From Gloomy Women to Ditzy Dames

When most people think of Eugene O’Neill, they think of gloomy women swigging morphine straight from the bottle. And, unless you are in a very specific mood, the plays can make you want to take a pull or two yourself. But a rarely produced O’Neill play, “Marco Millions,” switches gears from his usual portraits of bummed out Americans to a scathing indictment of everybody’s favorite Italian spice trader, Marco Polo.The 13th-century Venetian needed a dressing down for his rampant cultural imperialism and rapacious capitalism. So the Waterwell Ensemble, with it’s patented mix of dance, music and very cheap jokes, has adapted and commented on the material to create “Marco Millions (based on lies),” one of the brightest notes in the theatrical season so far.These are the same folks who brought us “The Persians … a Comedy About War With Five Songs,” a version of the Aeschylean tragedy that involved a “How to Curse in Farsi” section. Clearly, reverence is not high on the ensemble’s to-do list.They are also brilliant negotiators of the player-part divide, lightheartedly dropping character and busting through fourth walls like very merry bulls in the theatrical china shop. In its best moments (and it has many of them) “Marco Millions (based on lies)” is so chokingly, foot-stompingly, punch-your-neighbor funny that even the actors crack up. But the Waterwell Ensemble is also a company that can turn on a dime. By the end, it has invested characters with real heartbreak and done O’Neill’s agitprop intentions surprisingly proud.When Marco Polo (Arian Moayed) and his uncle Maffeo (Tom Ridgely) arrive at the court of the great Kublai Khan (Rodney Gardiner), the East doesn’t know what’s about to hit it. Despite a savvy ruler with a kickin’ pleasure dome, the Mongols aren’t ready for the sharp business practices of the sticky-fingered Westerners. Maffeo introduces his nephew to the various cultures they encounter in an aerobic song-and-dance number of racist stereotypes (“I’m a Man from India; I don’t believe in Bathing/ I Kama Sutra all day long; for me it counts as praying!”). And our master-of-ceremonies, the rubber-faced Kevin Townley, assures us that “Tom lays before you … three elective anthropology credits,” so he really “knows” whereof he slurs.Once in China, they meet the Khan’s beautiful daughter Kukachin (Hanna Cheek), who unaccountably falls for Marco. Will he stay faithful to his well-connected gal back in Venice, to whom marriage would be good business? Or will he put his mercantile interests aside in the favor of love? Even a sultry Latin dance number (dazzlingly choreographed by Lynn Peterson) may not be enough to sway our dogged entrepreneur, and soon one of Lauren Cregor’s genre-spanning compositions has to accommodate a bluesy song of bereavement for the papa Khan.The ensemble’s mash-up of styles, handily wrangled by Mr. Ridgely (who also directs), includes mock-1930s newsreel announcements (“News From the Boot!”),a lot of fedora tipping from Mr. Moayed (appropriate, since he smolders like a modern day Valentino), and Mr. Townley’s sly take on a Weimar-era cabaret emcee, as filtered through Charlie Chaplin. They are all crackerjack physical comedians, but Mr. Townley must be singled out for his eyepatch-wearing, Chinese vizier.When he hisses, “Ah, we used to summer there…” about the latest pit Khan has in mind for the Polos, the laughter in the audience took on the helpless, hiccupping sound of hysteria.Ms. Cheek also has expert timing, but she can as easily turn it to grace or pathos as to comedy. On Dave Lombard’s stark set, only a set of stairs lead up to the band, which sits high above the action. Ms. Cheek, more than anyone else, prowls up and down those stairs, occasionally husking out ditties like a chanteuse, other times flirting like a dizzy Italian dame. It would be unfair to say she stands head and shoulders above the others, but perhaps she could be described as the first among equals. When she and Mr. Ridgely dance together, their beautiful movement seems almost bizarre — in this company that seems to hold nothing sacred, it’s clear that there are still a few things worthy of respect.Until August 26 (410 W. 42nd St., between Ninth and Tenth avenues, 212-279-4200).

From Gloomy Women to Ditzy Dames

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