs to hear. 

Nick Di Iorio, Republican Party Nominee for Congress (CD12-NY), Speaks On Rising Action Radio About His Background & His Positions On Foreign & Domestic Policy Issues

Nick Di Iorio, the Republican Party nominee for Congress in the 12th Congressional District (New York) who is running against incumbent Democrat Representative Carolyn Maloney, was interviewed by Dr. Tom Stevens on two 30-minute shows on Rising Action Radio regarding his background and his positions on foreign and domestic policy issues. Many substantive and complex issues were discussed and I encourage you to listen to both broadcasts. A brief and incomplete summary of what was discussed follows.

During the first show, Mr. Di Iorio revealed he grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and from 2004-2010 studied to be a Catholic priest in a Jesuit Seminary in Boston, leaving and moving to New York in 2010 because of a continuing attraction he had to being married and having a family. When in New York, he lived in the Bronx and attended Fordham University (Rose Hill Campus) where after two years he obtained a Master's Degree in Philosophy. He considers himself to be a practicing Roman Catholic but personally disagrees with the positions of the Catholic Church on contraception and homosexual acts. He agrees with the Catholic Church that the Devil is real and not just a mythological personification of evil and that women should not be ordained as priests. On the issue of miracles, he said, "There are undeniable moments where things have happened in the created and natural order which cannot be explained by nature, which cannot be explained by science. I do believe in miracles." Regarding prayer, Mr. Di Iorio does believe God answers prayers, but "in His time, not in our time."

Regarding foreign policy, Mr. Di Iorio said he is a strong supporter of Israel and he believes "its survival and stability is crucial for the development of Western Democracy." He does believe our current level of financial support for Israel is probably too high and said, "Israel has done a great job of maintaining economic stability. We should really question how much we give to Israel based on its own economic stability." He opposes Israel trading "land for peace". Regarding that issue, he said, "The Palestinians and Hamas are really concerned with Killing Jews and no matter how much land Israel gives back will not change that mindset." He would be open to Jerusalem and all other Holy Sites "being governed or being at least secured and maintained by a third party, an independent entity that would secure Jerusalem and allow the followers of all three major religions a legitimate opportunity to worship at their Holy Sites." With respect to Russia, Mr. Di Iorio would not use military force to defend the sovereignty of the rest of Ukraine should Russia take it over but he would use military force, even if it meant going to war with Russia, to defend the sovereignty of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. To hear the full recording of this first segment, go to http://tobtr.com/s/6752765       

During the second show covering domestic policy issues, Mr. Di Iorio said he would oppose efforts to make Washington, D.C. a state and would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned so each state could decide whether to make abortion legal or not within its borders. He would also oppose any federal definition of marriage and would want each state to decide whether or not to recognize same-sex marriages. Ideally, he would like the government to get out of the marriage licensing business and would end all tax advantages granted to married couples to the disadvantage of single individuals. He would decriminalize marijuana but legalize it for medicinal purposes. He also believes the Federal Government "should not be making decisions about what you can or cannot use in the privacy of your own lives" and "shouldn't be telling people what is and is not good." 

Regarding taxation, Mr. Di Iorio would establish a 25% corporate tax rate, end loopholes and lower but broaden the base of those paying taxes so everyone has some "skin in the game." He is very much a proponent of free trade and believes it allows our values of human dignity and democracy to be spread throughout the world. He opposes the Federal Reserve printing money out of thin air and said, "Every time the Federal Reserve prints a dollar, the value of a dollar in New York State goes down. You cannot print money you don't have." He would fast-track naturalization for law-abiding immigrant families and would consider supporting the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (D.R.E.A.M.) Act but not until we have fully secured our border. To hear a full recording of the second segment, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/risingaction/2014/08/04/nick-di-iorio--congressional-candidate-cd12-ny-on-domestic-issues.   

To learn more about Nick Di Iorio's campaign, visit his website at http://www.nickfornewyork.com/ 

Applause! Applause! Review of Kevin Scott Hall's A Quarter Inch From My Heart: A Memoir by Andrew P. Clunn

This review of Kevin Scott Hall's book A Quarter Inch From My Heart: A Memoir was written by Andrew P. Clunn and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

A Quarter Inch From My Heart: A Memoir
Author: Kevin Scott Hall
Publisher: Wisdom Moon Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1938459245
Reviewed 7/16/14

A Quarter Inch From My Heart: A Memoir is Kevin Scott Hall's second book, and first non-fiction title, a memoir about his tumultuous relationship with his on-and-off roommate Maurice. The chapters often alternate, with sections chronicling Kevin's life before meeting Maurice, and others covering the progression of their relationship. Maurice is a troubled man, losing everything in hurricane Katrina, and Kevin intends to put things right. Of course Kevin is also troubled, and his drive to mend Maurice's life clearly has some roots in his own need for validation and direction. While the events of Kevin's memoir are tragic (drug addiction, AIDS, the loss of friends, and unprovoked violence), the real draw is in his reactions to them, presented in naked introspection.

