Category: Off-Off Broadway Reviews

Productions by the Axis Company can confidently be relied upon to have atmospheric moodiness.  Written and directed by Randy Sharp, Strangers in the World imagines a time when New England was being colonized by puritans.  In 1613, a small group arrives and builds a poorly constructed village near the shoreline.  Years pass and the remaining survivors seem to be going mad with grief, starvation and hopelessness.  A plan is voted upon to head south with their remaining possessions in search of a chance for a better life.

The setting for this play is a cold forest.  The supply of food is dwindling.  Clipped, bitter and angry conversations between these colonists suggest life’s pressures have overwhelmed their ability to cope.  All the children are dead.  The vision of creating a model society devoted to godliness has long been determined a failure.  These puritans wear their devoutness like a shield of battle armor, however.

A visitor arrives on the shoreline apparently alone, his boat sunk to the bottom of the sea.  In stark contrast to their dark brown attire, his lightly colored clothing is tattered.  Should they be suspicious of him or not?  Are more boats coming to save them?  Might they be able to return home?  What about the plan to travel south, even though the city is likely a godless place?

From this outline, Strangers in the World swirls around like a cyclone revealing these character’s inner turmoils which are no longer invisible underneath their religious piety.  Their shields are fragile.  Madness is evident.  Sexual repression and murderous thoughts cannot be contained.  The interesting conflict here is the juxtaposition of idealized puritanical values and morals set against the harshness of failure and desperation.

Additional subplots emerge which enhance the claustrophobia of people trapped in their lives.  Is this new visitor a savior or a devil?  The imagery and various meanings in this play prompt good post-theater conversation.  The structure is far from linear and can be repetitive in depicting madness verging on hysteria.  The entire cast nicely embodies these frighteningly damaged souls and allows us to see them as different individuals caught in a collective nightmare.

As previously mentioned, there is an abundance of atmospheric moodiness in this production.  The theme of repression peppers the entire play.  There are moments where I feared the story was dangerously approaching caricature.  In the end, however, the theatrical risk taking pays off.  This unusual play can be recommended for adventurous theatergoers who enjoy filling in the details.

Imagine traveling to a new world and failing to survive.  Spouses and children are dead.  The food is scarce.  A blinding devotion to questionable dogma.  The fear of the unknown crippling any chance to find a better life.  Quite a bit of emotional ground is covered through these irreparately damaged souls.  What does abject terror do to people?  Strangers in the World suggests that darkness within the human soul is inescapably pervasive no matter how tight one clings to their god.

www.axiscompany.org

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I remember SRA color coded reading cards from elementary and middle school.  You worked through a section independently and then moved to the next color after successful completion.  These self-directed lessons were pervasive in 1960 and 1970 classrooms.  Nerd alert:  I recall loving them.  Before that, McGuffey’s Ecletic Readers were the dominant graded primers from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.  Theater company Little Lord has created the inconceivably enjoyable Skinnamarink based primarily on these books.

From the 1830’s, McGuffey’s readers helped standardized English language usage in the United States.  122 million books were reportedly sold by 1925.  More Americans learned to read from this series which, not surprisingly, reflected (and shaped) moral values of the 19th century.  The first book starts with:  “The dog.  The dog ran.”  Words are accompanied by a picture.  Each lesson is progressively more difficult.  At the end of the book, some questions and moral advice are tacked on.  “Have you taken good care of your book?”  “Children should always keep their books neat and clean.”

Into the theater we now enter together.  Everyone is given a name sticker.  We are all John.  Cast members emerge.  One stands by the dunce cap.  Another looks to be in time out.  A third stands in the middle of the room.  The fourth is lying on the ground in a yellow body outline.  On to the lessons we go:  “Birds are in the nest.  Nests are in the trees…”  A woman’s voice on an intercom announces the next tasks such as roll call, exercise or snacktivity.  When the bell rings, it can simply be everyone yelling “bell, bell, bell.”

What makes Skinnamarink work so effectively is the commitment to sending up childhood memories of school while commenting on universal brainwashing.  About a larger female:  “Lucy is a greedy girl.  Why is she a glutton?”  About behavior:  “I promise not to be a naughty little girl.”  Adding in the whimsical:  “It’s just a Vitamin D shot; don’t be so paranoid.”

