Thursday night night at The Kitchen I caught Target Margin Theater in one of the last performances of The Argument, written and performed by David Greenspan, who seems to be a veritable one-man catalog of theatrical skills. Combining Aristotle's Poetics with essays by Gerald F. Else, Greenspan managed the difficult feat of turning an essentially non-dramatic work into a thoughtful, passionate -- and funny -- commentary on art, comedy and tragedy. Alternately scholarly, soulful, histrionic and hilarious, he seems to have boundless agility. With expertise like this, perhaps someone could challenge him to adapt some Supreme Court decisions for the stage.
After intermission came Dinner Party, created by the company and Kathleen Kennedy Tobin from Plato's Symposium. Eight fine actors delve into the author's classic ruminations on love, with topical references as overflowing as the wine. (Many bottles accompanied the meal, in a setting that could be someone's East Village loft.) With brisk direction by David Herskovits, the company again made a non-theatrical text spring to life -- sometimes verging on the silly, but never dull -- helped by some precise technical work, occasionally executed by the actors themselves.
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