There's a lack of pretense at internal continuity that makes this such an honest memoir. Many people pretend at being rational, claiming that the views they hold now have always been a part of them, hiding the conflict and uncertainty of their resolve behind retroactively constructed narrative. Kevin makes no attempts at this. He embraces his emotional fickle nature and lays it bare on the page. There's a passage where Kevin has had it with Maurice, when he was left to move apartments on his own while Maurice disappeared for a half week bender. He is done. He's tired of being used. Of being lied to. Of being expected to carry the weight of another human being unwilling to change and seemingly ungrateful for everything he's done for him. Then, within the same page, he reverses himself, knowing full well that his friends won't understand, but that he just is not going to give up on Maurice.

This honesty, about Kevin's failures, his personal tragedies, and the raw emotions that guide his choices make him a deeply sympathetic narrator of his own life. I found myself instinctively judging and scoffing at his decisions, but consistently disarmed by his frankness. "Going to New York to try to pursue a career as a performer." How naive, I thought. Then as he openly discussed the things he learned through his attempts at such a career, failures up front, I was left grateful for the lessons rather than condemning his choice. "Oh, you have a therapist for your depression. So now you're going to talk about how damaged and fragile you are, right?" Then he shared his story of being stabbed by a stranger on the street.

Granted, this infectious sympathy doesn't mean that I'd take life coaching advice from Kevin. The fact that the memoir so effectively made me empathize with him only heightened my frustration with his choices because I cared about the outcome. In some ways this allowed me to further relate to his relationship with Maurice. Here he was, knowing the plight of his friend, knowing he has it within him to be more than a victim of his failures, and yet helpless to change him or make better decisions for him. Less is expected of the reader by Kevin than of Kevin by Maurice of course, but there's a similar lesson. Another person's story is theirs to write, and your only choice is whether to keep participating by reading along. 

Were I a religious person, I'd likely have found this to be an inspirational work. Faith certainly plays a prominent role in the choices and outlook that Kevin has during his time with Maurice. For me though, I see it as a character study, an honest look at events through the thoughts and perspectives of the man who lived them, providing insight into a novel way of thinking. This is a book that made me feel as though I knew a person. It didn't try to make me like them, or agree with them, but just honestly let me know them. And I came away realizing that is exactly what I think a memoir ought to be. Worth reading to the end.

Applause! Applause! Review of StageLight Entertainment's Bat Boy: The Musical at The BACCA Arts Center by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of StageLight Entertainment's production of Bat Boy: The Musical at The BACCA Arts Center was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

Bat Boy: The Musical
StageLight Entertainment Production
The BACCA Arts Center (149 Wellwood Avenue, Lindenhurst, NY)
Reviewed 7/11/14

Bat Boy: The Musical, with book written by Keythe Farley & Brian Flemming and music and lyrics written by Laurence O'Keefe, is based on a June 23, 1992 Weekly World News story about a half-boy, half-bat dubbed "Bat Boy" who grew up living in a cave. It was first developed at The Directors Company and had its world premiere at Tim Robbins' Actors Gang Theatre on October 31, 1997 in Los Angeles. The musical opened off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre on March 21, 2001 closing on December 2, 2001. It played at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and then opened in the West End at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on September 8, 2004 running through January 15, 2005. Bat Boy: The Musical won awards for best Off-Broadway musical including the Lucille Lortel Award, two Richard Rodgers Awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and the Outer Critics Circle Award in 2001.

The story is intentionally ridiculous. Dr. Thomas Parker, a young veterinarian developing a prototype pheromone for cows accidentally spills it on Meredith, his assistant, causing him to rape her in a fit of sexual desire. While on her way home, Meredith is sexually violated again by a colony of bats and nine months later, she gives birth to a girl, who they name Shelley, and to a half-bat baby boy who Dr. Parker eventually leaves at the mouth of a cave, where the baby is adopted and brought up by bats. Years later, three spelunkers, Ron, Rick & Ruthie Taylor discover Bat Boy, who bites Ruthie in the neck. They bring him back alive and Sheriff Reynolds places him in the custody of Dr. Parker and his now wife Meredith, who names him Edgar and educates him to the point where he is able to obtain his High School Equivalency Diploma. The citizens of the fictitious town of Hope Falls, West Virginia fear Edgar and want him killed blaming many incidents taking place in the town on him but they correctly assume he needs animal blood to sustain his life. This is all as you might expect it to be but then in the second act of this musical, things really start to get crazy: Pan shows up with woodland creatures, Shelley sleeps with her brother/step-brother, Dr. Parker turns into a mass murderer and many of the main characters eventually end up dead.

This production of Bat Boy: The Musical, directed by Christopher Rosselli, is worth going to if for no other reason than to have the opportunity to see Philip Martinez play Bat Boy (Edgar). He is a very talented actor with a commanding stage presence and a great voice. Whether singing "Show You A Thing Or Two", "Let Me Walk Among You" or "Inside Your Heart" (a duet beautifully sung with Kelsey Gronda, who played Shelley), audience members sat up in their seats whenever he appeared on stage. His performance alone is worth the price of admission. Two musical numbers I liked which involved the townsfolk were "Another Dead Cow" and "A Joyful Noise". Skyler Rudolfsky put his heart into performing the dual role of Rick Taylor and Rev. Hightower. I was particularly impressed with the performance of Austin Koenigstein, who played both Bud and Pan. Also worthy of note are Anthony Morano and Jarrett Dichter, two talented young actors who appeared in this production and have a great future in the theater. Anthony Morano, who played Ned, has a wholesome, charismatic look about him while Jarrett Dichter, who primarily had the role of Ron Taylor, played the part as a somewhat nerdy, awkward kid and succeeded in bring that minor character to life.