If you can instantly recognize a math problem which begins, “if a pound of prunes costs thirteen cents today…” then you will firmly connect with this material.  Skinnamarink is absurdist theater and very, very funny.  The entire cast is deadly serious in performing these increasingly silly and manic intervals.  When we get to a conversation about which jobs a new colony needs, a farmer is an obviously good choice.  One student suggests celebrity spokesperson.  “We don’t need anyone to tell us what’s interesting.  We know what’s interesting.”

The polish exhibited throughout this 75 minute comedy has to be credited to Little Lord’s Artistic Director and performer Michael Levinton who also helmed the staging of this physically inventive piece.  It’s ritualistic, symbolic, idiotic and smart.  That combination is not easy to do this successfully.  A couple of fun tunes like the title song and exceptionally strong lighting effects (Cha See) enliven this madcap variety show and tell.

The end notes in McGuffey’s first book states that “your parents are very kind to send you to school.  If you are good, and if you try to learn, your teacher will love you, and you will please your parents.”  Herding cats into bland uniformity has always been an unfortunate byproduct of our educational system.  But the follow up line really speaks to American values:  “When you go home, you may ask your parents to get you a Second Reader.”

I loved Skinnamarink.  It’s a hilarious blast of brightly vivid creativity, a wicked skip down memory lane and an indictment on the persistently pushed cultural homogenization of our society.  As for the future?  “When there’s nothing left here except for the recycling, you will know that I loved you.”  Bravo, all.

www.nytw.org

www.littlelord.org

New York City is preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots while hosting World Pride in June.  Currently running at La Mama is a piece which examines the state of gay rights in the Balkans.  The program notes that 55 Shades of Gay: Balkan Spring of Sexual Revolution is the first theater company from Kosovo invited to share their work with an American audience.  This play so enraged a member of their Ministry of Justice that he publicly called for the beheading of its cast.  The question asked by this production:  “Is sexual liberation possible in the Balkans?”

A cast member approaches the audience at the beginning of this show.  If you are homophobic, a Christian fundamentalist or a fascist, you are encouraged to leave the theater.  What follows is not easy to describe.  The play is a political burlesque meant to shock, push buttons, entertain, point out hypocrisy and maybe even open some minds to eliminating discrimination once and for all.

An Italian company has come to a very provincial town in order to build a condom factory which will provide 200 jobs.  One of these foreigners has fallen in love with a local man.  He applies for a marriage license, supposedly allowed by the country’s European Union approved Constitution.  A wall of outrage erupts from intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders and even “professional grenade launchers.”  They work hard to keep the wedding from happening.  Even Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is vilified for her stance on same sex marriage.

The small town’s mayor looks to distract the public’s attention away from this thorny issue.  He devises a scheme to plant palm trees despite the fact that the climate is wrong.  Being called crazy for planting palm trees is preferable to being labeled “the town of the butt fuckers.”  Aggressively absurdist in style, this piece does not shy away from controversy.  “Kill the faggots!” is a frequently repeated mantra.  Perhaps it’s time for a new Catholic inquisition, they ponder.  The targets for ridicule are many and far-ranging.

Equal parts flamboyant exaggeration and furious indignation, 55 Shades of Gay is a jumble of styles, languages and music.  Some scenes are played for laughs while others are intentionally provocative.  A tree across the street from the municipal building occasionally comments on the action occurring in the registrar’s office.  Even the typewriter has thoughts.  Some songs and the color pink are thrown in to this quite energetic (and also frenetic) spectacle.

As a reminder of the continued evolution of equal rights, 55 Shades of Gay is an interesting piece of theatrical experimentation.  The five Kosovar actors, particularly the lovelorn Tristan Halilaj, manage to present nicely drawn characterizations (and cartoons) amidst the grotesquerie and satire.  Overall, the performance feels a bit long likely due to repetition in the storytelling.

Head downtown to La Mama if you want to see the Qendra Multimedia theater company challenge the status quo.  A friend recently commented that the struggle for gay rights is now over since the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage.  This show reminds us that the voices of oppression are alive and thriving.  One cast member says, “Their hatred is hysterical.  It makes me laugh.”  Here is an opportunity to laugh about no laughing matter.

www.lamama.org

www.qendra.org

“Some people go to therapy to work out their stuff,” Nicholas Linnehan informs at the start of his autobiographical play, Identity.  Not him.  Instead, “I write plays to fix myself.”  Before the first scene even starts, his character named Mike is laying bare his emotions for the audience to see.   A man with a mild case of cerebral palsy and disarthryic speech, he points out that he is different from us.  “And deep down inside, I guess I’m praying I’m really not.”

