Category: Off-Broadway Reviews

There are playwrights who create new works that I feel compelled to see because their previous efforts has been so good and original.  Will Eno is one of them.  I’ve already encountered Thom Pain (based on nothing), Middletown, The Realistic Joneses and Wakey, Wakey.  The Underlying Chris is a terrific addition to that recommended list.

Mr. Eno seems to be an acquired taste.  Critics and audiences are not all on board.  I find his sense of humor to be the perfect kind of sarcastic observation.  Here is a line from this new play.  It shows up randomly and means nothing other than to elicit a laugh.  “We all know HOW aromatic candles are made but do we know WHY?”

The Underlying Chris is a play about a person who travels from birth to death.  In the first scene, a baby is in a crib.  The gender is not quite established.  (Oh no, is this going to be that sort of play?  Not to worry.)  Its mother is going to die in a car accident shortly.  This play is about the “moment that shapes a life and the people who shape a moment.”

Chris will age from a teenager to an old person in an assisted living facility.  “I’m dying of cake,” he states.  In an astonishing series of vignettes, all of the Chris incarnations will appear to show an unremarkable – and yet remarkable – life.  In one such segment, a young woman switches her sport of choice from diving to tennis.  Earth shattering?  No.  Real life?  Yes.

Throughout this play, Chris changes gender and race in each and every scene.  Names will vary such as Khris, Christine and Krista.  The clever conceit is clearly meant to show that our stories of life are universal.  This play takes the occasionally successful idea of colorblind and gender fluid casting and expands it to the writing itself.  Another layer of interest to enjoy.

Under Kenny Leon’s direction, the uniformly excellent (and beautifully modulated) cast flows through life’s largely familiar events.  The body is “a non-stop surprise party.”  As the underlying Chris ages, however, feelings seem to deepen as wisdom emerges.  An appreciation for the gift that is life emerges.  Chris realizes it is “quite an honor to be born.”  This is a tiny little play about slices of life that are as big as the concept of human existence.  Fantastic would be the adjective I would use to describe its impact when the final scene ends.

Unfortunately the play is being performed in the Off-Broadway house of Second Stage.  Regular readers might remember the obstructed view seating at Linda Vista earlier this season.  Unbelievably this theater company has done it again!  In the opening scene – and others – people sitting near me could not see the actors on stage.  How can one theater company with multiple stages and directors not notice this?

The scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado was clever as the time periods flew by.  Side panels were not wide enough to consider everyone’s seat in the audience.  Scenes would roll off stage to the left and right.  While the actors on stage were performing, the noise level backstage was horrendous.  My notes included the words crashing and banging.  If you go to see this excellent play, sit farther back.  Maybe you won’t notice the blatant distractions.

Those avoidable missteps did not hinder my ability to love this play.  There is something inherently wonderful about pausing and considering the miracle of life.  Mr. Eno writes:  “Be glad you have a body.  Be glad you were there when the universe was handing them out.”  To that I would add:  Be glad, theatergoers, that you are alive while Will Eno is writing.

The Underlying Chris is running at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater until December 15, 2019.

www.2st.com

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/lindavista

On Christmas Eve in 2012, Édouard Louis was raped and almost murdered in his apartment in Paris.  Four years later, a bestselling novel was published based on that traumatic event.  Along with Thomas Ostermeier and Florian Borchmeyer, History of Violence has been adapted for the stage in a riveting and multi-layered production.

A young man is sitting on a chair in what appears to be a waiting area.  The room is sterile in appearance.  In the large St. Ann’s Warehouse space, the set’s backdrop is enormously high.  People in hazmat suits come in and start to lift fingerprints off the floor.  A camera and microphone capture their efforts.  These sights and sounds are projected on the screen and through the superb sound design.  Evidence identification markers are placed around a crime scene.  What has happened?

Édouard reported the attempted homicide several hours after the incident occurred.  In the early morning hours of December 25th, he jumps in the shower.  He aggressively scrubs away the smell of Reda.  On his way home the evening before, the two men met walking down the street.  Reda cruised and charmed his way into an invitation.  The men had sex before things turned extremely dark.

At the start of this play Édouard was sitting on a chair because he went to the hospital for an antiviral prophylaxis treatment.  The grimness of the events are effectively rendered.  The tale is made bearable, and often very funny, by the mechanics of the storytelling and the clear-eyed, inventive and unique staging.

