TheaterReviewsFromMySeat

An ambitious play, Describe the Night has been written by Rajiv Joseph, the Pulitzer Prize finalist for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.  On Broadway in 2011, that play featured Robin Williams in the titular role.  A tiger haunts the streets of Baghdad searching for the meaning of life within the backdrop of the Iraq invasion, encountering both American and Iraqi soldiers.  Describe the Night also takes us to war, this time the 1920 Russian – Polish military conflict.  We begin this three act epic with a conversation between two soldiers.  One is making notes in his diary.  Sample entry:  describe the night.

Our diarist turns out to be a famous Soviet writer.  This play crisscrosses nine decades to tell its story, back and forth, between 1920 and 2010.  Based on historical people and events, Describe the Night is certainly about Russia, the NKVD (secret police) and subordination under the Stalinist regime.   It is also a multigenerational saga with that diary as a connecting thread.  A commentary on Russia in the 20th Century and also a mirror peering at Russia today.  What makes this play so compelling is the juxtaposition of serious, hard hitting history wrapped in elements of the mysterious.  Is it mystical, perhaps Russian folklore?  Is it fantasy?

Unique and brimming with themes, Describe the Night is excellent theater.  Given the current Russian investigation in Washington, Mr. Joseph forces us to face some very uncomfortable truths.  Or are they lies?  Who decides?  Even journalists are targets.  Sound familiar?  Adding to the timeliness of the material is superb writing.  The path is not chronological so all three acts come together in a wholly satisfying finale.

Directed by Giovanna Sardelli, Describe the Night is chock full of excellent scenes.  Vova is the climbing Soviet agent played by Max Gordon Moore (Indecent) in an intensely wrought, physical performance.  As Yevgenia, the woman in the center of the storm, Tina Benko (Julius Caesar) flipped between humor and pathos, grounding the story so the big themes were personalized and heartfelt.  Tim Mackabee (The Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper) somehow managed to create a set design that is sparse, depressing and utilitarian yet somehow magical, mysterious and even hopeful.  Describe the Night is an absorbing, surprising, creative and intelligent piece of theater.

www.atlantictheater.org

The New Group’s mission is to develop and produce powerful, contemporary theater that is adventurous, stimulating and most importantly “now.”  Seth Zvi Rosenfeld’s Downtown Race Riot seems to fit that bill as a commentary on our still prevalent racial tensions using a historical, period-specific incident.  The events are depicted through a day in the life of one Greenwich Village family in 1976.

Chloe Sevigny (Oscar nominee for Boys Don’t Cry) plays Mary Shannon, a mother with two teenage children.  She’s on drugs and disability.  Current thinking involves a bogus paint chip eating lawsuit involving her sixteen year old son.  Apparently there’s dough to score and a lawyer is coming over to help.  He happens to be a fan of cocaine.

Meanwhile, the white son and his black best friend (David Levy and Moise Morancy) are contemplating joining the race riot in Washington Square Park that afternoon.  The sister, who may or may not be a lesbian, more than flirts with the best friend.  Hamburgers are made, burned and not eaten.  None of this comes together in any sort of meaningful way.  A slice of life drama about a dysfunctional family on the day of a race riot.  There is a well-choreographed big scene at the end that was startling and intense.

Over the past ten years I have seen a number of New Group productions including The Jacksonians, Marie & Bruce, Sticks and Bones, Russian Transport and the musical Sweet Charity (Sutton Foster).  Most famously, this company developed the Tony Award winning Avenue Q.  Most of my experiences have been very positive.  This year, for the first time, I decided to buy a subscription for the season.  The first of four productions, Downtown Race Riot is a disappointment.  Up next, Jerry Springer, the Opera.

www.thenewgroup.org

As part of the 2017 Next Wave Festival, The Fountainhead arrives via Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  The company’s director, Ivo van Hove, was recently represented by two excellent Broadway revivals, A View From the Bridge and The Crucible.  So it’s really no surprise that the production here is super-conceptualized, visually arresting and well acted.  But the material is Ayn Rand.  Having never read her work, I was not completely prepared for the bloated hyperbole here rendered in Dutch with English supertitles.