I won't lie. This production has problems some of which were no doubt the result of having too little time to rehearse and there being so many actors on stage at the same time. The opening number saw some cast members singing off key and out of harmony resulting in an assault on my ears that caused me to cringe in pain. The pace of the first act was somewhat slow but things did move at a faster pace once we got to the second act. With respect to the actors in this production I have not mentioned, I personally would have made different casting decisions for a number of the roles. All in all, everyone performed well enough to carry their own weight. However, different actors may have been able to develop each role to present a more distinct personality for some of the characters.

StageLight Entertainment went all out to create an appropriate atmosphere to set the stage for Bat Boy: The Musical. The crew wore "Bite Me" t-shirts and "bat cupcakes" were sold at concessions. The program reported that "Three or four animals were harmed in the making of this production. Sorry." Speaking of the program, it contained the names of the actors and the parts they played and it had all the cast member photos on a separate page but it didn't put the two together with a short bio of each actor, which is the very least I feel every actor deserves for devoting their time to the production. A final note of warning. I was surprised to learn upon my arrival that seats were not being assigned on a first come, first serve basis and that if you want to sit where you prefer, you must reserve your seat on line and early to get the seats you want.

If you haven't seen Bat Boy: The Musical, this is a good opportunity to find out what it is all about. You can buy tickets by visiting the StageLight Entertainment website at http://www.StageLightEnt.com or by calling 631-592-8563. 

Applause! Applause! Review of Theatre Time's Twelve Angry Men at the Colonial Church of Bayside by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of Theatre Time's production of the play Twelve Angry Men at the Colonial Church of Bayside was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

Twelve Angry Men
Theatre Time Production
Colonial Church of Bayside (54-02 217th Street, Bayside, NY)
Reviewed 6/21/14

Twelve Angry Men is a drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the jury deliberations of twelve men in a homicide trial of a 16-year old inner-city, troubled youth accused of killing his father with a switch-blade knife. It was made for the Studio One anthology television series and aired as a CBS live production on September 20, 1954. In 1955, it was adapted for the stage and in 1957, it was made into a movie directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda as Juror #8. The film received three Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2004, the Roundabout Theatre Company staged a Broadway production of the play and in November, 2013, a London West End production opened at the Garrick Theatre. This Theatre Time production of Twelve Angry Men is as good as any I have seen. I highly recommend you go to see it.

The play is not about whether the accused is guilty or innocent. The fact is no one knows for sure. The play is more about what constitutes reasonable doubt and the struggle to achieve a just jury verdict. The men deliberating on that verdict bring to the table prejudices, anger, indifference, unreliable judgments, different perspectives, fears and diverse personalities that threaten to taint their rational decision-making abilities. This production is set in a New York County Criminal Court Jury Room (overlooking the Woolworth Building) circa 1957 and successfully evokes the cultural sensitivities of that time. Although we never find out the race or ethnic background of  the 16-year old indigent, minority, slum-dwelling defendant, we do learn his mother died when he was nine years old, that he lived as an orphan for one and a half years while his father spent time in jail for forgery, and that he has a criminal record. 

Just as Juror #10, who has strong racist tendencies, is more than eager to assume the boy is guilty, Juror #8 is inclined to give the boy the benefit of the doubt, concerned that his Court-appointed attorney may not have done the best he could in putting up a defense and cross-examining the prosecution's witnesses. The play remains interesting to the end as a diverse group of twelve jurors (all male, mostly middle-aged, white, and generally middle class status) deliberate after hearing the "facts" in a seemingly open-and-shut case and later, as each piece of evidence is further examined, become less and less certain of those "facts" as jury deliberations continue.

Kevin C. Vincent directed the production and was Juror #8 (the first juror to vote Not Guilty). The play was presented "in the round", which was an excellent choice that allowed audience members to see the actors from all angles as jury deliberations progressed. Kevin C. Vincent played Juror #8 as a soft-spoken, calm, cool-headed, rational truth-seeking architect who simply had doubts about whether the defendant was guilty as charged. Bernard Bosio played the hot-headed, combative Juror #3 (owner of a messenger service called the "Beck & Call" Company), the last hold-out voting Guilty after everyone else had admitted to having some "reasonable doubt". Bosio's final speech was intense and memorable as he recounts feeling as if the defendant had thrust the knife into his own heart, just as his son had figuratively done to him. You could hear a pin drop during Mr. Bosio's final scene when it became increasingly clear that his anger at his estranged son was blinding his judgment. Eric Leeb did a great job portraying Juror #4, the well-educated, well-dressed stockbroker who was cool-headed and rational and the main voice of reason for those arguing in favor of a Guilty verdict. Jim Haines was garage-owner Juror #10, who was more than willing to send the defendant to the electric chair simply because of the racial stereotypes he believed gave him insight into the kind of boy this particular kid was. Mr. Haines did a top-notch job in the role but his shirt was somehow unable to remain tucked-in causing a wardrobe malfunction that was distracting.