The courtship at the beginning of this horrific one night stand is flirtatious and cute.  Reda comes across as irresistibly sexy.  Renato Schuch is exceptional in the role.  The transformation to a terrifying demon is deeply layered with guilt, shame and self-preservation.

Édouard escapes Paris for a few days to visit his sister in the small town where he grew up.  He is another gay man who fled to the big city rather than fight small mindedness and stifling oppression.  His sister is played by the excellent Alina Stiegler.  She listens to her brother sympathetically and quite critically.  She repeats the story to her husband (Christoph Gawenda) while Édouard overhears them.

The family dynamic, the innate turmoils of homosexuals and societal repressions swirl gently and meaningfully as this tale unfolds.  Racism enters the storm as well.  Reda is an Algerian man.  The police believe he must be a miscreant and a criminal.

An unusually forthright memoir is brought to life through the bookish Édouard himself.  Laurenz Laufenberg impressively captures and demonstrates his naivete, his desire for love, his retreat, his shame and his ultimate survival.  The recollections are intense and uncomfortable.  The pendulum swings frequently and remarkably effortlessly between joyful (dance breaks!) and horrifying (rape).  Both extremes keep the edges sharp and surprising.

History of Violence is a presentation from the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (Theatre on Lehniner Square) in Berlin.  Artistic Director Thomas Ostermeier directed this outstanding production which is performed in German with English supertitles.  This is contemporary theater enriched by extraordinary storytelling and an unflinching examination of the human condition.  Be warned.  This show sails through some rough waters.

This company travels the world showcasing its voluminous work.  They have produced one hundred world and German premieres in the past nineteen years.  I will not miss an opportunity to experience again this level of quality and originality.

History of Violence is playing at St. Ann’s Warehouse until December 1, 2019.

www.stannswarehouse.org

www.schaubuehne.de

Every year from 1989 through his retirement in 2017, Congressman John Conyers Jr. unsuccessfully proposed a bill to study whether reparations should be paid for slavery.  In 2014, journalist Te-Nehisi Coates published an article, The Case for Reparations, renewing demands for compensation on a national stage.  On the 400th anniversary of slavery, James Sheldon’s new play Reparations is being presented at The Billie Holiday Theatre.

This company has been located in the heart of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood for 47 years.  Its long history has enabled diverse voices to create storytelling for, by, about and near people of African descent.  This particular world premiere play is the first one they have produced by a writer of non-African descent.  “In 2019,” Artistic Director Dr. Indira Etwaroo notes, “theater remains a predominately racially segregated experience.”  Here, then, is an opportunity to “see one another anew” and “discover ways to ask new questions of one another and ourselves.”

Her program notes conclude with: “Isn’t that, after all, why we are here… breathing the same air, sharing the same space?  Even if only for a moment.”  This play has been given a mighty introduction for thought provoking discussion and timely consideration.  With this production, the mission has been accomplished.

The beautifully detailed Upper East Side apartment designed by Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay announces restrained and tasteful elegance.  When the door opens, Ginny and Reg stumble in tipsy from a book launch party.  Ginny is a white woman who is older than her guest.  He is a black man who has been writing freelance travel pieces and has penned a new novel.  The beginning is awkward flirtation combined with somewhat forced cliches.

Ginny’s husband died seven months ago.  Her therapist recommends curing her grief by seeking out intimacy and integrating it into her old life.  Reg is clearly networking.  His book is about an African American police officer who is “Obama with a badge and a gun.”

Conversation between the two is flirtatious and stilted.  They came back to her apartment because she assumed he lived in a “fringey part of town.”  He accuses her of making a racist statement by assuming he lives in a poor neighborhood.  She knows what freelance writers earn.  The play meanders through social climbing rom-com with racial zingers and socioeconomic factoids.

Things get much more interesting when Ginny comments that “we all want to overcome the superficial differences that keep up trapped in our own silly little boxes.”  These include blacks, gays, transgender, Muslims and even white working class Americans.  Each is crying for help with their slogans “Black Lives Matter” and “Make America Great Again.”

In the second act, Ginny will prepare a paella for a dinner party.  Paella can be many different things and is often a combination of various meats, seafood and vegetables.  This play is the wordy embodiment of that dish.  Many disparate elements will be presented and consumed as “silly little boxes” are opened.  Ginny asks, “What happens when we confront realities outside our little boxes?”