The play opens with Mike restrained on a hospital bed.  Why is he there?  What has happened?  In a series of flashback scenes, the audience is taken on a journey to comprehend, understand and empathize with life as a disabled person.  His particular road is made even more difficult as Mike is also a gay man.  Admittedly a terrible athlete despite Dad’s dreams for baseball glory, he instead found his home run in theater.  Thankfully he has shared his trials and tribulations in this original, heartfelt and engrossing confessional.

The fourth wall is broken repeatedly throughout Mr. Linnehan’s play.  His asides are wry and often hilarious.  As a straight “A” ten year old:  “by the way, I’m supposed to be much younger now.”  He stops and asks, “am I giving an Oscar worthy performance here?”  The jokes are frequent and effectively draw us in closer to his quirky and playful personality.  When he turns serious and peels back yet another layer for us to examine, the drama is vivid and quietly devastating.

Mike is living “in the crack” somewhere between abled an disabled.  As a result, he does not feel part of the normal world “if it exists.”  In a scene loaded with emotional transparency, he wishes for one more affectation of his disease “just to belong.”  Mike’s search for his identity is the basis for this play.  What makes this riveting theater is the performance itself.  He takes his audience by the hand and does not lecture.  He doesn’t demand empathy and is occasionally off-putting in his bitterness and self-deprecation.  The effect achieved allows us to see a real, imperfect and articulate human being sharing a complicated journey.  Identity certainly confronts the hard knocks of growing up but is ultimately a celebration of life and the dreams which give us hope.

At intermission, Mike confided “you are all part of this crazy thing I call a play.”  The story centers on three key figures from his past:  mom, dad and a doctor.  Dad (Tim Connell) is largely a one-dimensional tyrant but seems to have been written that way since these scenes are extracted from Mr. Linnehan’s memories.  Amy Liszka’s endearing, chain smoking Mom is the more sympathetic parent but even she struggles with unequivocal love and support.  It is no surprise that the Doctor (Matthew Tyler) is perhaps the most important character on this stage.  His eyes are our window into the clinical and distancing part of this expressively therapeutic play.

Christopher Scott directed Identity with a loosely informal style but with clearly defined scenes ranging from naturalistic to abstractly provocative.  In the small (and quite nice) basement theater at El Barrio Artspace, Mike’s parents try to grasp whether their son is happy.  His doctor also wonders the same thing.  At the end of this memorable tale Mr. Linnehan turns to the audience and asks, “Am I happy?”  It’s worth your time to find out the answer in this uniquely fascinating work.

www.artspaceps109.org

www.identitytheater.com

A very pregnant woman is helping her family cope with mother’s impending death from Stage 4 cancer.  Dad teaches Tai Chi.  Mom is a painter.  Her Aunt is an actress who has just arrived to offer support to her dying sister.  Jane is a Buddhist and wants a burial cremation involving a bonfire not hospice care.  The doorbell rings.  The simple pine box coffin has arrived.  Aunt Lydia is named Death Coordinator.  There is going to be Dying in Boulder.

The attractive set design by Yu-Hsuan Chen is dominated by a large Japanese-style rock garden.  The tranquility of the space suggests a place for meditation and calm.  Aunt Lydia is troubled by the family’s preparation for her sister Jane’s death only to hear “what she needs now is comfort, not hope.”  Linda Faigao-Hall’s play examines our fear of death using comedy to hold a mirror to western practices and beliefs.

Jane’s death bed wishes include a karmic cleansing.  She’d rather not take her issues into the afterlife.  Slow deaths are a blessing as there’s “time for atonement.”  She wants to have private heart-to-heart chats with everyone.  One family member never returned after their “talk.”  Dying in Boulder begins as a dark comedy which explores our reactions to end of life care.

Max arrives to offer support for her journey to the next phase of existence.  Jane attended his workshop “The Buddhist Way to Die, Part I.”  For every lighthearted joke, there are also deeper musings which emerge.  There is “no shame in growing old; it’s part of being human.”  The first act swings unevenly between humor and wisdom.  Flashbacks (often laced with jokes) are used to fill in backstories; some are silly, others are appalling which at least gives the play a jolt of adrenaline.