The Fountainhead’s protagonist is Howard Roark, an individualistic young architect who designs modernist buildings.  He is unwilling to compromise on his art.  The architectural establishment is unwilling to accept innovation.  Mr. Roark is therefore presented as the ideal man and embodies Ms. Rand’s view that individualism is superior to collectivism.  The result is a four hour diatribe of mind-numbingly self-righteous speeches and repetitive musings with dollops of nudity, sex and drinking.

At the core of this watchable bore is ultimately an overwrought soap opera.  The woman who calculatingly sleeps around.  The newspaper people who make or break careers.  The not-so talented but more successful rival.  And our “hero,” as self-important as his brilliant buildings. Thrown into this theatrical blender is a mix of endless philosophical musings about everything from capitalism, rape, socialism, conformity and individualism.  From my seat, as an individual, I was happy when this relentlessly preachy story ended, unresolved and overlong.  Perhaps collectivism, and editing, are not entirely bad things.

www.bam.org

www.toneelgroepamsterdam.nl

Atrocious is not usually a word associated with J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.  In the hands of the off-Broadway troupe Bedlam however, atrocious is just one descriptor to sum up this incomprehensible, indulgent, occasionally lewd, often idiotic reimagining.  In this version, the company has developed a dual storyline.  One is a loose connection to Peter, Wendy and the lost boys of the original tale.  The other is Wendy having settled down years later, married with kids.  Six actors play all of these roles.  Confusion trumps clarity.  Boredom ensues.

Of course Wendy is mad that Peter never grew up and she settled for a bitter suburban lifestyle.  The premise is not necessarily a bad idea.  Packaged as a first draft inane college project does this exercise no favors.  Bedlam has had success in recent years reinterpreting classics such as Sense & Sensibility and Twelfth Night.  This Peter Pan, however, is leaden, amazingly dull and one off my least favorite theatrical experiences in a long, long time.  Perhaps if Captain Hook had the last laugh, I might have at least chuckled once.

www.bedlam.org

Apparently I have accidentally stumbled on my theater week with young women as the central topic.  First I saw WP Theater’s What We’re Up Against, a play focused on discrimination in the 1992 workplace.  Then I took in The Mad Ones, a musical about a teenage girl in her senior year of high school.    And last, but certainly not least, is The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe.  This is her first play, moved uptown to Lincoln Center after a hugely successful run last year off-Broadway and a finalist for the Pulitzer (won by Lynn Nottage’s Sweat).  A girl’s indoor soccer team is the focus here.  They are the wolves of the title.

We begin the play on the field with the ladies stretching and talking as in real life.  Multiple conversations happening at the same time.  Where to focus?  It doesn’t matter as this confident playwright introduces nine young ladies with distinct personalities.  The topics?  Suffice it to say that the opening dialogue travels from tampons vs. pads to the Khmer Rouge effortlessly, if you can believe that.  Over the last five to ten years, those of us who love theater have been fortunate to experience another golden age of playwriting.  The Wolves confidently joins the list with its exceptional dialogue and storytelling.

This play is so good because it makes you feel like you are eavesdropping on the team.  Their insecurities.  Their petty battles.  Their gossip.  And then there is a mystery of sorts thrown into the mix which keeps you guessing.  Directed by Lila Neugebauer, The Wolves is an ensemble piece where every character is important just as it would be on a winning team.  The girls are represented by the numbers they wear.  #46 is the young lady from out of town and new to the team.  The actress portraying her is Tedra Millan, having a breakout 2017 both on Broadway in Present Laughter and this summer in the Atlantic Theater’s On the Shore of the Wide World.  She is only one of the memorable performances here.  Great theater, superbly staged and acted; highly recommended.

www.lincolncenter.org

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