Tag: Play

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Marys Seacole (Lincoln Center Theatre)

The story of Florence Nightingale is well known.  She came to fame as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War.  At the same time in the same war, a British-Jamaican Creole woman named Mary Seacole wanted to join the ranks to nurse the wounded soldiers.  She was rejected.  Undaunted and persistent, she and a distant relative funded her journey to Crimea.  Her story was memorialized in her 1857 autobiographical novel “Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands.”  The immensely talented playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury tells this story in her new play Marys Seacole.

In the book, Mary recalls the rejection.  “Was it possible that American prejudices against colour had some root here?  Did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat duskier skin than theirs?”  Race relations and prejudice are not new territory for Ms. Drury.  She floored me with the uniquely structured Fairview last year.  This play ups the ante for shifts in time, character, place and tone.  I cannot be sure I understood it all.  I am, however, resolute in my admiration of this incredibly inventive narrative.

Scene after scene challenges the viewer to travel a nonlinear path.  The play opens with Mary talking about her life.  The following scene is a hospital room with three generations of a white family.  One is elderly and very ill.  Mary is now a nurse today.  Apparently Ms. Drury is going to be drawing parallels across centuries.  She does but not in any way that could be predictable.

If Fairview was distinctive in its storytelling, Marys Seacole is even bolder in dramatizing its themes.  Suffice it to say that this one act phantasmagoria is filled with astonishing imagery and fascinating language.  Describing her father, Mary comments on his “doxologizing claptrap.”  A new word to me, doxology is a liturgical formula of praise to god.  Lileana Blain-Cruz (Pipeline, Red Speedo) has impressively directed this challenging and thought provoking work.  Individual moments are never less than interesting and occasionally are mind blowing.

Quincy Tyler Bernstine is a colossal Mary.  She is both a historical figure and a modern woman shaded by a world that is not color blind.  Will it ever be?  Like Mary Seacole, she perseveres.  Six actresses each have roles that range from complex emotions to kooky humor.  They are all excellent.  This play is for anyone who wants to go to the theater and see something extraordinarily original, a little perplexing, bizarrely hilarious and dense with ideas.

Our history books portray Florence Nightingale as angelic.  She reportedly wrote, “I had the greatest difficulty in repelling Mrs. Seacole’s advances, and in preventing association between her and my nurses (absolutely out of the question!)…Anyone who employs Mrs. Seacole will introduce much kindness – also much drunkenness and improper conduct!”  Wow!  Victorian shade!

Mary was voted “Greatest Black Briton” in a 2004 poll.  Why is she such an obscure figure here?  Why is her pioneering nursing work unknown to us?  She was the daughter of a Scottish soldier and a Creole woman.  Is that the reason she’s an untold story?  Playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury gives us many things to ponder after spending time with her work.

Fairview is returning to the New York stage in June at the Theater For a New Audience in Brooklyn.  Both plays are highly recommended.

www.lct.org

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Eat The Devil (The Tank)

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

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Choir Boy (Manhattan Theatre Club)

A debate over the history and meaning of negro spirituals enlivens a classroom in Choir Boy.  At a school for young black men, a student links the line “keep your eye on the plow” to the latter day “keep your eye on the prize” and, eventually and significantly, to “yes we can.”  Tarell Alvin McCraney won an Oscar for his screenplay for Moonlight.  His ability to write memorable lines for young people trying to figure out their path in life is in full display in this absorbing, beautifully acted production.

Pharus Jonathan Young is the student at the center of this story.  When the play begins he is singing the school’s theme song at the commencement ceremony for the graduating class.  A bully hurls some mean-spirited epithets his way, briefly throwing off his timing.  Pharus is effeminate and presumably gay.  Headmaster Morrow (an excellent Chuck Cooper) advises him to tone it down a bit.  In his final year of school, this uber-talented kid has now been put in charge of the choir.

The story which follows is a fairly typical coming of age story.  There’s the sensitive kid, a spoiled rich one with followers and the warmhearted jock.  These young men are telegraphed early.  What makes The Choir so interesting is its skill in weaving the drama of being an outsider.  The memories and passed down histories of centuries of slavery and hardship inform the men who inhabit this stage.  In today’s world, how does a gay teenager with big talent and even bigger dreams safely navigate their passage into adulthood with so much baggage to carry?

Jeremy Pope plays a powerfully complicated Pharus.  Equally endearing and maddeningly self-destructive, his youthful exuberance is fortified with an acerbic defensive wit.  We see this personality trait early on and we know there will be confrontation looming.  Mr. Pope’s performance is so completely realized that it never really appears to be acting.

The same can be said for the rest of this talented cast.  As Pharus’ roommate and compassionate jock, John Clay III nicely develops the one character who may be pointing humanity to the future.  The drama in this tale is punctuated with performances by the choirboys.  The songs are expertly rendered and comment on the themes contained in the play.  “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.”  “I got a rainbow tied around my shoulders.”