The second act veers uncomfortably from light and slightly edgy comedy to a much darker place.  Jane may be a dying Buddhist but she has some death bed cruelty to administer.  Sordid family secrets and baggage have to be aired out before the karmic cleansing will be complete.  The soap opera unfolds and comedy takes a back seat to a laundry list of familial slights and life regrets.  Although the death bed one-on-one conversations were foretold in the first act, nothing suggested the extent of the dramatic overload which came later.

As daughter Nikki, Mallory Ann Wu successfully navigated her character’s conflicts and emotions.  Resigned to her mother’s impending death, she becomes the moral center of the play.  Can the next generation learn from the mistakes of previous ones?  Is forgiveness possible or even necessary?  After questioning her own upbringing and now about to have a baby, can she make family her passion (rather than career)?

Ms. Faigao-Hall has written a play filled with the thoughts and absurdities of a life imperfectly lived.  The imperfection is in the eye of the beholder.  The regret may be in the mind of the dying.  The uneasy mix of sitcom laughs and stinging family dysfunction ultimately hinders the play’s focus.  The consideration of one’s own Dying in Boulder is an interesting notion worthy of exploration.  I hope mine is funnier with histrionics kept to a minimum.

www.lamama.org

A foul mouthed SNL skit with political commentary?  An indictment of porn?  A sci-fi apocalypse spoof?  An exploitation of conservative media for our entertainment pleasure?  A lampoon of the internet?  A mockery of evangelicals on television?  An explanation for the appeal of screaming goats?  Eat The Devil is improbably and hilariously all of those and much more.

A terrifying virus is infecting post-fact America.  In an airplane two flight attendants deliver their instructions.  In the event of an emergency, “flotation tubes will shoot out of the plane’s asshole.”  Meanwhile on the ground, Mia has been invented and her programming is being finalized.  She is a sex robot whose early phrases include “why don’t you show me what you got in there big boy?”

Scott Fetterman’s high quality video design is already in progress when you take your seat.  Freezing goats.  Animal cosplay.  A talk show with the caption “Will You Be Replaced by Samantha the Sex Robot?”  Eat The Devil has been written by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper and Dan Nuxoll perhaps in response to a disturbing internet binge.  The comedy they have created is crude and rude for sure.  It is also sharply satirical and filled with a barrage of extraordinarily clever one liners skewering today’s America.

Kelindah Schuster is unforgettable as Mia, the sex toy designed as an idealized woman.  The performance is physically superb.  An intelligent robot, she has been designed to have many different modes.  One unforgettable (and dare I say classic) monologue Schuster is given to perform is bitingly cynical and beyond hysterical.  The entire cast is remarkably fine given the loony antics in this script.  They fully commit to these ridiculous characters with realistically drawn cartoons.

Why the videos about goats and people dressed as animals at the start of this show?  Well, fursecution is a major plot point.  Info Wars’ Alex Jones and  Fox News’ Tomi Lahren are in a major tizzy.  America is under attack.  “I hear the globalists coming!”  They don’t see that cosplay is just some “gender confused teen in a Bulbasaur costume.”  They see “democracy dying in darkness.”  Thank goodness the television evangelicals are praying for a return to sanity while collecting donations and selling queso.

Director Nick Flint and his entire creative team have impressively staged this chaotic madness.  This production is from One Year Lease Theater (OYL).  I saw their excellent pool (no water) many years ago.  In that piece and this one, movement is critical to the storytelling.  Like many great comedies that swing toward the fence, not every moment is a home run.  There are foul balls and perhaps a few extra innings.  Like all shows presented at the Tank, this show is a limited run through March 9th.  Without hesitation I will return and see the next iteration of this inspired jolt of insanity.  “Wake up sheeple.  We’re talkin’ bout end times.”

www.thetanknyc.org

www.oneyearlease.org

In 1966, Renata Hinrichs and her family pile into their brand new Ford Galaxy.  They are moving from Boston to Chicago.  Dad has just graduated from the seminary and taken a position at Grace Lutheran Church.  Located on the south side, the church is steps away from Ashland Avenue.  “It is like the Berlin wall:  the dividing line between the Eastside where the black people live, and the Westside, where the white people live.”  Random Acts is a story of one young girl’s memories growing up in the middle of the civil rights struggle in 1960’s America.

