Category: Off-Broadway Reviews

The Ballets Russes and its impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, is the subject matter for Terrence McNally’s latest play, Fire and Air.  He is the winner of four Tony Awards for the plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.  So Mr. McNally has covered demanding artists, gay relationships and period pieces before.  The Classic Stage Company is presenting the world premiere of Fire and Air, with direction and scenic design by John Doyle (Broadway’s Sweeney Todd, The Visit, The Color Purple).

Legendary for its influence on art and dance from 1909 – 1929, Sergei Diaghilev galvanized the Paris art scene and engaged his talented circle of Russian èmigrès.  A super mogul, artists who secured Diaghilev’s approval were poised to take on a near-cult like following.  In 1912, Vaslav Nijinski (James Cusati-Moyer) choreographed and performed the controversial and erotic ballet, The Afternoon of a Faun, to widespread acclaim.  Nijinski and Diaghilev were lovers but when the young protégé married while on tour in 1913, he was dropped by the company.  This relationship and the outsized personalities of these two individuals serve as the basis for Act I.  The second Act explores the relationship with the next protégé, Leonide Massine (Jay Armstrong Johnson, superb).

Watching a play about an older Artistic Director playing Svengali to young men is more disturbing in our current climate of #MeToo.  So why is this play never more than interesting?  Douglas Hodge (La Cage Aux Folles) plays the driven Diaghilev not as dandyish, haughty and aristocratic as I might have imagined him.  In addition to the two dancers, there are three associates/friends (John Glover, Marin Mazzie and four-time Academy Award nominee Marsha Mason) who really don’t have enough to do.  That they sit on stage now and then for no discernible reason just distracts from this small character play.  For me, the subject matter was far more fascinating than the performances (fine), the play (good, if sketchy) and the staging (underwhelming).  Fire and Air is timely though and a thought-provoking piece of a historically significant and influential artistic period.

www.classicstage.org

When dialogue is stilted, the responsibility to bring it to life falls to the actors and the director.  When that does not successfully happen, the result is Cardinal.  The playwright Greg Pierce is commenting on current economic conditions in America like last year’s Pulitzer Prize winning Sweat.  In this effort, a small city in upstate New York has an abandoned factory, a declining population and few prospects.  Lydia Lensky (Anna Chlumsky) returns home with some big ideas for the mayor.  Like other successful tourist destinations around the world, they could paint downtown a single color (got a deal on cardinal red) and the tourists will follow.

While immigrants were a cause of concern to the townspeople of Sweat, here the energy is focused on the Chinese.  The tour buses arrive and the imbalance of economic power is on display.  Our young mayor (Adam Pally) gets to stomp his feet in a petulant rage while getting entangled with Lydia.  A soap opera storyline ensues which is completely unbelievable, exacerbated by a lack of chemistry between the leads (or was that the directorial intent)?  The Chinese mogul and his son (Eugene Young, excellent) want to invest more in the town.  The bakery owner and her autistic son are not happy with the changes.

Kate Whoriskey directed this play (and also Sweat).  Hard to say why this play feels so clumsy and unfocused.  The bludgeoning use of the red color of the title?  The buildings are painted red, the mayor’s bedsheets are ridiculously red and there is an eye-rolling conversation at the end of the play where Lydia sees a cardinal.  Truly.  Or maybe the problem is the overstuffed plot venturing from rom-com to something darker and then back again.  The topper:  crocheted monkeys for sale at the bakery representing a happier time for America’s past.  Or is that satire?  Cardinal is not the reason to start taking up bird-watching.  Or crocheting.  Or theater.

www.2st.com

Steve Cosson is the writer and director of The Undertaking.  He is also the Artistic Director of The Civilians, a company whose mission is to create “new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present.”  They are the troupe that premiered Anne Washburn’s phenomenal Mr. Burns, a post-electric play.  In The Undertaking, the vital question being explored is death.

