Helen Shaw, Time Out New York - December 16, 2009

Wherever you find Deirdre O'Connell and Steve Mellor, their sublimely weird, highway-Americana cabaret act will not be far behind. The actors have been dragging it around with them for 12 years, like a child's binkie that gets more bedraggled and beloved with every trip. Perfectly worn-in, perfectly slouching and soft-edged, The Dream Express is both the avant-garde writer Len Jenkin's riff on lounge acts and - crucially - a wonderful lounge act itself. The show is enveloping, sad and entirely hilarious, the most fun you'll ever have watching the American Dream disintegrate.

Keyboardist Spin Milton (Mellor) and his ex-wife, chanteuse Marlene (O'Connell), welcome us to their gig. They seem a bit confused as to whether this is the Ramada Inn or the Best Western or a disorienting slipstream between them, but it hardly matters, since venues of the doomed are lovable only for their interchangeability. We are pitched headlong into their mood: A sad string of jalapeno Christmas lights is all it takes to make us join The Dream Express in feeling washed up, lost and end-of-the-road.

O'Connell's voice always sounds like whiskey over gravel, but as Marlene, she slurs just a bit, slipping us into hallucinatory stories about women who sleep with the devil and woozy, downbeat renditions of "Physical" and "A Whiter Shade of Pale." Mellor, as always, perfectly judges his deadpan menace, delivering Jenkin's hucksterish lines ("You paid for the whole seat, but you'll only use the edge!") like he wants ransom for them. As you would expect from a Jenkin project, nothing makes a lick of sense, but Mellor and O'Connell make disorientation sexy and failure mysterious. This is high-octane modernism over ice, and you deserve a double.

Alexis Soloski - December 8, 2009

Sometimes life does indeed imitate art. Sort of. For 15 years, Len Jenkin's lounge act, The Dream Express, performed by Deirdre O'Connell and Steve Mellor, has kicked around venues ranging from L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum to Cape Cod's Duck Creek Tavern. Similarly, in the show itself, divorced entertainers Spin and Marlene Milton journey from one motel bar to another. At the Chocolate Factory, here renamed the Briarpatch Lounge, they arrive to offer a dispirited evening of song, story, and black-and-white film excerpts.

Mellor and O'Connell now appear slightly long in the tooth for their hipster togs (glittery leggings for her, loud T-shirt and porkpie hat for him), which lends greater poignance to their act. They sing some original songs ("Dead Boys Don't Cry") and some covers ("Escape," "Let's Get Physical"). Between tunes, they re-enact scenes from The Invisible Man or regale the crowd with stories about brief encounters at the laundromat or lost weekends with the Devil. The material's thin and too often pitched at the same bizarro-macabre tonality. But the two are such masterful performers that you might well find yourself shouting, "Encore!"Ñonly to experience a truly terrifying version of "I Think We're Alone Now."

Judith Messina, Crains New York, December 13 2009

As legions of small nonprofits scramble for cash to stay alive, Sheila Lewandowski is happily sitting on a $60,000 reserveÑa small sum in the scheme of things, but a safety net that provides security for her Queens performance space, The Chocolate Factory.

A veteran of 20 years of nonprofit management, Ms. Lewandowski has always insisted that The Chocolate Factory build a cushion into its budget for just such times as these.

"We do this to be prudent, because [unexpected] things happen," she says.

Co-founded by Ms. Lewandowski in 1999, The Chocolate Factory provides stipends and rehearsal, performance and exhibition space to independent artists.

The group moved into a renovated commercial garage in Long Island City in 2005 on a 15-year lease. It puts on about 100 performances annually, and over the years, its popularity and reputation have grown.

In May, it won an Obie grant from the Village Voice, the organization behind the Obie Awards for off-Broadway artists and productions.

The Chocolate Factory survives on corporate, foundation and government funding; ticket sales; and an annual event, Taste of Long Island City, that attracted 1,000 people this year and grossed $60,000.

Ticket sales are up nearly 15% in 2009 as more people elect to spend $15 for a Chocolate Factory performance rather than more expensive entertainment.

As well as The Chocolate Factory is doing, Ms. Lewandowski is nonetheless cautious and is bracing for difficult times ahead.

"Even though we're fine right now, we're concerned that the coming year is the year that's going to be very tough," she says.

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