The inspiration for this play was born when Ms. Hinrichs was living in New York City during 9/11.  Childhood memories came flooding back so she interviewed her parents to fill in more details.  While she has written a multi-character play, it is performed as a monologue.  She plays her kindergarten self, mother and father, the school teacher, her boyfriend and others.  What first appears to be an elongated acting exercise slowly transforms into a touching meditation on specific incidents that mold our character and shape our lives.

I grew up in Rahway, New Jersey.  My childhood best friend lived on a street which was also sort of a dividing line between the white and black sides.  His family had emigrated from Grenada.  We thought it ironic that in the middle of the block lived an interracial couple.  That house felt like the exact boundary line between two segregated worlds.  Random Acts brought a lot of childhood memories back.  For that reason alone, I was captivated by this memoir.

As a very young elementary school student, she faces racial confrontation with classmates, in her father’s church and, ultimately and frighteningly, during the riots which break out when Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated.  She’s a doting caregiver for her dolls and dreams of being just like Julie Andrews when she grows up.  Ms. Hinrichs is a product of her time and admirably has reflected on how it shaped the woman standing on this stage.  Serious and thoughtful, this play manages to be brightly positive in tone.

Earlier this week I watched Black Sheep, a documentary short nominated for an Oscar this year.  In order to escape the violence in London, a young black man moves with his family to a very white town in England.  He narrates the backward looking story of how he tried to fit into a world that only saw the color of his skin.  Far different in tone, this film and this play both use intimate observations to not only comment on racial prejudice but also how it impacts one’s personal development.  That individualized perspective enables the subject matter to become vivid and powerful.

Random Acts is nicely staged by director Jessi D. Hill.  Chika Shimizu’s scenic design was simple and effective.  Ms. Hinrichs remembers her church’s stained glass windows filled with stories.  With interesting lighting effects by Daisy Long, the stage hints at a theatrical sermon filled with stories.  Not the lecturing kind but a reflective one.  Random acts of kindness can be overwhelmingly inspirational.  Random Acts, the play, is proof of that.

www.randomactstheplay.com

Having lost the last four presidential elections to the same Democrat, the Republicans desperately want a winner in 1948.  Strategist James Conover (Michael Durkin) has an idea.  Why not nominate a successful businessman who is a populist outsider?  Aircraft industrialist Grant Matthews (Kyle Minshew) is summoned to his D.C. home.  With a major newspaper publisher and a political reporter also in attendance, Mr. Matthews is convinced to run and shake up the State of the Union.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, this 1945 play was likely a riff on real-life utility magnate and improbable 1940 presidential nominee Wendell Willkie.  He changed political parties the year before from Democrat to Republican.  Mr. Willkie was well-known for standing up to Congress against plans for the Tennessee Valley Authority.  Our fictional hero also has a backbone and a fine reputation.  How can he get elected while having an affair with Kay Thorndyke (Jennifer Reddish), the newspaper publisher?

A party switching businessman in a relationship outside his marriage with no political experience wants to run for President of the United States?  Impossible!  Ridiculously far fetched, you bewail!  Seventy years have passed since this successful play (and the Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn film adaptation) was written.  Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (Anything Goes, Life With Father) are perhaps best known now for collaborating on the book for The Sound of Music.  Having just seen Call Me Madam at Encores! last weekend, apparently it’s Lindsay and Crouse month.  Uncannily fresh, State of the Union is filled with crisp dialogue, witty banter, slithering irony and thoughtful perspectives before detonating in a delectably enjoyable third act.

In order to kick off the campaign on the right foot, the rumors of Mr. Matthew’s affair need to be dealt with.  He and his wife Mary have been estranged for more than a year.  How to convince her to stand by her husband’s side as he announces his candidacy?  She knows of the affair and is described as a tough lady prone to aggressive behavior.  Mary is so disgusted with the divided politics of this country that she “can’t even read a newspaper.”  “I get so mad.”  Expertly played by Anna Marie Sell, this character becomes our guide through the muck of the Washington swamp.

Cocktails are served at every opportunity which makes this comedy lighter than it may sound.  Mary hears that she is “the most attractive plank in her husband’s platform.”  The machinations of fund raising, compromise and special interests all get thrown into the mix.  Important figures promise votes for favors.  “How can you deliver the votes of a free people?”  The play responds and it’s a doozy:  lazy, ignorant and prejudiced people are not free.