Tim Reifschneider was Juror #1, who successfully portrayed the high-school assistant head-coach who didn't want the responsibility of Jury Foreman but who did the best he could to keep the discussions on track. Michael Pichardo convincingly played the relatively simple-minded, meek Juror #2 who was obviously not on the same intellectual level as his fellow jurors but who did have a better memory than Juror #4 in recalling a film title. Paul Robilotto was Juror #5, who grew up in a slum himself, had knowledge about the proper use of switch-blades and who was nick-named Milwaukee by Juror #7 because he liked the Brewers. Mr. Robilotto was so excited to be appearing in this production that he broke out into a hora step during the curtain call, perhaps reflecting the fact that his character may have grown up in a Jewish slum on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Ray Bendana was perfectly cast as Juror #6, a typical "working man" (probably a manual laborer or a painter) who was respectful and protective of older Juror #9 and was willing to back that up with his fists, if necessary. Juror #9 was brought to life by Johnny Dee Damato. Jef. Lawrence was effective as Juror #7, the baseball obsessed, marmalade salesman, who just wanted to leave as soon as possible so he could attend an evening Yankees game he had tickets to. Marty Edelman was very believable as Juror #11, the watchmaking, refuge from Central Europe with a heavy accent (implied to be Jewish), who expresses reverence and respect for American democracy and its system of justice. Finally, Jim Percival held his own as Juror #12, the business ad man, who was easily swayed and used advertising talk when expressing his ideas.

This Theatre Time production of Twelve Angry Men is a winner in every way. It received an enthusiastic, standing ovation by every member of the audience in a packed house on opening night. I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to catch this production and I suggest you not miss it. General Admission is $17.00 (Seniors $15.00). Purchase your tickets at http://www.theatretime.org 

Applause! Applause! Review of StageLight Entertainment's Die, Mommie, Die! at The BACCA Arts Center by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of StageLight Entertainment's production of the play Die, Mommie, Die! at The BACCA Arts Center was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

Die, Mommie, Die!
StageLight Entertainment Production
The BACCA Arts Center (149 Wellwood Avenue, Lindenhurst, NY)
Reviewed 5/31/14

Die, Mommie, Die! was written by Charles Busch. The play was first produced at the Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles, California in 1999 where it won an Ovation Award. A film was made in 2003 and in 2007, it was produced in New York for the first time at New World Stages starring Charles Busch in the lead role of Angela/Barbara Arden. The production won a Lucille Lortel Award and was nominated for Drama Desk, American Theatre Wing and Outer Critics Circle Awards. 

This comic, over-the-top, campy melodrama is meant to evoke faded images of long gone movie divas like Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner and Bette Davis. The main character in the play is Angela Arden, a former singer and actress from northwest Saskatchewan, Canada who was forced to retire after the death of her twin sister Barbara, when critics and audiences alike concluded she seemed to have lost all her talent. Given her horrible marriage to film producer Sol Sussman, who owes 20 million dollars to the mob, Ms. Arden has taken a young lover, Tony Parker, an out-of-work actor who is also sleeping with her daughter Edie and her son Lance. Sol finds out about the affair but refuses to divorce her keeping her in a living hell with him as the prison warden. What's a girl to do when her husband cuts up her credit cards? Kill him, of course! Angela believes she has accomplished the task by poisoning his suppository. Suddenly Angela goes on an LSD trip, their maid Bootsie Karp appears to have accidentally poisoned herself, scissors get thrown, Edie's hymen breaks, Lance gets a tongue bath, someone tries to kill Angela, FBI agents show up, Jews promise to become Christians and raise money for Richard Nixon, and, incredibly, although all is forgiven, Barbara, who everyone expected was alive from the first minutes of the play, walks off in grande dame style to accept responsibility for her actions.

Chris Rosselli takes on the tough task of playing Angela/Barbara Arden. Chris is a man playing a woman just as Charles Busch played the original role but it is very important he be more than a drag queen. He must transcend all humor potentially obtained solely from the drag element and must play the role "straight". Although Chris Rosselli is far more low key, laid back and less frenetic than Charles Busch in the role, he pulls it off well, gathering sympathy for the character earlier in the play rather than later. I was pleased with his performance even though he didn't milk the diva element as much as he could have. Salvatore Casto was perfectly cast as Lance Sussman, Sol's homosexual son who was thrown out of college for being a bad influence on the faculty. He was allegedly discovered with the eight male professors of the Math Department being spun around nude on a Lazy Susan. Lance is hated by his father, loved by his mother and teased by his sister, all resulting in some undefined "emotional problems" for which he sees a psychiatrist. Salvatore Casto is a very talented actor with great potential and he gave the role of Lance his all, even though it appears he was denied the opportunity to play the part to the fullest effect possible. 

Michael H. Carlin directed the production and did a good job with the exception of two fatal flaws. The first is the excruciatingly slow pace of this show. Most productions of Die, Mommie, Die! run 90 minutes usually without an intermission. This production ran almost three hours. Even given the intermission, it was a full hour longer than it should have been. The dialogue and scenes seemed to drag at times (no pun intended). This is an easily correctable problem but it should have been addressed prior to opening night. The second flaw is that all the passionate, gay intimacy present in the second act between Lance and Tony somehow never made it onto the stage. Whatever hang-ups the director might have about presenting gay intimacy on stage or regarding the difference in ages between Lance and Tony, he should not deny the audience the opportunity to see the play as Charles Busch intended. I am very certain Salvatore Casto could have handled the situation well. I am not that confident that Mike McKasty could have done the same as Tony Parker. I have no idea what the Casting Directors were thinking putting Mike McKasty in this role. Tony Parker is a character that must exude sexuality and it must be believable he would be able to seduce Angela Arden, as well as her two children. Mr. McKasty doesn't have those qualities and is far too old for the part, which is a major problem since he is such a central character in the story. Beyond that, Mr. McKasty was very uncertain delivering his lines, often hesitating and correcting himself when he started to misspeak. Even the sock he stuffed down his pants to make him appear well-endowed was off-center and disturbingly distracting.

