Category: Off-Broadway Reviews

There are two apartments across the hall from each other in The Bigot.  In the messy one on the right, Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Reagan is perched on the couch.  Bottles of pills are sitting on a tray.  On the left is a much neater, more modern home.  Two young lesbians have just moved in after a brief courtship.  They are celebrating their anniversary of two months, two days, six hours and twenty three minutes.

Jim (Stephen Payne) is a cantankerous old grump who is the character of the title.  When his son Seth (Dana Watkins) comes by to check in on him, the Fox channel is blaring.  Jim is currently going through dialysis and is having a rough time of it.  No kidney matches have yet been identified.  In the first scene, we learn that his son has not been tested for a match yet.  Why not?

How is Jim a bigot?  Oh, in the usual ways.  “It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s true?”  In a debate about slavery, Jim offers that it was necessity of the time to advance commerce.  Later he will touch on the Muslims and the Jews.  Most of this character development is fairly generic stuff that we’ve now seen and heard many times before whether on stage or off.

The couple across the hall are health care workers having met in an emergency room.  Paula (Jaimi Paige) is the romanticist, effusively optimistic and relentlessly kind.  Aysha (Faiven Feshazion) is the practical, opinionated, organized half of this couple.  Throughout the play they consult their watches and continue to count the minutes since they first met.

When Seth converses with his Dad’s friendly neighbors, he asks if they might not mind looking in on him once in awhile.  With the unrestrained glee of a woman striving for sainthood, Paula throws herself headfirst into the task.  The bigot Jim has no time for lesbians and tells Seth, “those two carpet munchers get me so worked up.”  The bigotry is neither funny enough to be comedy nor seriously disturbing enough to be dramatically repulsive.  Most of the jokes land with a thud.

From this set up, the plot careens from contrivance to contrivance.  Can our lesbians crack the hardened shell of this bigot?  Will father and son continue to bark at each other rather than heal their openly visible relationship wounds?  Will a kidney transplant become available or will Dad die?

Each person in this cast works hard to create believable people with more than one or two dimensions.  All of them are successful in that regard.  The play’s time period spans one month.  The story arc and the character’s progressions are forced and unbelievable.  Gabi and Eva Mor have written this play from their personal experiences.  They encountered discrimination.  Like the character of Paula who is referred to as the “gay Mary Poppins,” they remain hopeful for a better future.

Intolerance is perhaps the defining descriptor of the decade in which we live.  The Bigot wants to shed a light on how we might be able to crack the code toward better communication and understanding.  The plot twists here are too numerous and far-fetched.  As a result, the play just muddles through as a mash up of Archie Bunker and an underwritten Lifetime movie.

www.thebigotplay.com

Thaddeus Phillips has traveled all over the world.  With his wife Tatiana Mallarino, the show’s director, he has been working on this particular piece for five years.  17 Border Crossings debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015 and has since been played in twenty five countries on five continents.  They have revisited their work, taking into account the tenuous nature of borders in our current geopolitical climate.

Mr. Phillip’s scenic design is simple and effective.  He uses a chair, a table and a fifteen foot bar of light to communicate his story and share his observations.  In a promising start, he discusses the history of passports.  Apparently you can microwave your passport for ten seconds so the chip which tracks your movement will be disabled.  That discussion is one of many which comes up briefly and is quickly abandoned for the next chapter.

There are seventeen specific crossings chronicled in this play.  The first one occurs on a train in 1999.  He is traveling from Hungary to the newly formed Serbia.  Playing all the roles, he is a ticket collector and another passenger.  That passenger has five suitcases tightly wrapped in blankets, plastic and duct tape.  At one point the stranger throws them out the window.  Obviously someone is expecting them.  What’s in there?  Why?  Never mind, time to move on to the next crossing.

This type of play structure results in a few interesting tales being lost amidst the acting exercise.  Mr. Phillips is a very winning stage presence, comfortable with believable accents in many languages.  When I heard “the eleventh crossing is from Egypt into Gaza” I had mixed feelings.  This particular crossing was in a tunnel (where trade happens) so I was certainly interested in the location.  I also realized, however, that there were still six more crossings yet to be presented.

The unlikely stars of this show are the lighting and sound designers.  David Todaro’s bar of light can suggest a train car or a police car.  The light bar moves up and down as the stories are told in endlessly inventive ways.  When you add Robert Kaplowitz’s crisp and vivid sound effects, the promise of what this show could be is clear.

