Category: Off-Broadway Reviews

Ever since I saw The Christians in 2015, I have made sure to see every Lucas Hnath play since then.  The variety of subject matter and structural surprises never disappoint.  They are both thoughtful and thought-provoking.  He is pushing plays into new territories and challenging his audiences to sit back, listen, think and engage.  Directed by his long-time collaborator Les Waters, Dana H. is something new, bold, curiously calm and unforgettably harrowing.

When Mr. Hnath was attending New York University in 1998, his mother was kidnapped.  He learned about this trauma years later.  His mother apparently believed her ordeal might make for good subject matter.  He brought Steve Cosson into the idea.  Mr. Cosson is the Artistic Director of The Civilians, a troupe that specializes in investigative theater and the utilization of field research.

Dana H. is adapted from a series of taped interviews between Mr. Cosson and Dana, his mother.  Rather than develop a traditional multi-character (and potentially unwatchable) drama, Mr. Hnath brought his mother’s voice to the stage.  The entire play is largely Deidre O’Connell sitting in a chair and lip syncing to the taped interviews.  Riveting is an understatement.  You could hear a pin drop in the house.

The play is organized in three parts:  A Patient Named Jim, The Next Five Months and The Bridge.  Dana had a career as a chaplain in a hospice.  She saw the moment of death in her patients three to four times per week.  For twenty years.  She meets a patient named Jim who is recovering from a horrific suicide attempt.

Jim is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and has the tattoos to prove it.  Dana wryly remarks that she understood his attraction to satanism.  “When I was young, I played around with that.”  Right from the beginning, details are mysterious.  Is she being witty?  Is she embellishing the story?  The words are from one person’s memory of a hugely traumatic event.  Is she a reliable narrator?  That’s for the listener to determine.

Mr. Hnath takes these interview tapes and rearranges them into snippets which suit his dramatic intentions.  The tape edits are the entire narrative.  We hear the beeps when storytelling is spliced together.  The interviewer is heard but not a character in the play.  Dana sits alone and takes us through her ordeal.

Her recollection is filled with mental and physical abuse.  Police are unhelpful, either scared of the Brotherhood or chummy with it.  Are those comments real or are they are product of her mental state during an extensive incarceration with a madman.  When the two go to a gun pawnshop, Jim admits that he is a felon and cannot buy the gun.  Instead he says, “she’ll buy it.”  Mr. Hnath’s incisive details frequently comment on larger societal themes without preaching.

Ms. O’Connell’s mind-blowing performance is not to be missed by anyone who relishes perfection in character acting.  The lip syncing is technically phenomenal.  Even recorded sounds are captured in her physical movements.  The performance is essentially a solo pantomime.  All eyes are on Dana.  The depth of her emotions expressively register on her face.  We are pulled inside her brain.  The tale is frightening which makes her inevitable survival a relief.

The biggest mystery not explored in this play concerns Lucas the son.  Where was he as all of this activity happened over a very extended period of time?  I assume he knew of his parent’s separation.  That enabled Jim to weave his way in Dana’s life before tormenting her in classic sociopath fashion.  Mr. Hnath does not attempt to wrap up that question.  Nor does he even suggest whether he believes the details are completely accurate or influenced by PTSD.  In letting Dana speak for herself, his absorption in his mother’s memories become ours as well.

Performances of Dana H. have been extended at the Vineyard Theatre until April 11, 2020.

www.vineyardtheatre.org

www.thecivilians.org

Forgotten plays and playwrights are the mission of the Mint Theater Company.  Their track record of success is as good as any troupe in New York City.  Over the past few years they unearthed writings by Miles Malleson.  Both Conflict and Yours Unfaithfully were excellent plays given extraordinary productions.  Checkhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories is a double bill of two short fiction works Mr. Malleson adapted for the stage.  The results miss the mark.  Shockingly, by a long shot.

The first play is The Artist based on a translation of Anton Checkhov’s An Artist’s Story.  In the garden of a Russian country house, a painter has emerged from five weeks of brooding.  Nicov is now ready to start painting after gazing out of ten big windows during that time.  Genya, the well-to-do with nothing-to-do teenage daughter pretends to read a book.  Both are lazy, dreamer types.  Genya flirts with the older man.