In an office, Steve (Dan Domingues) is recording Lydia’s (Aysan Celik) thoughts for a play that he is writing.  This process of interviewing various individuals about topics ranging from death, illness and the fear of dying, is the framework.  Some of it is morbidly funny.  While the two actors play interviewer and interviewee, they also break out into other people who have been recorded, including an ovarian cancer survivor and Everett Quinton, the off-Broadway star of the Ridiculous Theater Company.  From these interviews, the piece morphs into a therapy session for Steve, who is considering his mother’s life in a nursing home and his own mortality.  Even added into the mix are visual clips and an analysis of the Jean Cocteau film, Orpheus.  New knowledge:  rubber gloves are the gateway to the afterlife.

An inventive premise makes The Undertaking interesting.  The therapy section lost me a little as it went on, although admittedly that could be a personal reaction.  Perhaps the comedic possibilities could be amped up even further; think Sofia Vergara as Lydia insisting that the interview is a “dialogue” as she helps Steve through his process.  Overall, The Undertaking is an unusual, creative piece well-staged in the upper east side’s 59E59 theater.  The audience skews older here which made the experience even more surreal.

www.thecivilians.org

www.59E59.org

 

A young woman from the mill-town Hindle returns home to her parents after a weekend getaway.  Wakes Weeks began as religious festivals but then became secular (bank) holidays where factories would close down up to ten days.  Those who could afford it might spend their time at Blackpool, a local English seaside resort akin to New York’s Coney Island.  Written by Stanley Houghton, Hindle Wakes essentially is the aftermath of “spring break” circa 1912.

One hundred years ago, this play was an enormous hit in England, subsequently made into four films, two in the silent era.  A Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University banned its students from all theaters performing the play.  The Guardian wrote that Hindle Wakes “not only scandalized playgoers, but persons who had never been inside a theater and who were never likely to visit one joined in the general outcry.”  When the play landed on Broadway that same year, it failed largely due to a negative New York Times review.  During a 1922 revival, the paper changed its mind and said “it is now, as it was then … a shrewd, and nourishing and artful comedy.”  Ninety five years later, the Mint Theater has mounted Hindle Wakes for the first time in New York since then.

What was going on in the minds of young men and women, and also their parents, back in the day?  Our playwright, Stanley Houghton, wrote over a dozen plays, many of which called for women’s sexual and economic freedom.  One hundred years later, this play remains topical.  Directed by Gus Kaikkonen, a frequent Mint collaborator, the production values (set, costumes) are top notch and the cast is excellent.  Even the maid, in a bit part, is perfect.  This play takes place over two days following a spring break dalliance in 1912.  What was on the playwright’s mind back then?  What do these characters think and why?  Simple and straight forward, a serious comedy with big ideas, Hindle Wakes is a rediscovered classic.  My advice: run to see this one.

www.minttheater.org

Set in the Imo State of present day Nigeria, Ngozi Anyanwu’s play The Homecoming Queen has been given its world premiere in the smaller, more  intimate Stage 2 space of the Atlantic Theater Company.  The result is equally a feeling of community and of eavesdropping on one house whose daughter, the bestselling author Kelechi, has returned home from New York after fifteen years away.  Her father is still alive, proud but obviously much older.  There is a lot to talk about and also not talk about, as in many families.  Kelechi’s anxieties are front and center; she’s taking pills to help herself cope.

The play itself is excellent with a structure that goes back and forth in time as the story unfolds.  We see these characters peel back their histories.  The best friend from childhood.  The new house girl.  The “chorus” represented by four women who are the townsfolk, neighbors, gossips, historians and singers, namely, the community.  Directed by Awoye Timpo (Associate Director of last year’s great Broadway revival of Jitney), the effect of surrounding the audience with these ladies ingeniously centers the listener to a place.  You never completely lose sight of them which nicely conveys the density of this area’s population (thanks, Google).

No plot spoilers here.  Kelechi, our Homecoming Queen is played by Mfoniso Udofia, a playwright (last season’s Sojourners and Her Portmanteau) who confidently returns to acting in this emotionally fulfilling role.  Excellent work throughout this cast, notably by Segun Akande as Obina, the childhood friend who has found success in his homeland.  In a week where the President of the United States was quoted as having referred to African nations as “shitholes,” the need for theater to continue to shine spotlights on all peoples and their stories remains vitally important.  A beautifully realized piece, The Homecoming Queen is most welcome in my worldview.

www.atlantictheater.org

I rarely hate something so completely as to want to run out of the theater to save my mortal soul.  In this 90 minute exercise of pretentious drivel, I had to (had to!) peek at my phone to see how much more boredom there was left to endure.  I was about 65 minutes into Ballyturk.  65 minutes more than needed and a full 25 minutes to escape.  Do I leave now?  That was the tension created by this play.  If you are a fan of Beckett and Waiting for Godot, perhaps you may find some sort of diverting forgettable thrill.  For everyone else, save your cash.