On a vacation with his family, they are playing on a beach.  His son is pretending to drive a boat while he and his wife bury “treasures” in the sand like water bottles and keys.  The son is so excited and keeps asking “are we there yet?” so he can jump off the boat and start searching.  We then hear about a man and his son fleeing Syria into Greece  After a harrowing sea journey, the father is asked “are we there yet?”  Mr. Phillips commends the father’s courage to reply that their journey was just beginning.

Moments that attempt to bring depth and meaning are far too infrequent.  They are also skimmed over so fast that nothing meaningful has time to stick.  Why is this tale being told?  Is this a travelogue or a commentary on the world?  Without a point of view, 17 Border Crossings is neither.

www.nytw.org

In their new, larger off-Broadway home at the Greenwich Theater, Ars Nova presents Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie.  The play was created by The Mad Ones and the ensemble, similar to the formula used for the hilarious Miles for Mary a few seasons ago.  The former was about a group of teachers assembling in the school lounge to discuss a fundraiser.  This play concerns a focus group of parents giving feedback on proposed sequels to a beloved children’s television series.

The entire theater has been reconfigured to look like a community center (excellent set design by You-Shin Chen and Laura Jellinek).  When Jim (Marc Bovino) arrives to begin setting up a table with blank name cards, he walks over to the kitchen and dials the rotary phone.  We are firmly in the 1970’s in this subtly stinging yet firmly comedic examination of human perceptions.

Six parents of young children are providing feedback to Dale (Brad Heberlee), the moderator.  Jim is the scribe and recorder of the discussion.  Dale informs the group that Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie is only going to be on television for one more year.  The lead actress is retiring.  Before moving on to the sequels, the group is asked to comment on the existing series.  What do we like about the show?  Dislike?  How does it relate to your family?  If you were to offer a piece of advice, what would that be?

Three women and three men are providing roundtable feedback.  At first, they are tentative as one would expect when strangers get together.  Personality traits do emerge.  Cici (January LaVoy) is admittedly bossy.  Wayne (Michael Dalto) is a flannel wearing blue collar type.  As conversations flow, opinions are similar and different, creating many levels of tension.

The audience observes this wholly naturalistic meeting.  Acutely directed by Lila Neugebauer, Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie hardly seems like a play.  The words are memorable and effortlessly believable.  Each characters body language adds volumes of information about their personalities.  In a very close call, my favorite performance is Stephanie Wright Thompson’s Gloria.  A bit more timid than the others, she comments “that’s what I was going to say.”  When the conversation turns to breakfast, she feels the sting of judgment from the others (at least in her head).  We see defensiveness and simmering annoyance on her face and in her reply.

The completely realistic atmosphere adds layers of complexity to the focus group discussion.  How are we alike and different as parents?  What is an effective punishment for misbehavior?  Which of the show’s many puppets do your children relate to the most?  One of Mrs. Murray’s friends is described as “flamboyant.”  How we see others, our biases and prejudices pepper all of this remarkably clever dialogue.

In Miles for Mary, the characters were sharply drawn caricatures of school teachers.  The conflicts were heavier and sharper.  This play is more modulated during confrontational moments which makes sense.  Teachers who work together for years would have a natural rhythm to their interactions based on a shared history.  Complete strangers talking about themselves and their children would logically be more guarded.

Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie is exceptional theater.  The entire cast is superb.  A creative idea has been carefully cultivated to bloom by these actors and this theater company.  Inventive and hilarious, the play succeeds in elevating a very specific situation into a psychological study of ourselves and how our viewpoints shape how we see the world.  No lecturing, grandiose speeches or pontificating needed.  Just watch, listen and think.

Which sequel do you prefer?  Candace’s Cabinet or Teddy’s Treehouse?  Take a seat and find out.  Laughs are guaranteed.

www.arsnovanyc.com

www.themadones.org

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/milesformary

Written by John Webster in 1612, The White Devil belongs to the early modern genre of revenge tragedy.  A crime spurs retaliation that inspires further revenge.  The original full title is The White Divel; or, The Tragedy of Paolo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano With The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona, the famous Venetian Curtisan.  The play is based on a true story involving infidelity, religion and murder.

The Duke of Brachiano (Daniel Oreskes) is lustily obsessed with Vittoria Corombona (Lisa Birnbaum), the daughter of a noble but impoverished Venetian family.  Unfortunately both are married.  His wife is Isabella of the de Medici clan.  The Duke’s secretary and Vittoria’s brother Flamineo (Tommy Schrider) is the social climber type and wants his sister’s fortunes to rise.  He arranges for the clever and creative killings of the two unwanted spouses.