Sister Lidia is the Type A overachiever of this home busily working at a local school and dispensary.  Her motto is “there’s always more to do than the time to do it.”  The comparison between the lazy and the motivated are in obvious conflict.  Lidia pushes for Medical Relief Centers for the peasants.  The painter objects.  He prefers poor people should be released from the slavery that society has inflicted on them.

As directed by company founder Jonathan Bank, the pace is very slow.  This line stood out to me:  “why do we lead such a tedious and boring life.”  The language is also awkward such as “I’m an artist.  I’m peculiar.”  The adaptation is stilted and the pacing drags.  In this dull vacuum, a relationship between the painter and the teenager begins to uncomfortably bloom.  Nicov has ideas about a new religion.

Alexander Sokovikov makes his U.S. theater debut with this production.  His performance of Nicov is the best one of the evening.  The angst and the creative vision are well developed.  The characters of the daughters are far less realized.  As love interest Genya, Anna Lentz is far too contemporary and did not really develop or display any chemistry with the painter.  Brittany Anikka Liu’s Lidia comes across as a one dimensional suffragette-type spouting lines.  Her considerable passion is not evident.

There is no intermission between the two plays.  Michael is based on Tolstoy’s What Men Live By.  This piece has been directed by Jane Shaw.  She has done thirty-one shows at the Mint as Sound Designer.  This is her first directing role.  The play is an allegory which contains some welcome and eerie mysticism.  The staging does not accomplish the mood of transformation as required by the script.

Simon (J. Paul Nicholas) goes out to buy sheepskin for the upcoming winter cold.  He returns without the blanket.  Instead, he brings home a naked man he found on the side of the road.  Wife Matryona (Katie Firth) accuses him of a “vodka spree.”  Michael, the arrival, does not speak.  When he smiles, however, it’s “as if the sun shined behind his eyes.”

One year later Michael is now an excellent shoemaker and helping to grow the family business and fortunes.  The ever present creepiness of the man continues.  He seems to be able to see the future.  Unlike The Artist, this second play looks back and embraces old religion rather than seeking something new.  Themes of penitence and spiritual learning are considered.

That level of mystery and religious imagery is not realized at a high enough level.  Malik Reed portrays Michael at first as if he were Lenny in Of Mice and Men.  The script calls for a magical reckoning of spiritual otherworldliness.  In this staging, there do not seem to be any dimensions beyond a basic telling of the story.  Without the magic, the plot simply proceeds and ends.  There’s a decent tale  buried in the short play Michael about kindness, repentance and love.  This lukewarm attempt did not make a case for needing this revival.

Chekhov/Tolstoy:  Love Stories is playing at Theatre Row through March 14, 2020.

www.minttheater.org

TheaterReviewsFromMySeat/Conflict/MintTheater

Free coffee and donuts are available on the stage when you arrive to help determine Where We Stand.  Audience members are the citizens for this Town Hall meeting.  The setting is sparse and realistic.  House lights never go down.  Everyone’s face is visible and present.  There is a decision to make.

Playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays begins the show humming from the rear of the theater.  As she slowly descends the stairs on her way to the stage, audience members are joining in with her.  She is connecting with them.  The community is coming together.  Or is it being manipulated?  I cannot be sure which is the right interpretation.  That may be the point.

Ms. Grays portrays “Man.”  An exile on the edge of town is seeking forgiveness.  He has sold the community to the devil in exchange for glory.  He achieves that by successfully building up the town.  Various townsfolk offer testimonies.  This fable is portrayed with music, humor and a great deal of soul searching.

Will the town be merciful to the man or choose justice instead?  The story is told with extremely poetic and non-linear language.  Characters jump in and out.  Songs are sung.  Ms. Grays makes direct eye contact with individuals.  Her eyes bore into you as she brings you on a journey toward the vote.  She is unquestionably a compelling presence.  Many in the audience clapped and hummed as they were swept up into the narrative.

Others were more restless.  One woman could not take it any longer.  She was trapped in the second row.  Rather than ask everyone to let her out, she escaped by sliding over the first row which had a couple of empty seats.  She stood up defiantly and angrily.  The house lights were all on.  There is only one person on the stage.  The two individuals were standing about ten feet apart.  It was hideously uncomfortable.  An unexpected sign of our times manifested itself.