There are numerous twists and turns in Reparations.  They dangerously teeter on the edge of soap opera revelations and stock situations.  Amazingly, however, the paella cooks long enough to bring a very satisfying dish to the table.  Reparations are more than a conceptual idea.  They have deep personal meaning and will be aggressively tackled before the play’s end.  Every character is a living breathing individual bringing their own experience and world views into a difficult debate.

Director Michele Shay has staged a high quality production for this intense and uncomfortable story.  Kamal Bolden is a mesmerizing Reg.  He is utterly charming, vengefully angry, cleverly calculating and, in my mind, a consummate survivor.  Alexandra Neil plays Ginny who embarks on her new life with trepidation and, in many respects, fearlessness.  Both share excellent chemistry.  Their early scenes nicely mask the fireworks which will follow.

Pompous Englishman and publisher Alistair (Gys de Villiers) and his wife, Nigerian born Millie (Lisa Arrindell, superb), will join Ginny and Reg for the luncheon party.  Both couples are of mixed races but their thoughts on reparations dig far deeper than the surface color of one’s skin.  The way the onion gets peeled open in this play may seem manipulative and it is certainly that.  However, the volume of stuff contained in all our little boxes – when thrust into the spotlight – allows us to test our humanity and our own character’s ability to rise up.

Reparations was an excellent addition to a fine month of theater.  I’ve been in a conservative Catholic box in Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  I spent time with LBJ as he attempted to forcefully open boxes wide with his civil rights agenda in The Great Society.  I walked through The Black History Museum and was, literally, put in a box.  In the epic The Inheritance opening this weekend, gay men come together to scream for their own escape.  Listening has never seemed more vital and important as we steer our country and its painfully confused moral compass to a better future.

www.thebillieholiday.org

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/heroesofthefourthturning

theaterreviewfrommyseat/thegreatsociety

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/theblackhistorymuseum

Boredom sets in early and sits down for a long respite during the ninety minutes of Dr. Ride’s American Beach House.  Audience members noticeably squirm in their chairs.  A few leave, noisily.  This slice of semi-repressed lesbian Americana is underwhelming, cliched and an absolute waste of time.

Harriet and Mildred went to college together and studied poetry.  That has led them to careers as waitresses in St. Louis.  One is married with a child who is sick today.  Mom’s not really in a rush to get home.  The other has a boyfriend.  She describes in detail a sexual liaison she has with a motorcycle guy.  That story is so far from believable that it registers as amusingly ridiculous.

Both women hang on each other so casually that there is no doubt they are (or have been) lovers.  After a work shift, they gather on Harriet’s rooftop to gather for the Two Serious Ladies Book Club.  No books have been read.  Instead, they drink beer and listen to the radio.  They are excitedly anticipating the launching of the space shuttle Challenger the next morning.  Sally Ride is going to make history.

Dr. Ride was closeted as are these women.  It’s 1983 and a very different time.  This play is blunt with the metaphors.  These two close friends are in their thirties and life is eluding them.  Mildred has invited Meg to the book club.  She arrives wearing a Motorhead t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap.  Her hairstyle screams BUTCH!  She says, “I don’t hate men, they make me homicidal.”

Meg is the contrasting, very blunt counterpoint to these two women who are meandering through an unfocused life.  At one point, Meg changes the music to heavy metal.  She head bangs in her chair.  The other two eventually start jumping up and down in a dance of sorts.  The overtly obvious message is that these two lesbians yearn to be free like Meg.  Presumably metal is a gateway?  The scene is clumsy and cartoonish.

Another woman arrives to round out the lesbian stereotypes.  She only cares about “safety and money.”  Why is she in the house?  Who cares.  She has an unseen woman with her who never stops eating.  Yes, Liza Birkenmeier’s play is that cliched.

As Harriet, Matilda and Meg, Kristen Sieh, Erin Markey and Marga Gomez are committed to their dialogue and produce good characterizations.  Katie Brook’s direction dutifully stages the piece as written.  The audience drops in on a conversation with little backstory ever explained.  When snippets of information arrive, they seem forced.  I was bored from start to finish.

Why did Sally Ride want to go into space?  The funny theory offered was to “wave at the Russians” and “pray for you in your totalitarian darkness.”  I suppose the juxtaposition between Dr. Rice’s closeted existence and these women fumbling to thrive during this era is an interesting conceit.  I never got past the hoary stereotypes and general anesthesia of the evening.