Revenge plots emerge and, as might be expected, more murders happen.  The juiciest section of this play is when Vittoria is placed on trial.  Defiantly proclaiming her innocence, she is dressed head to toe in white, a slap in the face to a society dripping with hypocritical morality.  Although there is scant evidence, Cardinal Monticelso (Robert Cuccioli) finds her guilty, sentencing her to a convent for penitent whores.

The character of Vittoria is fascinating as an aggressively feminist, outspoken woman.  Her scandalous love affair is not a source of embarrassment.  Standing trial before a male dominated church and state, she insists that they speak in her native tongue not in Latin.  Courageously, she challenges the powerful and unmasks a double standard.  Why are her crimes punished when those committed by men are not?

The Red Bull Theater specializes in reviving the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.  ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore was one of my favorite productions of 2015.  Unfortunately, this version of The White Devil frequently missed the mark.  The set design alternated between cool and too contemporary.  The video projections were effective in showing remote scenes such as banishment or murder.  However, the sterile and white lounge area (office?) seemed at odds with the dialogue.  Manual opening and closing of curtains or blinds felt like busy distractions.

The lighting (Jiyoun Chang) was so bright that any sense of nuance was lost.  Director Louisa Proske may have been going for an examination of this play’s themes under a harsh microscope.  When a play contains the line “women are more chaste when less restrained of their liberties,” the words speak volumes.  I can only guess that the modern décor is meant to underscore a parallel to our current times.  I believe I could have easily drawn that line myself.

I enjoyed experiencing the play as a fascinating artifact rather than this particular production.  The style of acting seemed to be an odd mishmash of formality and looseness.  Ms. Birnbaum’s Vittoria definitely reminded me of my Italian relatives who possessed strong backbones and questionable morals.  Robert Cuccoli’s Cardinal dripped with sanctimonious venom while wearing a gorgeous outfit (terrific costumes by Beth Goldenberg).  As the slinky cad Flamineo, Mr. Schrider nicely embodied the time period with a modern physicality.  Derek Smith as Count Lodovico, another revenge obsessed character, was an ideal blend of crazy and committed with a commanding stage presence.

I must point out that some audience members did not stay for the second half.  A gentleman who sat back down to give it a chance awkwardly walked out a few minutes later.  I am a big fan of theater companies that mount older works and I enjoyed experiencing this grand tragedy.  The overall production was disappointing though.  The material came across as flat and clinical rather than hotheaded and passionate like a holiday gathering of my youth.

www.redbulltheater.com

“Grabbing and greed can go on for just so long, but the breaking point is bound to come sometime.”  That quote is from Herbert Lehman who was a partner at his family’s firm from 1908 through 1928.  He later became governor of New York and a U.S. senator.  His part of the tale told in The Lehman Trilogy is smack dab in the middle of the story.  This three act masterpiece begins before the Civil War and ends with the firm’s demise in the financial crisis of 2008.

The first part is subtitled “Three Brothers.”  In 1844, Henry Lehman emigrated from Bavaria to the “magical music box called America.”  By the time his two brothers followed, he had already established a business in Montgomery, Alabama selling fabrics and suits.  It didn’t take them long to figure out how to get involved in the lucrative cotton business.  Emanuel headed north to New York and the family connections to the cotton mills were established.

Although their roots were in the south and rebuilding was a profitable venture after the Civil War, the business relocated to the bustling economic juggernaut that was (and still is) New York City.  In Part II, “Fathers and Sons” expand their empire with shrewd strategic investments in railways, airplanes and Hollywood.  Emanuel’s son Philip is now running the show.  In 1929, the firm was renamed The Lehman Corporation in recognition of another iteration of its changing business model to an investment company.  This financially focused entity was based on “pure money” and “pure adrenaline.”  Then the stock market crashed and the Great Depression ensued.

The final part of this trilogy is “The Immortal.”  Philip’s son Bobbie is now at the helm.  Money is still being made investing in the weapons of war, televisions and computers.  When he ages out of the business in the 1960s, the company transitions to a series of non-family members.  Trading becomes the dominant profit machine.  The company gets ensnared in the subprime mortgage abomination.  With no major political connections any longer, they are made an example of and left to die.

The story of this firm’s implosion is well known.  The Lehman Trilogy remarkably tells this 150 year saga with three actors inhabiting all of the characters.  They play all the Lehman men, their wives, children, other businessmen and even the owner of a Greek diner in Nebraska.  The amount of detail covered is staggeringly dense yet simplistically clear to follow.  The explanation of the business and its evolutions, particularly in the first two acts, is exemplary storytelling.

Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles perform this 3:20 two intermission marathon without leaving the stage.  And what a stage it is!  In the enormous Park Avenue Armory, Set Designer Es Devlin has created a spinning multiroom music box which looks a conference room perched atop the world of privilege.  A single piano underscores the dialogue.  The actors are astonishing in their ability to inhabit so many people with incredible physical and vocal expressiveness.

Sam Mendes directed this outstanding production with both brilliant style and focused storytelling.  Everyone knows the ending.  The firm dances through danger before spinning out of control.  The visual representation of that is stunningly theatrical, disorienting and nothing short of genius.  “The important thing is not to stop.”

Stop they did, however, with famous images of its employees carrying their file boxes out of the building at the end.  In my corporate career, file boxes represented the storage of documents and business history.  Here they are creatively employed throughout in support of this epic.

This piece is long and dense.  If I had one small quibble, it would be with the third part.  The business dealings and strategic machinations early on as the company grew were beautifully explained.  When the crazy days of out of control moneymen arrived, the opportunity to elucidate the business model did not happen with the same ease.  I assume that was an intentional choice in order to represent the heady unregulated financial markets as a lunatic asylum.

The Lehman Trilogy is highly recommended for theatergoers who enjoy superb actors giving outstanding performances.  It’s also highly recommended for those with a keen interest in tales of finance and American business.  In our current time of immigrant bashing it’s also highly recommended as a tale of the American dream.  And the American nightmare.

www.armoryonpark.org

The front of the plantation is a large image which is tilted forward from the stage at the Flea Theater.  At the start of Southern Promises, the audience leans in to a conversation between the master and his wife.  On his death bed, he now concludes that the abolitionists are right.  Slavery is a mortal sin and a blight on our civilization.  He has changed his will to emancipate all of his slaves after he passes.  It does not take long until the Mrs. changes that plan.  She has different desires entirely.

Thomas Bradshaw’s incendiary 2008 play is being revived with “POC” casting, as in People of Color.  In a thoughtful prelude, the cast introduces themselves, speaking about the contradictions and considerations of being non-white individuals performing in all sides of this story.  An interesting angle is presented.  If a person is half white and half black, which role are they most suited for?  Are there new insights to be gained from this production?

Influenced by The Great Escapes:  Four Slave Narratives, some of the dialogue is lifted from those writings.  The play is relentless in its depiction of predictable atrocities including, rape, whipping, forced nudity and murder.  The in-your-face depiction is likely why this play was considered so provocative.  America’s existence is still marred by this history.  I’m not convinced that Southern Promises is a revival that accomplishes anything more than theatrical shocks, however.

There is a contemporary feel to Director Niegel Smith’s staging such as the choice of music for the interludes.  Some of the cast has southern accents, others do not.  As written and performed, the play telegraphs every scene so you know exactly what is going to happen, crushing any sense of dramatic storytelling.  There are some impressive visuals for sure but the odd contradictions and decreasingly believable storyline neutralize the power of the subject matter.

A brother of the deceased is a preacher from New York who comes to visit and believes “abolition is the worse thing for these niggers!”  With freedom, “they drink all day and look for white women to rape at night.”  This play speaks frankly and roughly throughout.  In the same scene, the house slaves of the plantation sneak sips of mint juleps behind their master’s back.  Benjamin is the mild-mannered type but is directed to chug-a-lug like a buffoon before he is caught.  Huh?

The hypocrisy of the religious smears its ugliness all over this play.  This theme allowed this material to shine a harshly critical spotlight on people who justify their actions with the simple phrase, “it’s God’s will.”  The prayer scenes, however, are overlong and exaggerated.  Rather than coming across as disturbingly devout and sadly delusional, the villains appear clownish.  If this entire play was staged as edgy farce, that might make sense.

The last few scenes of the play strain credibility and Southern Promises looses its dramatic focus.  I have experienced so many exceptional theater pieces over the last five years where I had to face our troubled racist history and its import today.  The segregated theme park in 3/Fifths.  Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview and Marys Seacole.  An Octoroon and Underground Railroad Game.  Even the improbable comedy Plantation! at Lookingglass Theater Company in Chicago.

When the Kansas’ song “Carry On My Wayward Son” transitioned one of the scenes, I wondered if the choice was meant to be funny.  There are moments in Southern Promises that are memorable.  There are definitely scenes that are shocking, as intended.  Without a consistent tone, the subject matter gets diluted and grinds to an anticlimactic finish.  This revival does not make a case for the play as important as the troubled history it wants us to aggressively confront.

www.theflea.org

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theaterreviewsfrommyseat/plantation

Imran is a successful novelist hosting a writer’s book lunch at home.  Retreating to his living room, Layla follows him to introduce herself.  There is immediate sexual tension despite some differences of opinion.  The banter eventually leads to “I was hoping I could fuck you into a different person.”  For every line that surprises in Hatef**k, there are ten riddled with clichés, lecturing or banalities.