Austin Pendleton (perfect) arrives at the school and is the only white person in this play.  He is assigned to teach a liberal arts class meant to encourage thinking outside the box.  When these young men engage in debate about negro spirituals and what they mean today, the play explodes with ideas.  Tensions and youthful indiscretions populate this drama with effectively uncomfortable language.  Pharus is not simply a targeted gay wallflower.  While wearing his armor, he can also be brutally mean-spirited.

Trip Cullman’s expert direction and David Zinn’s simple set design frames this drama enabling the challenges of youth to remain our central focus.  Mr. McCraney is a talented writer who has created multiple stories about being young and gay and black.  In Choir Boy, his efforts are made richer with the addition of song.  The spirituals still need to be sung.  There is still mourning and repression to be overcome.

www.manhattantheatreclub.com

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Random Acts

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

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The Price of Thomas Scott (Mint Theater)

The Mint Theater can be consistently relied upon to present interesting, high quality rediscoveries of lost plays.  In 2010, they launched a multi-year series of plays by the forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy.  With The Price of Thomas Scott, they are undertaking a project entitled Meet Miss Baker.  Both of these women were writing plays about the female experience and achieved success on the London stage in first half of the twentieth century.  In this particular play the author Elizabeth Baker muses “I wish I knew how far conscience ought to take us.”

Thomas Scott is a draper in London.  He is married and has two children.  The business is failing.  A devoutly religious man, his life is filled with churchgoing.  His wife is unhappy but supportive.  Daughter Annie is a talented hat designer who dreams of traveling to Paris and creatively expanding her craft.  Son Leonard yearns for schooling rather than following in his father’s footsteps.  There is no money to ensure either of these wishes come true.

The young individuals in this play discuss that the world seems to be changing all around them.  The latest craze involves dance halls.  As you might imagine, the religious folk see them as dens of iniquity.  Annie ponders whether dancing is really so bad as it’s “so easy to misunderstand when you don’t know.”  Religious prejudices uninformed by actual experience is the territory explored in this play.  Is her father’s view that dancing is a sin just another religious fad whose time will pass?

The most interesting angle in The Price of Thomas Scott is the ambiguity of the answer to that question.  Annie’s father receives a financially lucrative offer for his shop which could change their lives forever.  He wrestles with the dilemma of what the shop will become if he sells.  Successful businessman Wicksteed cannot understand Mr. Scott’s rigid morality.  Read your history, he notes, “how many martyrs were bigoted fools?”

Annie is the central focus of this good play.  Women are entering the workforce and considering a life that isn’t simply marriage.  She contrasts with her mother who follows her husband’s lead despite her true feelings.  Thomas Scott wrestles with his conscience as he considers societal progress.  Is progress the devil’s own argument in allowing evil to permeate the world?  It may seem ludicrous today to consider dancing a sin.  This play forces you to consider a world inhabited with conservative and restrictive values.

I know a very religious person who would not let their children read the Harry Potter series because it contained real magic spells.  In my view, such uninformed prejudices seem idiotic.  I find ignorance and religious fervor a scary partnership.  What I liked about this play is it’s consideration of that viewpoint from both sides.  Is a strong moral conviction not merely a prejudice but a belief system worth admiring?

The Mint usually mounts the highest quality off-Broadway productions and The Price of Thomas Scott is no exception.  Vicki R. Davis’ set design is a simple and beautiful rendering of a draper’s shop from long ago.  The actors do a nice job embodying these relatively simply drawn characters.  Donald Corren’s Thomas and Emma Geer’s Annie were nicely shaded characterizations which invited sympathetic respect for their positions.  Within this solid cast, Andrew Fallaize (as the Scott’s lodger and Annie’s hopeful suitor) and Mitch Greenberg (as Wicksteed the businessman) stood out for their realistically drawn men of the past.

“If a man can reconcile his actions with his conscience,” does anyone have a right to question him?  The Price of Thomas Scott is not a great play somehow rediscovered for the ages.  It is, however, a very thoughtful meditation which does not come across as preachy.  Instead, Elizabeth Baker wonders aloud and everyone’s point of view is respectfully considered.  I look forward to this series at the Mint Theater.  Her comedy Partnership and her first performed and perhaps best known play, Chains, will be upcoming productions.

www.minttheater.org

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Sea Wall/A Life (Public Theater)

When I heard Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge were going to join forces and present two one act monologues, I had to go.  These famous actors have been exceptional on the New York stage in recent years.  Mr. Sturridge was nominated for a Tony for his work in Orphans and was phenomenal in the memorable 1984.  I was first impressed by Mr. Gyllenhaal in an off-Broadway production of If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.  His George Seurat in Sunday In the Park With George was excellent.  In Sea Wall/A Life, these actors tackle plays by two different authors but with linked themes.

