THE NEW YORK TIMES,
APRIL 13, 2005
What Not to Do at Auditions

By JASON ZINOMAN

For obvious reasons, plays about show business are often more perceptive than plays not about show business, which is part of the reason audiences don't get tired of the large amount of theater that is about itself. For instance, Sides: The Fear Is Real sends up the same old targets - the insecure thespian, the fraudulent acting teacher, the arrogant Juilliard grad - but since it's performed with such specificity and comic charm by actors firing on all cylinders, you won't care a whit.

Written by and starring an all-Asian-American cast, this slight but consistently entertaining satire is a primer on what not to do in an audition room. No. 1: perform a one-woman version of The Lion King, with imitations of giraffes and elephants. No. 2: work without a script when you haven't learned your lines. No. 3 (and most important): walk up to a casting director and say, "I'm going to be doing 'Hamlet.' Don't worry. I'm trained."

In a flawless cast of six talented comedians, two performers stand out. Rodney To, who plays the trained actor, impersonates a gaggle of frighteningly intense types, including a choreographer staging a hip-hop version of "Medea" and a gurulike teacher who runs through less-than-helpful acting exercises. ("Open your eyes. Close them. You see.") And Cindy Cheung, who is the giraffe, holds nothing back in her over-the-top performances as characters that include a loudmouth casting agent who would clearly prefer to be onstage.

Credit the director, Anne Kauffman, with a light but firm touch in staging these disconnected scenes, maintaining a brisk pace and reining in overly broad humor. By the end, you even get a sense of why a performer would want to put herself through the tortuous auditioning process: when everything is clicking, acting sure looks fun.

Sides: The Fear Is Real is at P.S. 122, 150 First Avenue, at Ninth Street, through May 1.