Both characters have a Muslim heritage but describe themselves as non-practicing.  Layla is a professor wanting to be published.  She has a serious non-fiction book which tells a meaningful story about their people.  He writes bestsellers where his kind are depicted as dark-skinned terrorists.  The conflict is fairly obvious.  Why is Imran writing to placate white people’s assumption of Islam?  It repulses her but oddly excites her as well.

In multiple scenes between erotic couplings, the two develop a deeper attraction despite a wide gap in their belief systems.  Why is she hanging around?  That manipulative angle is the most interesting part of this play but is not significant enough to flesh out these thinly drawn characters.  Instead of writing terrorist fiction, she comments, why not “write about you and me, the slutty non-Muslims.”  He tells her “you’re a fucking rainbow killer.”  The dialogue is painfully forced and often as implausible as the story arc.

Sendhil Ramamurthy admirably injects a naturalistic believability to Imran.  He is successful, sexy and an embodiment of the American dream.  He is living the life and having a good time while doing so.  Wanting his books to be on Layla’s syllabus at Wayne State University is a repeated plot hook which never makes any sense.

As Layla, Kavi Ladnier has to be likably indignant with a subtext of social climber tacked on.  The role is too preachy to be believable.  If the competing sexual and literary conquests between the two of them were less romcom, this combination might be a more compelling study.  As it stands now, Hatef**k is just another play about opposites, this time with a Muslim twist.  The topic is admirable and relevant but that doesn’t make the play a good one.

Additional roles might have broadened the narrow scope of this work to make this lecture more appealing.  I found myself siding with Imran who has grabbed capitalism by the horns despite a questionable moral compass.  As written by Rehana Lew Mirza, his motivations seemed clear if objectionable.  When the play ended, I was not sure either character grew or learned anything.  I know I didn’t.

www.wptheater.org

Isabelle Huppert is sitting on a very long white couch when you take your seat for The Mother.  The couch stretches the length of the stage.  Lots of pill bottles are stashed underneath in half a dozen places.  Are they all empty?  Mother is reading a book, looks bored and occasionally nods off.  Clearly there are going to be seismic issues on display in Florian Zeller’s play (translated by Christopher Hampton).  A few seasons ago, his companion piece The Father was on Broadway starring Frank Langella.  That memorable play dealt with Alzheimers.  The focus here is depression.

Mother seems a bit cantankerous when her husband (Chris Noth) comes home from work.  Her messages are not muddled:  “You were a pathetic father.  I’ve been meaning to tell you.”  Her son is told that “cowardice is in the genes.”  Her truth-telling moves even further down the dark path of meanness. “Sometimes I have dreams about murdering you.  They’re my favorite dreams.”

This mother is a middle aged woman whose children have long since moved away and her husband works while she sits at home.  She is certain he is having an affair.  A four day seminar provokes further suspicion.  The play’s structure is not linear and scenes often repeat with slight variations.  Father comes home again to the same arguments and accusations.  We become immersed and confused alongside the stormy places in her head, clouded by pills and paranoia.  The road is unstable, hazy and uncomfortably embarrassing to witness.

What does a mother do when her children no longer need her and have moved on with their lives?  The extremely long white couch on stage signifies the great chasm in the relationship between her and her husband.  Mother is obviously depressed, unhappy and feeling alone.  Her relationship with her son is awkwardly touchy.  His girlfriend is described as “vulgar and ugly physically.”  Scenes cross, collide, repeat and vary but Mother never seems to heal.  The depression is all-consuming.  It has become life’s purpose.

Ms. Huppert’s performance is big and quite fun to watch.  You can presume some of the rabbit holes she will fall down into as she unravels.  The plot evolution is not exactly surprising but the herky-jerky storytelling gives this character study an unusual spin.  Sadly, many of us know what it’s like to listen to a mom’s late-in-life revelations.  (An oft-repeated personal favorite:  “if I had to do it all over again, I never would have had children.”)  Ms. Huppert seemed to be exaggerated versions of those individuals who are doomed to drown in a sea of life’s regrets.

Trip Cullman directed The Mother so you cannot look away.  The tension does not let up even when there is humor in the script.  I found the unstable narrative of this play nicely matched with the unreliable mental condition of the protagonist.  Nice supporting performances by Mr. Noth, Justice Smith (son) and Odessa Young (girl) add to the swirling disorientation of this interesting play.

www.atlantictheater.org