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'God' works in clever, mysterious ways

Julie White stars as the mom of a troubled teen in Liz Flahive's dark comedy, "From Up Here", directed by Leigh Silverman. Manhattan Theatre Club - Stage 1. 131 W. 55 St., NYC. (Newsday / Ari Mintz)

BY LINDA WINER | linda.winer@newsday.com

April 21, 2008

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What a remarkable new voice can be found in "God's Ear," the inconsolable-family drama and verbal style show that Jenny Schwartz clicks smartly together with an improbable combination of sorrow and exhilarating flair.

In a tight, intense, increasingly-surprising 90 minutes, the young playwright explores the devastating effects of a drowned son on his mother (Christina Kirk), his traveling businessman father (Gibson Frazier) and his little sister (Monique Vukovic) without once stepping into the soap-realism of Lifetime movieland.

Instead, Schwartz dives beneath the surface with a stylized wordplay that exploits and comments on the comforts, inadequacies and absurdities of everyday language. These people wear their internal monologues on the outside, repeating loops of common expressions and linking cliches together with a stream-of-consciousness virtuosity that, like good poetry, makes us hear the words from different angles.

The play was developed by the Vineyard, which transferred intact the praised premiere from the off-Off Broadway company, the New Georges. Every so often, Schwartz dances close to the edge where clever turns into unbearably precious. After all, the family's melancholy is populated with a frumpy tooth fairy (Judith Greentree), a love-hungry single woman (Rebecca Wisocky) and a transvestite flight attendant who doubles as a plastic-haired replica of G.I. Joe (Matthew Montelongo).

But Schwartz, the excellent director Anne Kauffman and their company beautifully sustain the tension between wild originality and the agony of the mundane.

GOD'S EAR. Vineyard Theatre, 108 E. 15th St., through May 18. Tickets: $55. Call 212-353-0303.

Coincidentally, "From Up Here" is also by another promising woman playwright, Liz Flahive. It, too, is about a family catastrophe - this one involving a depressed teenage boy who brings a gun to school - and the collateral damage on a younger sister. And the play was first produced at another adventurous little theater, Ars Nova, and given a major Off-Broadway showcase at Manhattan Theatre Club.

This is a fairly straightforward telling of a family disaster, confidently directed by Leigh Silverman and pumped by the casting of Julie White ("Little Dog Laughed") as the confused single mom with the live-in boyfriend.

Tobias Segal curls into his gawky bones with fine anguish as the troubled kid. The cast is engaging, but everyone hollers way too much. The characters have a phony quirkiness. And it is impossible to sympathize with a mother stupid enough to give away her lonely kid's dogs while he's at school.

FROM UP HERE. Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 W. 55th St., through June 8. Tickets: $75. Call 212-581-1212.