Two women sat in front of us before this play began.  One turned around to apologize.  “I’m sorry, I’m top heavy… by that I mean tall.”  She was indeed tall but not blocking our view.  I assume the woman with her was her partner.  She replied “she’s top heavy the other way, too.”  The first responded, “Yes, I am.”  We all laughed heartily.  Neither of them seemed to respond enthusiastically when the show ended either.

www.arsnova.com

In his intensely mesmerizing new play, one of Will Arbery’s characters calls liberals “empathy addicts.”  There are no liberals on stage in Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  Catholic conservatives from rural Wyoming have stormed a Manhattan theater.  They are not attempting conversion as much as  communication.  The dialogue is so brilliant that it draws you into this little world for a sane glimpse into a group not often sympathetically (or even respectfully) represented in plays.

Laura Jellinek’s set design contains a lone house at dawn.  There is a forest nearby and a mountain in the distance.  The lights are dim.  Justin (Jeb Kreager) is sitting quietly on the porch when he hears something.  He picks up his rifle and shoots.  He retrieves a deer and dumps it on his porch for gutting.  Stains of blood and murder set the tone.

Justin’s home is the location for an after party.  The Transfiguration College of Wyoming has just installed a new President.  This is a private Catholic College, similar to one the playwright attended.  His father is the current President of that school.  If you want a peek into a world that is laser focused on propagating its beliefs – especially if they disagree with yours – and you want that view to be adorned with some of the most satisfyingly artful and intelligent prose, then this play is a must see.

Gina  is the new President but she has not yet arrived at this party and it is getting late.  Emily (Julia McDermott) is her daughter who has an unexplained illness, walks with crutches and manages to exist in a state of perpetual goodness.  She’s devout but counts as friends one who works at Planned Parenthood and another who is a drag queen.  It is easy to love her and her contradictions.

Teresa has come back to the school to celebrate one of her teachers and this particular accomplishment.  She lives in Brooklyn.  The world around her is filled with evil liberals.  She reminded me of a terrifically articulate Ann Coulter type.  She smokes and does cocaine.  Her exquisitely delivered staccato diatribes are nothing short of spectacular.  Zoë Winters performance is mind-blowing.  It is easy to dislike her but she’s got spunk for days.

She argues that abortion and the Holocaust are the same thing.  Abolishing slavery has led to anti-slavery where “they” are trying to “oppress us.”  Almost militant in her convictions, I could never be friends with someone this far off my spectrum of reasonableness.  Sitting in a theater and absorbing her beliefs without any opportunity to argue or turn the channel forces listening.  She’s whip smart and polished.  This play gives her voice a serious pulpit.  The theatergoer can take it all in and think.

The Fourth Turning of the title is a pseudoscientific theory which believes that every generation goes through four cycles.  Teresa explains this and believes it wholeheartedly.  We are currently at the fourth period which is also known as crisis.  Who’s fault?  If you guess Obama then you would be correct.

Kevin is the fool of the play.  He’s drinking tonight and desperately trying to find a girlfriend.  He is filled with self-loathing.  Teresa calls him a “soy boy.”  Portrayed by John Zdrojeski, he is a young man who graduated from this college.  He’s young and caught between his commitment to faith and obsession with internet porn.  He questions his behavior when going to church, speed praying by rote and then going off to brunch.

The character of Kevin is filled with heart and soul, along with supremely entertaining inner conflicts.  They erupt volcanically in an enormously self-deprecating way.  Mr. Zdrojeski is superb in his depiction of this deeply flawed yet highly sympathetic character.

When Gina (Michelle Pawk, excellent) finally arrives to pick up her daughter, the debates escalate even further.  Rather than simply showcase a pile of brainless conservatives, Mr. Arbery has created five individuals who reside along the spectrum of conservatism.  Gina is looking past the Trump presidency.  “He’s a gaseous windbag and I pray for his soul.”  He was, however, the choice that had to be made.

Danya Taymor beautifully directed this cyclone of intermingling arguments and interpersonal relationship drama.  Heroes of the Fourth Turning is dense with language and concepts.  Somehow Ms. Taymor makes this celebratory evening at Justin’s house crackle with realistic life.  This production is one of the year’s finest.

Fans of debate will find this entire play filled with scintillating verbiage.  You may or may not agree with the content and that’s the point.  Asking a New York audience to sit for two hours with no intermission and listen to a non-stop barrage of conservative philosophizing may seem audacious and ill-advised.  Not at all.

