By Bart Greenberg***The legend of Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame, fortune and a hot girlfriend, has been the source for hundreds of adaptations via books (Goethe’s Faust), theater (Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus), musical comedy (Damn Yankees), movies (The Devil and Daniel Webster, Bedazzled) and even c
artoons (The Simpsons)—all with a high rate of artistic and popular success. Then there was the musical within the movie musical The Bandwagon which was a fiasco, and a rare exception. And then we come to Flo.
Toby Armour’s Flo, currently playing at the Theater for the New City, transforms Faust into an elderly Upper West Side atheistic Jewish widow. She’s lonely, angry and pretentious, somewhat estranged from her adult children. Her only companion is Max, a flamboyant, glitter-covered representative of the Devil, something Flo acknowledges with ambivalence. She finally surrenders to his blandishments, and signs a contract in blood to give him her soul once he gives her total happiness. He immediately transforms her into a much younger and healthier woman, and sends her on a series of adventures involving a spending spree at Bergdorf Goodman, a leather orgy, gluttony and the Nobel Prize ceremony. And then things g
et very political and very weird with a trip to the Middle East.
This summary is more coherent than the actual production. Running at about 70 minutes, it managed to be both rushed and sluggish. Director Joan Kane failed to keep the pacing tight and focused, as she might have. In some of the group scenes, such as the orgy and the desert drama, there’s an aimless feel as if the staging was never quite worked out. And the flinging of clothes around in the department store just seemed messy as opposed to the antic freedom it was supposed to suggest.
Mikayala Petrilla as the youthful Flo didn’t project the warmth needed to carry such an antic show. Too often she simply whined. A plot twist toward the end made the behavior even more confusing. John Cencio Burgos, in the other major role as Max the Devil, simply went for it, giving a campy and outrageous performance, often recalling the unrestrained Nathan Lane. Juli Harkins brought some authority to the friendly neighborhood therapist w
ho is also a homeless person. Cast members Jenny Taher, Termina Hyman, Anthony Cedeno and Darrel Blackburn, played a variety of other roles.
Every so often charactersbroke out in song, sometimes tied into the plot, such as when Max attempted to seduce the older Flo with “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” (Osvaldo Farres, Joe Davis), which Burgos delivered with a fine flair. He also had a propensity to launch into tangos; who knew the Devil liked to tango (choreographed by Tatyana Kot). Sometimes random characters simply burst out in unmotivated song, such as Blackburn’s quite beautiful “What’ll I Do?” (Irving Berlin)—one of the emotional highlights of the evening. And most everyone got a go at “Summertime” (George and Ira Gershwin). Considering the quality of these random vocals, it’s a shame that the director and playwright didn’t fully commit to turning the show into a full musical, since these sequences added to the disjointed nature of the production.
Flo runs through April 26, 2026, at The Theater for the New City 155 First Ave., NYC. Purchase tickets at TheaterForTheNewCity.net.
Photos by Jonathan Slaff