State of the Union is a long three act play which requires a little patience as it simmers until its grand payoff.  Laura Livingston’s direction of the Act III sazerac-induced truth telling is exemplary.  In a tiny off-off Broadway house, a sizable dinner party is staged so naturalistically I felt like a fly on the wall.  I did indeed laugh.  I also fretted about a political system still worried about the next election rather than the nation’s future.

Ms. Sell’s Mary, Mr. Durkin’s strategist Conover and Linda Kuriloff’s brilliant southern sunbeam Lulubelle Alexander were especially praiseworthy performances.  Vincent Gunn’s unfussily attractive set design commendably encapsulated the scene changes.  (The overhead suspended crown molding was a nice touch.)  Offstage interchanges and frequent entrances and exits are rarely handled this clearly.  State of the Union is a finely mounted production.  This is very good off-off Broadway theater; both entertaining and provocative.

The Metropolitan Playhouse explores America’s diverse theatrical heritage often focusing on older literary works and those based on American history.  This selection is particularly inspired and should become a play revived at least by regional theaters everywhere.  The 2020 election is not so far away.  Find a few big stars and this one might also be ripe for a Broadway revival.  More impossible things have happened.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org

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Turn on your television, read a printed article or go online.  Today it is easy to inform oneself about voting rights and a woman’s right to choose.  With both under siege, The Eccentric Theater Company presents Deeds Not Words.  They believe now is the right time to retell two women’s suffrage era satires.  This small scale production at The Tank reconsiders plays that would have been performed regionally in a time before radio.  A note in the 1868 original edition for The Spirit of Seventy-Six; or The Coming Woman makes the point clearly.  “This play is not written for the stage… but simply for amateur performances.”

Entertainment designed to push buttons and encourage thinking.  Both of these short plays use broad satire as the vehicle to poke fun at the establishment.  (Pun intended.)  Clearly and loudly, these pieces champion a woman’s right to vote by ridiculing the status quo.  Back in the time before radio, these short pieces would be one way to spread forward thinking ideas.  How the Vote Was Won by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John was one of the most popular and well known suffrage plays, first produced in 1909.

In her well-to-do London living room, Ethel Cole is fretting about working women going on strike for the right to vote.  The government has said that women do not need votes as they are all looked after by men.  Unfortunately for Mrs. Cole, the maids sign on to the cause and flee.  How will dinner be served?  When husband Horace comes home, raw meat is on the table.  Making matters worse, previously self-employed women now turn up to be supported by their nearest male relative.  Mr. Cole finds distant cousins at the door with their suitcases.  A woman’s right to vote may be appealing after all!

Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis and Daniel Sargeant Curtis wrote The Spirit of Seventy-Six in 1868.  The “supposed period of this play is the year 1876.”  A future tale of horror indeed, not incidentally set at the one hundredth anniversary of America’s independence.  Thomas Carberry returns home after spending a decade in China only to find a society where women are firmly in power.  The men bemoan the past when their biggest problem was a lady’s dressing and spending.  “When we had it good.”  Apparently, “the ballot box has crushed the hat box.”

Character names are humorous such as tax assessor Mrs. Barbara Badger and Judge Susan Wigfall.  Her Honor has to leave a conversation abruptly to hear a proposal from the Chair for the Suppression of Male Dinner Parties.  What does the future look like?  At election time, the women have no time to tend to babies.  That responsibility falls to the men.  Back in the day, this must have been raucous fun, especially read by a group in their gracious drawing room.

Directed by Chelsea Anderson-Long, both plays have been updated to 2036 and 2076, underscoring concerns over women’s rights in this century.  The revisions are mostly additive such as the use of cellphones and the Chinese government’s suppression of news on the internet.  This production is only running for two weekends.  I enjoyed traveling back in time (or into the future) even if the staging is underdeveloped.

Satire is not easy to pull off.  The actors, especially Hannah Karpenko (Ethel Cole and Barbara Badger), each have individual winning moments.  More panicked frenzy might capture the hysteria felt in today’s America, the land which picked misogynistic Donald Trump as its President.  Women are marching again and suffrage again feels like the stuff of rage.

www.thetanknyc.org

www.eccentrictheatercompany.com