Jessie Maldonado was well-suited to play Edie Sussman, an unlikeable, self-absorbed daddy's girl, as was Guy DeMatties, who was Sol Sussman, the egotistic, homophobic film producer husband of Angela Arden. I don't know whether it was the actors or the director who made the very bad decision to encourage the two of them to intimately and passionately embrace in a manner that suggested they were on the verge of sleeping together (if they hadn't already crossed that line), which was buttressed by the presence of their maid Bootsie Karp, competently portrayed by Kerry Quirke, who clearly acted as if she wanted to be part of a threesome with them when she sat next to them on the coach trying to intertwine her arms and legs with theirs. I understand there may be some Freudian interpretation that would support Edie's hidden, subconscious desire to sleep with her father, but it shouldn't have been made so explicitly manifest resulting in some extremely uncomfortable scenes. Bootsie had the funniest line in the show when she turned to Lance, after he was supposed to have handled Tony Parker's eleven inch tool, and said, innocently, "Sometimes you have to face things that are hard to swallow."

I had never been to a StageLight Entertainment production at The BACCA (Babylon Citizens Council on the Arts) Arts Center and I am pleased to report it is a cozy little theater with a friendly staff, reasonably priced concessions and a good, general admission seating policy. Great attention to detail was paid in putting up the set and the company deserves credit for tackling such a challenging production. I had a very enjoyable evening and I highly recommend you see StageLight Entertainment's production of Die, Mommie, Die! while you have the chance. You can obtain more information about StageLight Entertainment productions by visiting their website at http://www.StageLightEnt.com

Applause! Applause! Review of The Compleat Wrks Of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) at Parkside Players by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of the play The Compleat Wrks Of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)  at Parkside Players was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

The Compleat Wrks Of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)
Parkside Players
Grace Lutheran Church (103-05 Union Turnpike, Forest Hills, NY)
Reviewed 5/24/14

The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (also known as The Compleat Wrks Of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)) was written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield, founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company (a three-man comedy troupe that takes long, serious subjects and reduces them to short, sharp comedies). The play was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987 and later played at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus, London, where it ran for nine years. It has become one of the world's most popular shows and is notable for holding the (self-proclaimed) world record for the shortest-ever performance of Hamlet, clocking in at 43 seconds, as well as the fastest performance of Hamlet backwards, at 42 seconds.

The play is a frenetic, fast-paced comedy in which three actors present abridged versions of all of the works of William Shakespeare in one gigantic and entertaining parody with modern cultural and local references, improvisation and audience participation thrown in.  The book does not fully commit to presenting abridged versions of all of William Shakespeare's works but it does give a broad overview of those works dwelling on plays, scenes and characters ripe for parody and satire. All the parts in the production are performed by Kevin Schwab (The Scholar), Nili Resnick (The Aesthete) and Johnny Young (The Third One), who refer to each other by their real names. The play opens with The Third One giving a brief biography of The Bard he took off Wikipedia (not an authoritative reference source, for those who don't know it), which conflates William Shakespeare's life with that of Adolf Hitler. 

The first act starts with an abridged version of Romeo & Juliet. Sometimes the actors perform as if they were Bill & Ted, the 1980s time traveling slackers from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Other times, they alter a line for comic effect, such as saying "a nose by any other name would still smell" instead of "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". When Romeo swears "by yonder virgin", he looks at an audience member and says "No, I don't think so!" and when Juliet takes Romeo's dagger to kill herself, it is only one-inch long, to which she says, "that's Romeo!". Afterwards, Titus Andronicus is performed as a cooking show, Othello is performed as a Rap Song once The Third One is made aware that Shakespeare's "Moor" refers to a Black Man and not to the mooring of ships, and finally, The Histories are performed as a football game with the Crown replacing the football. The sixteen Comedies are blended together and performed as one play. The Tragedies and Apocrypha are also handled in brief form with emphasis on Macbeth, The Scottish Play.

The second act focused primarily on Hamlet ending with the 43 second version and the 42 second backwards version. The play within a play in Hamlet was performed by The Cherry Danish Puppet Theatre. I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but in the 3 second version of Hamlet, everyone just dies all at once.

I was very impressed with the performance of Kevin Schwab, who wore many hats and is an impressive, talented and charismatic actor. I particularly enjoyed his impersonation of Paul Lyndius (i.e. Paul Lynde). He also had a few other good lines. When The Third One said "He comes before me!", Kevin Schwab responded, "I am sorry to hear that!". When, as Romeo, he kissed a reluctant Third One as Juliet in drag on the lips, he responded, jokingly, "that was totally worth it". Finally, when he couldn't find "a big strapping man" in the audience to play Ego on stage, he said, "that explains a lot!". Mr. Schwab even pulled out his "Little Willie" and showed it to the audience. Nili Resnick and Johnny Young more than held their own throughout the production. Their funniest interaction was when Mr. Young referred to a line in one of Shakespeare's plays where money was borrowed from "an old Jew". Ms. Reznick objected and Mr. Young changed the line to "a young Jew", which apparently satisfied her.