A little later the woman’s companion elected to travel the same route to the exit.  In a way, this distraction colored my interpretation of the story.  A grand personality swaying the townspeople to a conclusion.  The failure to listen to words that may be not what one wants to hear.  Ms. Grays’ performance is excellent so it has to be the lyrical poetry which failed to engage those two from their discourteous behavior.

Then again, isn’t America now all about discourteous behavior?  Trump’s tweets insulting whomever got under his skin that day.  Bernie Sanders’ followers attacking supporters of other Democratic presidential candidates.  I saw both of these examples on social media today.  This unfortunate yet spontaneous theatrical moment deepened the connection between this play and our reality.

As directed by Tamilla Woodard (3/Fifths), the play is both dreamlike and riveting, an odd balance.  The townspeople are listening to arguments.  A decision will have to be made.  Will you participate when called?  This show is definitely not straightforward.  Some character transitions are less clear than others.  This playwright is asking us to listen in her way.  Like reaching across the aisle in politics, that willingness is not universally possible.

Where We Stand is clearly not for everyone.  Donnetta Lavinia Grays’ commanding performance is, however, completely engrossing and vividly theatrical.  (She will alternate performances with David Ryan Smith.)  In our times, Town Halls are still utilized to convince and cajole opinion.  It’s up to you to decide where you stand.

Where We Stand is being performed at WP Theater through March 1, 2020.

www.wptheater.org

A stark all-white set greets you when you take your seat to see Simon Stone’s updated version of Euripides’ classic Medea.  Is this a clinic?  A hospital?  The future?  A void?  Two brothers are on stage busily playing video games on their electronic devices.  Since many, if not most, of the audience knows the story (and the ending), the starkness presupposes the grim reality we are about to face.

Rose Byrne portrays Anna.  She and Lucas are looking at her painting of Noah’s Ark.  In this version, the animals are drowning.  Metaphorically, the carnage begins early.  “That’s not what happened” is followed sarcastically by “none of it happened.”  Lucas (Bobby Cannavale) remarks, “I’ve missed you.”  Soon after that, Anna reveals, “I’m not the woman I was when I did that.”

There is a nice unwrapping of mystery in this very loose adaptation of the Medea tale.  Anna has made some mistakes and is attempting a comeback.  Her husband Lucas, the father of her two children, now has sole custody.  What happened to cause that?  You will find out.  It is not an original idea and the movie from which it comes is referenced.  Was the film her inspiration?  Nonetheless, she is clearly unstable, at best.

Video projections are increasingly being put to use in theatrical productions.  Here they add an element of stylized creepiness that enhances the action considerably.  Close ups on Ms. Byrne’s face make her wide-eyed reactions eerily chilling.  What is going on inside her brain?  Has she snapped already or is she simply teetering on the precipice of despair?

Like Medea, however, the Anna character has a strong backbone albeit a relentlessly misguided one.  She finds out about Lucas’ new girlfriend Clara (Madeline Weinstein) but is not deterred in her fierce determination to bring her family back together.  She wants a return to normal.  From the beginning we know Anna is clearly medicated as part of her treatment.  As the play unfolds, the depths of her cunning and revenge will be revealed.

Mr. Stone directed his own adaptation of Medea just as he did with the phenomenal Yerma at Park Avenue Armory in 2018.  In both plays, the central female role is a juicy one.  As Anna, Ms. Byrne is appropriately intense and ruthless.  Her actions are appalling and desperate.  Never does the plot’s slow burn momentum spin out of control.  All of the performances are contained and realistic despite the bare set and artistic flourishes which punctuate the action.

In a short eighty minutes, this modern retelling of a woman’s rage will fulfill its mission to horrify.  There is a clever balance, however, in attempting to get into her mind and explain her behavior.  Her backstory reveals itself and it is an intellectually satisfying one.  The ending is visually enthralling and as majestic as it is repulsive.  Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale are parents together in real life and have joined forces in this Medea to deliver a deviously crazy modern spin.

Medea will be performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater though February 23, 2020.

www.bam.org

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/yerma