The connection between a mom and her daughter can run deep. Especially when it’s only the two of you, you’re tight in each other’s orbit, your worlds intersect in inextricable ways. And that is Nicky and Naomi, the mother-daughter duo at the heart of The Aleph Complex, now on stage at Alleyway Theatre.

This is a new play, a world premiere, winner of the 2020 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award. It’s quirky, original, and unexpectedly thought-provoking in the way that it lingered and niggled in my head.

Nicky Stamats (“my last name is a palindrome,” she said by introduction (played by Caroline Kolasny) is a twitchy and anxious college freshman, an English major who is using shadow puppets in a class presentation. As midterms loom, her inner heart-voice calls her home to mom (Sara Kow-Falcone), a designer who hasn’t left her apartment in five years. Their anxieties co-mingle: Nicky escaped a major milestone in her first months away from mom while Naomi was happily in her solitary safe space. Nicky’s coping mechanism is to imagine trapping her fears in plastic boxes (conveniently, she had worked at The Container Store) where they become more cope-able sounds. She’s convinced she can help her mom by grabbing up some self-help books from the last Borders store on the planet, located in the same strip plaza as her former employer. It’s there that she meets a bookseller (Josh Wilde) with his own issues: he can’t leave his store. He lives in his store. His store and its contents haunt him and hurt him. Yet in the backroom, there is the Aleph, his version of the time-space continuum portal (Think of the backroom of the diner in Stephen King’s 11/22/63.) Nicky and Borders Guy are drawn to each other; Nicky shares a treasured photo she found of her mom, backpacking through Europe in her youth and their unspoken wonder of ‘what happened’ is wistful, palpable. She also knits him a sweater with one loose yarn; there’s lots of metaphor here. Yarn is another word for story. Strings hold us together and can also let us go.

There’s more to this richly layered and nuanced story. Inspired by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges’ writings, there are metaphors galore and a myriad of mysticism against a backdrop of anxious emotions.

If this all sounds a little ‘out there,’ it is. The characters are endearing and the actors are solid in their roles. Kow-Falcone is especially interesting; we’re used to seeing her portray strong, empowered women, and here she’s more comfortable with shadow puppets than people. Kolasny and Wilde will be terrific to watch in future roles.

The set is nothing short of spectacular. First off, it’s huge, and uses every bit of Alleyway’s compact stage. Lynne Koscielniak and Nicholas Taboni built a two-level masterpiece that combined Naomi’s apartment, The Container Store, and Borders in one place. There’s some charming theatre magic crafted by puppet designer Caitlin McLeod to depict movement between Naomi’s apartment and the stores, too. Aaron Bowersox and Hudson Waldrop had oodles of light and sound cues respectively to craft and manage that added some of the more dreamlike moments.  The visual and aural experience underscored some of the more poignant points of playwright Deborah Yarchun’s story and locked it into a good place.  

All told, The Aleph Complex is the kind of interesting theatre that is Alleyway’s hallmark. Get there before it closes March 4. The show runs just under two hours with one intermission. Visit alleyway.com for details and tickets.

Babuska can mean an older woman if you’re in Poland or Russia or a headscarf tied under your chin (if you’re the American descendant of that older woman) or it’s a 1980 Kate Bush song (spelled as Babooska). But if you’re in the Theatre District on the fourth weekend of the month between now and the end of the year, Babuska! is an improv duo with a pretty darn funny hour-long show.

Todd Benzin and Don Gervasi are the two comic actors of Babuska! They started the act several years ago as a Buffalo Infringement Festival performance. It’s now found a (perfect) home on stage Alleyway’s Cabaret space.

Full disclosure: I had never been to a live improv show before and was prepared to, as a friend commented, “likely be at the mercy of the dullest wit in the audience.”  Mercifully, that wasn’t the case.

They open the show nicely wearing dress pants and collared shirts with ties (always a nice touch) with a request: they want an audience member to shout out a line from a recent social media post. This is what will spark the show’s plot and dialogue.

Hmm. This could be wild or mild.