I highly recommend this fun, entertaining show. It can equally please those who love Shakespeare who will appreciate all the erudite references as well as those who have never read Shakespeare and hate serious theatre. My only criticism is that this production seems to have been intentionally cleansed to make it a PG version of the play instead of the R rating presentation this show deserves. Had three men performed the various roles instead of two men and a woman, there would have been more opportunities for cross-dressing and homoerotically charged exchanges between characters in "hetereosexual" relationships, which would have been more faithful to the all-male casts of original Shakespeare productions in which young men played most of the female roles due to the fact that women were forbidden to act on stage. That is simply not possible in a PG version with Ms. Reznick and Mr. Young in the cast. Nevertheless, no audience member will leave without feeling they got their money's worth, which is good since it is made very clear in the beginning of the play that there would be "no refunds".

Applause! Applause! Review of Night Must Fall at Douglaston Community Theatre by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of the play Night Must Fall at Douglaston Community Theatre was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 4 (2014) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

Night Must Fall
Douglaston Community Theatre
Zion Episcopal Church Parish Hall (243-01 Northern Blvd., Douglaston, NY)
Reviewed 5/2/14

Night Must Fall was written by Emlyn Williams (born George Emlyn Williams in Pen-y-Ffordd, Mostyn, Flintshire in northeast Wales). It opened in London with Emlyn Williams in the lead role of Dan in 1935. There were two film adaptations of the play: one in 1937, with Robert Montgomery playing Dan, and one in 1964, with Albert Finney as Dan. There was a National Actors Theatre's revival of the play on Broadway in 1999 at the Lyceum Theatre with Matthew Broderick in the lead role. In this Douglaston Community Theatre production of Night Must Fall, Gary Tifeld successfully portrays the duplicitous nature of Dan, the charming Welsh bellhop who used to work at The Tallboys Hotel, who endears himself to the unbearable, rich and controlling Mrs. Bramson, an apparent invalid convincingly played by Marilyn Welsher. The play is set in 1935 at Forest Corner, Mrs. Bramson's bungalow in Essex.

Within the first two minutes of the play, The Lord Chief Justice informs us in a voiceover that two people have been killed and that the appeal of the murderer from the sentence of death has been denied. The play has been universally advertised as a "psychological thriller" with the implication it is a whodunit. While it is true the identity of the killer is not formally revealed until the end of the play, the audience has little doubt not only who the killer is but also who the second victim is going to be. The first victim is a Mrs. Chalfont, who we never see but who we learn was a guest at The Tallboys Hotel before she went missing. Night Must Fall is not, in my opinion, a "psychological thriller" nor is it a "whodunit" so if you are coming to see this play with that expectation, you will be very disappointed.

Night Must Fall would be more accurately titled Five Foolish Women and Emlyn Williams wrote the female characters in a manner that perpetuates the very worst stereotypes of women. First we have Dora Parkoe, a bumbling, half-witted, simple-minded maid, who allows herself to get impregnated by the charismatic Welsh bellhop Dan. Kelly Schmidt does a good job portraying the innocent nature of Dora and has a strong stage presence. Next we have Mrs. Bramson, whose original plan was to convince Dan to marry Dora but after meeting him, is enchanted with his charm and hires him as her Caretaker, soon confiding in him regarding the whereabouts of her money and treating him as "the son she never had." The con job he is pulling never seems to register on her radar screen and her pride and ego blind her to the fact that Danny is a cool and calculating liar who is totally indifferent to Dora, the future mother of his child. Marilyn Welsher successfully brings out the evil in her character and no one is sorry when she gets her just reward. Mrs. Terence, the plainspoken, feisty housekeeper and cook, is pretty certain there is a murderer in the house but when asked why she just doesn't leave, answers that the villagers are relying on her for the latest gossip. Laurie Dentale does a good job exhibiting the many facets of this character. The first victim, Mrs. Chalfont, is revealed as an older, married woman of stature, who constantly demanded sex from the lower-class Dan when he worked at The Tallboys. The fifth foolish woman was Mrs. Bramson's penniless niece, Olivia Grayne, who almost immediately senses the artificiality of Dan's exaggerated amiability and suspects he is putting on a facade to hide something sinister yet she becomes increasingly attracted to him especially when he exhibits aspects of his darker side. Annette Daiell successfully carries off the challenging task of showing both the intelligent nature of this character and the psychological disorders that cause her to fall in love with a serial killer, even if it means risking her own life. Rounding out this fine ensemble cast was Cathy Cosgrove, who played Nurse Libby; Joe Pepe, who was Inspector Belsize; and Dan Bubbeo, who portrayed Hubert Laurie, Olivia's would be suitor. All handled their roles extremely well.

If you come to see Night Must Fall looking for the psychological complexities of the Five Foolish Women, you will not be disappointed. Dan, on the other hand, was far less interesting to me. He is simply a charismatic con artist and a murderer, who is most likely insane. This production of Night Must Fall features a very talented cast and offers the audience an opportunity to experience this classic play for a reasonable price. You will also learn that not everyone stores hats in hat boxes. Sometimes a glued hat box can prevent you from seeing what it contains and also stop you from seeing what might be looking back at you from inside.  

