BY DALE REYNOLDS
That the acting in the new off-off Broadway show, The Golden Dragon, is a notch above the rest is indisputable. The question is whether or not the show can sustain itself.
To say that the set is minimalist is an understatement. It is all black and white and performed on what appears to be a hollow cube with a trap door. Players come and go, performing their lines and then reappear as another entity.
It could be the dictionary definition of “avante guard” and that requires a special audience of pseudo-intellectuals.
This show is not for everyone.
But all of that being said, Golden Dragon most definitely has its merits. The cast is enthusiastic and, perhaps most amazingly of all, have memorized their lines in a seemingly never ending release of words.
The cast is excellent and brings life to what could have been a deadly boring performance.
Written by Roland Schimmelpfennig and translated by David Tushingham, the five performers never seem to stop for a breath. They are into their varied roles and that above all makes the show interesting.
It takes place primarily in a small Chinese restaurant, The Golden Dragon, and drifts off into sometimes incomprehensible side stories. It does all come together at the end of the 75-minute performance in a package that more or less is neatly tied together.
Shows of this sort are sometimes unappreciated by critics, especially when it seems that the audience is totally into the production. There are laughs…at times we weren’t sure why…but the audience appeared to understand what was going on.
Noah Galvin, as The Young Man, is about to graduate high school in real life. He has a career ahead of him and is quite a talented young person. His credits include numerous appearances in small theaters.
Peter Kim, playing The Man, the only Asian in a story about a Chinese restaurant, has appeared on Broadway in Thoroughly Modern Millie and a plethora of venues ranging from Cincinnati Playhouse to the Yale Rep. He’s appeared on film in The English Teacher and on television I Sex and the City and Ugly Betty.
K.K. Moggie, as The Young Woman, is also a theater veteran of many out-of-town shows. She too has film credits in such movies as Anna and the King and on television in The Good Wife and Gossip Girl among others.
Stephen Duff Webber, plays The Older Man (if you have a Young Man, The Man, and a Young Woman, it stands to reason that there must also be an Older Man). He has appeared in such classics as Antigone and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Whelker White, The Older Woman (see notes on aging in previous paragraph) has appeared on film in Goodfellas, Dead Poet’s Society, Eat, Pray, Love and others.
The show will be at the New Ohio Theater,154 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.