Perhaps this play is the first pylon in the creation of a new bridge in which opposite points of view are actually heard.  I’ll certainly never align with most of the opinions of conservatives and the inherent hatred which permeates organized religion.  Like the author, I grew up in such a household.  I’ve stopped hearing them.  Will Arbery’s play, however, made me listen and appreciate his mission to write this astonishing literary achievement.

www.playwrightshorizons.org

Sometimes an impression leaves a lasting memory.  When I began attending Broadway theater in the mid-1970’s, the group school trips focused on the big musicals.  During this period of consuming Shenandoah, Annie and A Chorus Line, there were other marquees which drew my attention.  One was for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.  Another was Elizabeth Swados’ Runaways.  With this revival, I have finally managed to experience these unique and intense theatrical pieces.

The  year before I started blogging, Runaways had a short summer Encores! Off Center revival.  I loved the show and was surprised that it didn’t seem dated.  The subject was children who had run away from their homes and were living on city streets.  Both for colored girls and Runaways were elevated to Broadway via Joseph Papp and the Public Theater.  The institution that nurtured A Chorus Line also – and significantly – brought bold new voices to uptown audiences.

Ntozake Shange wrote her play based on personal experiences and observations.  The Lady in Orange “convinced myself that colored girls had no right to sorrow and I lived my life that way.”  All of the seven ladies are represented by a color.  Yellow is still developing: “being a woman and being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven’t conquered yet.”

This piece was written as a “choreopoem,” a collection of individual poems with frequent music and dance.  There is a true bonding of sisters.  Brown wants to sing a black girl’s song which has been “closed inside so long, she doesn’t hear the sound of her own voice.”  The sheer volume of gorgeous prose and deep introspection is staggering.  The work was written “for colored girls who have considered suicide / but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.”

Originally performed in bars and other downtown spaces, this play managed to hit the mainstream (at least in New York).  The Broadway run was 742 performances and included a Tony nomination for Best Play.  How rare a feat?  This was only the second play written by an African American woman to be produced on the aptly named “Great White Way.”  It was produced seventeen years after Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.  This trailblazing work lives up to its reputation.

This collection of poetry covers many topics from living in Harlem to rape and abortion.  Men and relationships are dissected to release their pain.  The Lady in Red’s blistering monologue “a nite with beau willie brown” recalls the arc of one young lady from thirteen to twenty two.  In the original production, Trazana Beverley won a supporting actress Tony for her rendition.  Jayme Lawson’s interpretation in this show stopped my breath.

The singular finest moment in a tempest of excellence, pain and partial healing belongs to the Lady in Green (Okwui Okpokwasili).  This poem is called “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff.”  Her stuff is metaphysical.  The title is repeated throughout this monologue.  Each time Ms. Okpokwasili lands that line, her eyes widen, boring through the listener.  Her realization explodes as her percolating outrage is laid out raw.  The writing and acting is riveting.

There is a lot of movement in for colored girls.  The Lady in Orange tells us that “We gotta dance to keep from cryin’.”  This section is named “no more love poems #1.”  Ms. Shange is perhaps communicating her own personal chrysalis.  She could not stand being “sorry & colored at the same time.  It’s so redundant in the modern world.”

I found myself thinking for colored girls was both a psychological breakthrough for the author and a remarkably brave outreach to her sisters.  The seven women listen to each other’s stories and provide noticeable support and nods of recognition.  One says that she is finally being real and “no longer symmetrical and impervious to pain.”  Fans of lyrical language and expressive emotions have plenty to savor in this groundbreaking work of art.

I happened to see the performance of this play on the one year anniversary of Ms. Shange’s death.  At the curtain call, there was a pause of silence in her honor.  A fitting tribute in the theater where her work transitioned from beloved to famous.  After all these years, I am thrilled to have finally encountered this long overdue revival.  It reminds me why the Public Theater was and is vital to our theatrical community.  It implores us to listen to voices which are not our own.  And, most importantly, for colored girls shows how one person’s life can inspire and help change the world.

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is running at the Public Theater through December 8, 2019.  I strongly advise not ordering seats on the stage.

www.publictheater.org

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/retropsectiveseries/shenandoah

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/retrospectiveseries/annie

theaterreviewsfrommyseat/retrospectiveseries/achorusline