Upcoming productions of Night Must Fall will be on Sunday, May 4th and Saturday, May 10th at 2:00 p.m., Friday, May 9th & Saturday, May 10th at 8:00 p.m., and Friday, May 16th & Saturday, May 17th at 8:00 p.m.; $17.00 for Adults, $15.00 for Seniors & Students with ID. Call 718-482-3332 to reserve your seats. Douglaston Community Theatre is the oldest active theatre company in Queens County, having been founded in 1950.    

The True Identity, Age & Nationality Of Dallwyn Hamnilton Merck Comes To Light

Dallwyn Hamnilton Merck died on November 10, 2013. His Death Certificate indicates he was 75 years old, having been born on February 11, 1938. He claims to have been a citizen of the United States due to his being born on a ship docked in the territorial waters of American Samoa. At the time of his death, Dallwyn was Secretary of the Libertarian Party of Queens County and served on the Governing Board of the Objectivist Party. He held many other positions in numerous organizations and was considered a dedicated liberty activist.

The reality, which has been recently discovered, is that Dallwyn Hamnilton Merck, was born on February 11, 1928, making him 85 years old at the time of his death, not 75. He was also not born in American Samoa but in Sydney, Australia and his birth name was Allan Robert Hamilton.

Dallwyn married Helen Elizabeth Bundrock on March 29, 1952 when he was 24 years old. Dallwyn (Allan) listed his profession as "Engineer" at the time and Helen's profession was noted as being "Secretary". Dallwyn (Allan) had two children: Ivan Hamilton, who was born on July 8, 1953; and Alexa Jessop nee Hamilton, who was born on February 13, 1955. Dallwyn was raised Catholic because his mother was Catholic but his wife was Protestant and intense interference in Dallwyn's marriage by his mother eventually led to their separation in 1962. They were divorced in 1963 or 1964. Donald Robinson, who later served as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney from 1982-1993, officiated at Dallwyn's wedding and at the baptism of his first born son, Ivan Trevor Hamilton. Dallwyn's ex-wife, Helen, passed away in August, 1991.

Dallwyn's father was Allan Miller Hamilton (born March 5, 1908; died about October 26, 1993) and his mother was Mary Catherine Hamilton nee Newcombe (born June 20, 1908; died June 3, 1995). They married on September 6, 1927 when they were 19 years old in what could be described as a "shot-gun wedding". Dallwyn was born just over five (5) months later on February 11, 1928. Dallwyn always said his parents died sliding off a cliff on a snowy night in the mountains of South America and that their bodies were never recovered. The glee with which he told this story, which was clearly untrue, shows the depth of anger he maintained toward both of them.

Dallwyn has a younger brother, Brian Andrew Hamilton, and a sister, Jean Mary Machon, who both are alive and reside in Sydney, Australia.

Allan Robert Hamilton came to America in or around 1987 in order to start a new life as Dallwyn Hamnilton Merck. We know he was estranged from his family and perhaps he hoped that with the name change, he could finally cut all ties and "disappear", so to speak. It is also likely he chose to say he was just under 50 years old instead of being just under 60 so he would have more opportunities to obtain work and enter into new relationships here in the United States. Much is still unknown.

Dallwyn Hamnilton Merck was an aviation enthusiast. Alden Link, a pilot, distributed Dallwyn Merck's ashes from his plane over the Mohonk Mountain Preserve on Tuesday, December 3, 2013 at about 3 p.m. (The Mohonk Preserve is located in the Shawangunk Ridge, a section of the Appalachian Mountains, 90 miles north of New York City in Ulster County, New York).

Frederick Cookinham, a member of the Libertarian Party of Queens County and author of the book The Age Of Rand: Imagining An Objectivist Future World, has called Dallwyn Hamnilton Merck an "International Man Of Mystery."

Tom Rossman on Common Law Juries: A Coup By Any Other Name

Thomas Adair Rossman wrote the following article regarding John Darash and the National Liberty Alliance's proposal to form Common Law Juries throughout the United States. Tom Rossman is an emerging global thought leader in improving political and economic decision making. He is the author of The Synthesis Revolution: New Thinking for a New Era of Prosperity, released in November 2012 by Eudaimonia Publishing and currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Libertarian Party of Queens County:

"If I were to tell you that a God-fearing, patriotic American was proposing the single greatest exercise in social engineering since Maoist-Leninist-Marxism became the ruling dogma of China in 1949, your initial instincts would be opposed to such a movement. However, if I wrapped the message in the seemingly beneficial cloak of  ‘liberty’, appeals to amorphous natural law, individual sovereignty, and threw in some ‘Great Awakening’ language, topped off with a biting critique of the current U.S. political system, you might be more amenable to considering it. No?  

The National Liberty Alliance strikes me as a well-meaning group of people who do not fully grasp the last three and a half centuries of political history. I am in complete agreement that our current system of government is in need of serious and deep reform, however, we have a mechanism in place to effect such change that has developed and adapted over the past several centuries called the ballot box and constitutional amendment. It is far from perfect, but it has provided the foundation for the enormous success of the United States. 

