Colorado has helped launch a small but significant New York stage hit, at least in the eyes of The New York Times.
Charles Isherwood last week described Ami Dayan’s “The Man Himself” as “a sober, quietly unsettling solo show about an ordinary man’s slide toward religious fanaticism.”
Dayan, of Boulder, fine-tuned his one-man play last month at the Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins, and he called it “the ultimate training camp ever.” He said the theater deserves a large hand in his success.
Using adjectives like “haunting” and “telling,” Isherwood concluded Dayan’s aim is to reveal how “collective movements” seduce and exploit the loneliness and alienation that are symptomatic of modern civilization, and in some cases channel it into hostility and violence.
“If this average American guy undergoing a series of unexceptional shocks can be persuaded to enlist in a small-scale holy war, after all, it is easy enough to understand how such movements take root in the world’s more impoverished, dehumanizing climates,” Isherwood wrote.
Dayan, whose play is set in Denver, plays through Oct. 1 at the 59E59 Theaters (212-279-4200). Dayan spoke about “The Man Himself” in a Denver Post podcast accessible at denverpost.com/podcasts.
Another local, Colorado College grad Thaddeus Phillips, opens his one-man show, “El Conquistador!” at the New York Theatre Workshop on Wednesday. He plays a Bogota doorman who interacts with tenants played (on tape) by actual Colombian soap stars. He performed the comedy at the Buntport Theater in 2005.
This week’s theater openings
WED-OCT. 22|Country Dinner Playhouse’s “Moon Over Buffalo”|GREENWOOD VILLAGE
THU-OCT. 15|TheatreWorks’ “Alice In Wonderland”|COLORADO SPRINGS
SAT-NOV. 4 |The Other Theatre Company’s “Some Unfortunate Hour”
This week’s theater closings
TODAY|Country Dinner Playhouse’s “Swing”|GREENWOOD VILLAGE
TODAY|Festival Playhouse’s “The Sensuous Senator”|ARVADA
FRI|Creede Repertory Theatre’s “Enchanted April”|CREEDE
SAT|Next Stage’s “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” (at the Phoenix)
SAT|Creede Repertory Theatre’s “cowboyily”
SAT|Nonesuch’s “Nunsensations! The Nunsense Vegas Revue”|FORT COLLINS
SAT|California Actors Theatre’s “Nunsense”|LONGMONT
SAT|Rocky Mountain Rep’s “Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver”|GRAND LAKE
SAT|Theatre 13’s “Match”|BOULDER
SAT|Creede Repertory Theatre’s “Snake in the Grass”
SAT|Longmont Theatre Company’s “Dearly Departed”
SAT|Upstart Crow’s “Marat/Sade”|BOULDER
SAT|Boulder Broadway Company’s “Bat Boy, the Musical”|LAKEWOOD
SEPT. 24|Union Colony Dinner Theatre’s “My Fair Lady”|GREELEY