The night we saw the show, they were charged to riff around a statement about the virtues of the pre-planned potty. Hmm. Being it’s summertime and outdoor concerts abound and porta-potties are ubiquitous there, the opening scene they contrived was set outside a porta-potty at a concert. Benzin and Gervasi’s skills as actors and comedians didn’t go down the toilet. Their sharp wit is more about word play and conversation and yeah, a few well pantomimed sight gags, too.  The set up is that these two old friends got together:  Gervasi is the ‘live in the moment’ guy and Benzin is the pre-planned, pre-pared (riffing on the pre from the social post) guy with a loaded fanny pack and a rain suit on an 80% sunny day. The visible-in-the-mind’s-eye only porta potty may or may not be occupied and there’s indecision about the right was to, ahem, proceed. The scene drifts to the concert entrance when Gervasi becomes the ticket taker and buttoned-up, pre-planned Benzin left his ticket in the rain suit that he doffed outside. More clever word play. More spontaneous and snappy dialogue. More character exposition. This constant volleying is fun to watch and I have to imagine that it’s fun to play, too. The scene shifts backstage with Benzin as the roadie and Gervasi as the British rocker with performance anxiety and lots of demands, including warm vodka and a hot hooker. And just like that, Benzin is the hooker…relying on a softening of his voice and a slack in one wrist as it rests on his hip to convey this slightly sultry role. I gotta say it: I roared.

The hour flies by, with plenty of laughs and some more poignant moments, too, that leave you with the lingering feeling that elements of comedy, indeed, are serious things. Gervasi and Benzin play off each other well. Remember the iconic “Carol Burnett Show,“ back when sketch comedy was king? Watching Gervasi and Benzin reminded me of the show’s Harvey Korman and Tim Conway: while their sketches started out scripted, they often became more off the cuff, and two actors were renowned for tempting each other to break character and laugh. I caught a few moments like that between Gervasi and Benzin and it was fun to watch.

Babuska!  runs one full hour, no intermission, and is onstage at Alleyway Cabaret the last Friday and Saturday every month, the website says, until 2075. Tickets and info here: https://www.alleyway.com/show/babushka

Full disclosure: I never played The Oregon Trail videogame. Not being much of a gamer (except for my Pac Man and Ms Pac Man obsession in the ‘80s), I actually never heard of the game. If you had asked me what was The Oregon Trail, I might have guessed something that fur traders used to get from the Midwest to the Pacific Ocean. So color me surprised that it turned out to be a pretty thoughtful, pretty funny show now onstage at the Alleyway Theatre.

Renee Landrigan is Jane, a typical ‘90s middle schooler who dramatically flops herself on the floor in embarrassment, dials up her mom on a flip phone with an antenna, and can’t quite keep up with big sister Mary Ann (Sue McCormack). Jane has a secret crush on class hunk Billy (Ben Caldwell) and another secret: a disc that sends her imagination back a century to The Oregon Trail where she can pretend she’s packing the covered wagon for a ride across the prairie, circa 1848. It’s all pretty harmless fun….until the day the computer talks back to her.

The stage action cleverly shifts between today Jane and 1848 Jane (maybe her great great grandmother, perhaps) with Elise Vullo in the vintage Jane role. Jane from the days of yore is struggling with her mother’s death and her father’s decision to go west. She adores her accomplished older sister Mary Ann (McCormack in a bonnet) who has stepped up into the caregiver’s role. But then Jane struggles with the rough, slow road and the threat of death by dysentery and other things. We time-hop forward and today Jane is an adult, of sorts. She is struggling to find her place in the world while big sister Mary Ann has a tiring but rewarding medical career. Jane manifests classic signs of depression, not caring for herself, devoted to screens (both computer and TV), unable to hold a job or find a career pathway. Tough love doesn’t seem to work. Even a chance meeting with ex-crush Billy isn’t shaking her out of her reverie. Mary Ann decides a wilderness day, some sage to burn, and some journaling might help Jane find her path.

Landrigan is a delight as Today Jane, both  young and grown up. She’s a great twitchy ‘tween and a lost soul 20-something. McCormack’s Mary Ann is equally solid: as today’s Mary Ann she’s both weary and wise and just wants her kid sister to find her way. Caldwell’s Billy is the middle school jerk who hasn’t grown up (we all know him). It’s John Profeta as Clancy, the 1848 dad and Nicholas Lama as the voice of the game who provide the wisdom of the Trail….actual and electronic. Profeta is determined that he’s made a good decision to ford the streams and hike the hills to a new life for his family. Lama’s resonant voice reminds us that outside forces can oddly, wickedly control you when you least expect it. It’s a clever device by playwright Bekah Brunstetter. Director Chris J Handley and Tim McGrath, scenic designer made good use of the stage that took use from classroom to wilderness to the gals’ apartment. Todd Warfield had some work cut out for him sourcing a full size-looking wagon and some ancient greige computers (memories of my vintage 286!) I loved some of Nicholas Quinn’s music choices for audio transitions, too.