Promised as “gut-wrenchingly funny,” this Irish import was written and directed by Enda Walsh, the Tony winning book writer for the exquisite musical Once and the co-creator (with David Bowie) of the stylized mess called Lazarus.  Third time for me is not a charm.  For those readers still on the fence:  two men in a Ballyturk flat go about their lives seemingly playacting.  Dancing around to records, flouring themselves, getting dressed, being silly, having conversations which may or may not be real, imagined or past events.  None of it is funny, really.  Antic, yes.  Gut-wrenchingly hilarious, no, without any question whatsoever.

Unfortunately for Ballyturk, a visitor of sorts arrives who has one of the longest and singularly most boring monologues in the history of theater.  While that is an exaggeration for sure, the comment is much funnier than anything in Ballyturk.  The surprise last minute ending was at least interesting; inviting an opportunity to consider what this crap was all about – even if by this point, you could care less.

www.stannswarehouse.org

Heaps of praise have been lavished on this short story by James Joyce written as the final piece in his 1914 collection, Dubliners.  Last year, Irish Rep adapted The Dead into an immersive theater piece.  The play is performed at the American Irish Historical Society in their sumptuous Fifth Avenue digs across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Audience members arrive at once was a private mansion to join the partygoers for a bit of music, conversation and then dinner in the dining room.  Seemed like a fun idea to join an Irish clan in the early 1900s for a home holiday reception the week before Christmas.

First, the dinner option.  Regular tickets were $150 with some wine, whiskey and port served along the way.  About a dozen of us were in this category.  While you sit a little away from the action (when you are not standing, which is a lot of the time), there was no problem seeing the play.  For $300, dinner is included and you sit around the center table facing the action.  At the $1,000 level, you are at the center table amongst the actors.  The meal looked perfectly adequate, if rushed.  Not much else happens.

A few characters are late, one may or may not be drunk when he gets there. Thankfully he arrives a little tipsy.  Many sing, some dance.  Minor flirtations.  A hint of political differences.  After dinner, the audience is escorted to one of the visiting couples bed chambers to hear about Gretta’s lost love (Melissa Gilbert, Little House on the Prairie).  What follows is a brooding meditation from Gabriel (Rufus Collins) after she falls asleep.  Interior monologues may work on the page but not here.  The scene drags an already slow evening into immersive boredom.  While there are certainly worse holiday offerings in New York right now, this is a fairly expensive and  skippable option.

www.irishrep.org

The combination of a previously can’t-miss-whatever-they-do Fiasco Theater troupe with the 50th Anniversary year of the Classic Stage Company was a key reason for my purchasing a subscription this year.  Two Shakespeare classics were on stage this fall, As You Like It and now Twelfth Night.  Neither was good.

Twelfth Night is a gender bending comedy believed to have been written for a twelfth night’s entertainment to close the Christmas season.  A comedy, the play also supports musical interludes which would have been expected at that time.  I have seen other versions of this play, on Broadway with Mark Rylance in 2014 and in a two part off-off Broadway mash up by Bedlam.  Familiarity with the play helped me understand what was going here but it did not relieve me from my boredom.  A guy two seats down leaned forward towards the end of Act II, elbows on knees, face in hands, seemingly exasperated.  An elderly lady left early and looked so fragile that a cast member helped walk her to the exit.  It wasn’t just me.

The balance between comedy and drama here was off.  The comedic scenes were, while better, a little too improv for my tastes.  You could see and hear the cast sitting in the background laughing harder than the audience.  There are some nice singing voices in the mix but the songs had the effect of slowing the play down.  Clowning, musicality and cleverness got in the way of storytelling, not normally something I’d expect from this group. Their outstanding take on Cymbeline put Fiasco on the map in 2011.  This one’s not the choice to introduce yourself to this company.

www.classicstage.org

www.fiascotheater.com

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