The National Liberty Alliance Mission Statement claims that, “To take political power is to control our elected representatives, by bringing them into obedience through fear of the people.” For the last 230 years, we have done exactly that through electing representatives and kicking them out when they failed in their duties. After all, what puts fear in the heart of a politician more than being voted out of office? We can all agree that is a flawed system, but next to the radical tectonic shift the National Liberty Alliance is proposing, it has the benefit of hundreds of years of testing and experiment. Their Mission Statement says: “To take judicial power is to control our courts by understanding jurisdiction and bringing into subjection all government officers and officials using common law courts by opening courts of record and executing "people" authority, it's that simple!” To replace our entire state legal system with an alternate system controlled by the National Liberty Alliance, based on the exceedingly vague “people authority” is to replace something that is known, flawed, but proven by something that is completely unknown and unproven. This smacks of Rousseau and Robespierre in the mission to “force men to be free”.

What they are advocating is a coup! A group of citizens who share the same subjective beliefs they do, taking control from officials elected by the people who do not. Their followers, according to the website, “first seek the blessings from the "GOVERNOR OF THE UNIVERSE" and build our endeavor upon Him and His principles (1) HONOR, (2) JUSTICE, and (3) MERCY. This is the only sure foundation, any other will succumb to tyrants.” What if a citizen doesn’t believe in a ‘governor of the Universe’ or has a different interpretation of the terms honor, justice and mercy? Technically, if these individuals are not willing to take the National Liberty Alliance’s theocratic oath, then they would not qualify to take part in this new and improved world order and do not constitute part of the ‘people authority’. 

Their ideas further collapse in on themselves when one begins to unwind the logistics of their movement.   They claim that, “Only the People can stand up and defend the Constitution because the Constitution cannot defend itself, and bureaucrats will never do it.” But at the same time, in the Common Law jury system, “Each county should eventually find four people (administrators) who will work full time (paid positions) to administrate and orient the jurist.” So a set of state-paid administrators who are essentially “bureaucrats” who will never defend the constitution, according to their own declaration, will now be in charge of the county grand juries across the country. Keep in mind that even though the Alliance claims all of this is universally self-evident, completely obvious, and the true law of the land, no legal scholar or Constitutional thinker of any note has openly advocated for such an alternate system. 

But, aside from the contradictions and the complete lack of basis in anything we know or have experienced in the Modern era, the most flawed aspect of their thinking is their atavistic interpretation of  ‘individual sovereignty’. This cornerstone of modern democracy has been widely debated for centuries and if the National Liberty Alliance has their way, the last 350 years of debate on this issue would be wiped away in one fell swoop. 

It was in the mid-17^th century, in the midst of intense religious wars in England and across Europe, that Thomas Hobbes first effectively made the case that ultimate sovereignty lay with the individual. Prior to that, the dominate form of “natural law” in Europe, held that Kings and the Church were supreme, not individuals. This is why Hobbes’ Leviathan was so revolutionary in inverting the power structure to make the government the servant of the people. At the same time, Hobbes believed that without the strong rule of an absolute monarch, day-to-day life would be so chaotic that it would return to the ‘state of nature’ in which conditions were “continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thankfully, the advancement of political ideas didn’t end with Hobbes and John Locke picked up the torch of liberty with a more positive mission. It was Locke, in providing the ideas behind the Glorious Revolution in England, a model for the American Revolution a century later, who asserted it was not just a right, but an obligation for individuals to work together to improve the way that they were governed. Since that time, the Anglo-American political tradition has been to find the best possible way to govern ourselves in the most effective manner available. Granted, just as many of the men who contributed to this development, often flawed in execution, but were noble in intention.   

You can’t have your cake and eat it too which is why the preamble of the Constitution sets out the recognition that, “In Order to form a more perfect Union.” we must work out our differences through an electoral system with checks and balances, division of powers through the branches of government and the freedom of choice of the individual citizen/voter. For example, before the Constitution was even ratified, it had already been widely agreed that ten new amendments, the Bill of Rights, would be added. 

I suppose if I believed as John Darash, one of the leaders of the National Liberty Alliance, does, that the United States was on the edge of imminent demise, that all diseases can be cured through natural homeopathic remedies, and that the world is controlled by a few, select wealthy families, than I would be more pre-disposed to a radical re-writing of our entire social contract. However, since the leaders of this radical movement can offer no evidence of such things, and appeal purely to a vague assumption that all of these assertions are “proven facts”, I have no choice but to stand with John Locke, the Framers of the Constitution and most of the other Founding Fathers in asserting that the case has not been made for such a revolutionary proposed course of action. 

We must keep in mind that one of the reasons the American Revolution was such a success and the French Revolution a dismal failure, was that Americans had been largely ruling themselves for more than a century when the brave Sons of Liberty began to push for the formalization of self-rule. In fact, it was 1619 when the first elected body in America began the long journey of collecting the experiences to effective self-rule, as a practical matter of survival, not an abstract one of ‘rights’. To push for such a radical departure from the system the Framers established and the changes and adaptations that have evolved to that system over time, is to repeat the mistake of the radicals of the French Revolution, the Communist revolutions of the 20^th century and to make a mockery of one of the core values that the Framers and even the National Liberty Alliance claims to espouse, that of real world experience and change through adaptation and adjustment over time. That is actually one of the core principles of Common Law.  

The bottom-line is that the National Liberty Alliance is very far from making a cogent argument that their Common Law Jury system, animated by the appeal to abstract and non-universal principles would even work, let alone be superior to our current system. That still leaves us with the pressing need to reform our current political system, so let the debate continue, unabated."