All told, the earlier scenes and the waaay earlier flashback scenes were more satisfying than the ending. I would have liked to have seen a glimpse of Today Jane and Yesteryear Jane one more time, and maybe heard more creepy shout outs from the game himself to knit it all together.

The Oregon Trail is onstage to May 28. It runs a solid two hours+ with an intermission to enjoy Alleyway’s lovely lobby.  Get tickets and info at www.alleyway.com. Bring a mask. You’ll be OK.

If a bear dances in the woods, will a teacher find true love?

Berserker, on stage now at Alleyway Theatre, is full of similar existential questions, with a killer Led Zeppelin soundtrack, too.

This was a 2019 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition winner for good reason. Playwright Bruce Walsh created a quirky, complex, endearing set of characters in a multi-layered love story with some interesting twists.

Pete Green (Patrick Cameron) is a teacher who set off to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail, leaving his lady (not his wife, we hear repeatedly) Vicky (Kelly Copps) at home.  They share a home, a daughter, and a profession, and this brief respite doesn’t seem foreboding. While Vicky is relishing some quiet time listening to Chopin, Pete is spooked when he sees a bear. And then he wanders off-trail onto private property and is spooked a second time when he hears a voice coming from the birdfeeder/trail cam, first singing Zeppelin’s 1969 megahit “Whole Lotta Love” and then admonishing him for trespassing onto private property. Seems he’s stumbled onto the grounds of LeiberCraft, a multiplayer gaming platform tech company. He’s intrigued by the voice in the birdhouse. They faux-flirt around their shared Led-Head obsession until she finally directs him off-grounds. Back home with Vicky, he decides to leave his traditional classroom gig to pursue a teaching job with one student – the LeiberCraft founding 12 year old gaming wizard named Mason – and perhaps a spark a relationship with Soojin the voice in the birdfeeder (Sara Kow-Falcone), the corporate attorney who signs him to the gig. This is the start of the real love story; between teacher and student, and between music-lovers who get swept away, and between a boy and a bear and fast-food left overs.

Director Robyn Lee Horn got her casting exactly right with this group. Cameron is wonderfully focused as the bear-phobic teacher in heart and mind turmoil and in charge of the frenetic Mason (Haleigh Curr).

Curr’s physical comedy is outstanding, scaling a desk to back-bend off it seconds later. Blurting out expletives in one minute, and then pensively pondering the next-level thinking behind why Pete is using Beowulf as a lesson. Curr is an amazing young talent cast in a pretty extraordinary role.

Kow-Falcone is fierce-tender as Soojin the lawyer with a compelling backstory that sneaks into the plot in bits and pieces. Copps as Vicky, the non-wife and mother to Pete’s daughter, is gentle and strong as she moves on with her life while Pete makes other choices. Watch her face and her body language: her subtle gestures are as in-your-face as a Robert Plant falsetto.

The technical team did a masterful job in staging this work. Emma Schimminger’s lighting scheme complemented Collin Ranney’s three-place set beautifully with some fun surprises. Nicholas Quinn designed a great soundscape that reminded that Zeppelin’s “All Of My Love” is still my favorite.

Full disclosure: I didn’t love the ending. I felt the last five minutes or so spun an incredible plot into some odd places. Hey, not-quite-mid-life crises happen, and they aren’t all weird. Up to that point, the story was a unique and powerful examination of the power of music to attract and influence our decisions and choices. And that love and belief in someone else can change lives. Or to put it in Zeppelin-speak,”there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

Berserker runs two hours with a 15-minute intermission, on stage to April 23. When you visit www.alleyway.com to book your seats, click over to www.alleyway.com/education to learn more about a powerful student engagement on April 20, #Enough Plays to End Gun Violence, and Buffalo’s role in this national effort.