Mr. Sturridge’s Sea Wall is first.  His young man seems casual and guarded but then settles in to talk about how his life came together.  Marriage and a child were revelations.  His family travels to France to vacation with her father, enjoying time by the sea.  At the beach he realizes that he is “the mathematical direct polar opposite of Daniel Craig.”  He is wry and endearing.  A tragedy occurs which shakes them all to their core.  The description of grieving and loss is understated and painful.  Simon Stephens, the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and On the Shore of the Wide World, created a character who may never heal.  When he walks off stage, the sadness looms.

Nick Payne wrote Constellations which starred Mr. Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson on Broadway.  That play featured quick changes in time and story as is the case with A Life.  Like Sea Wall, this story also features a young man who is facing a marriage and fatherhood but also dealing with an elderly parent.  Bouncing back and forth between storylines, Mr. Gyllenhaal’s delivery was casual and relaxed.  He stands in a spotlight as if he were performing a routine.  The setting seemed odd given the moody lighting and expansive use of the two tier stage in Sea Wall.  Sadness was conceptual here rather than fully realized.

For theatergoers looking to watch fine actors take on serious and depressing fare, there are rewards in Sea Wall/A Life.  If both parts were equal in quality, I would recommend giving this a try.  There were quite a few people seated near us who came to see stars.  They were clearly not connected to the material.  After the play ended, the guy in front of me apologized to his friends for buying tickets.  I appreciated the opportunity to let these stories wash over me.  I just wished I had been less disappointed.  The two plays work well together thematically.  One is just far more riveting.

www.publictheater.org

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Hurricane Diane (New York Theatre Workshop)

Feeling neglected, Dionysus is looking for a little love.  Or at the very least some worshippers.  The greek god of the grape harvest and wine has been spending time in a lesbian commune in Vermont.  Our god is now a goddess and a very butch one at that.  Hurricane Diane hatches a plan to start recruiting acolytes in Monmouth County, New Jersey.  Carol Fleischer (perfectly embodied by Mia Barron) has been carefully clipping pretty photos of her dream garden from HGTV magazine.  Landscaper Diane (Becca Blackwell) listens intently but has no intention of designing a yard with curb appeal.  Ever hear of permaculture, she asks.  A grassless yard with bugs?  Carol scoffs and does not hire Diane to do the work.

Recounting this story to three neighbors from the cul-de-sac, Carol lets them know that Diane made a pass at her.  Are you sure?  The “girls” dissect for clues.  Beth (Kate Wetherhead) is the quieter one whose husband has recently left her.  Her front lawn hasn’t been mowed in months.  Renee (Michelle Beck) is now a successful businesswoman and works for the gardening magazine.  She knows about permaculture and thinks the idea would make a great feature article.  The fourth member of this team is purebred New Jersey Italian palazzo-loving Pam Annunziata (Danielle Skraastad).  She’s loud, wears big heels and is a superbly realized caricature.

All of these woman are stereotypes with familiar stories and worries.  This group is gossipy, supportive, judgmental and a great deal of fun to watch.  Playwright Madeleine George is clearly comfortable writing hilarious zingers.  Hurricane Diane is certainly a comedy.  When the play is over, you realize that you’ve just sat through the most entertaining lecture on climate change ever.  The play is smart, clever and over-the-top ridiculous.  The pawpaw tree gets multiple jokes.

Why does Diane travel to a beach community in New Jersey?  One which has recovered from the devastation wreaked by a hurricane named Sandy in 2012?  The answer is completely selfish.  If humans wipe themselves off the planet with continually rising temperatures leading to massive starvation, who will be left to worship the gods?  Shouldn’t these ladies be especially amenable to doing their part to restore the earth to a healthier place?

Director Leigh Silverman expertly weaves this swirling plot from a coffee clatch to a religious epiphany only to return to the cul-de-sac for a little more gossip and truth-telling.  This is the kind of play when certain combinations of characters reappear you feel excited to see what’s next.  A co-production between the New York Theatre Workshop and WP (Women’s Project) Theater, I highly recommend this crafty ecomanifesto.  Acting, costumes, set, lighting and music were top notch.

Carol knows exactly the type of garden she wants in her patch of the world.  Carol is living the life she ardently believes is best with all her heart and soul.  Carol’s monologue near the end of the play is monstrously effective.  In it, I heard the stubbornness of the human race.   I saw scientific evidence about climate change falling on deaf ears.  I felt this playwright hitting the bullseye.  That speech should have been the end of the play.  The tacked on coda deflated what soared so high just moments before.

Does our goddess succeed in her quest?  This highly memorable god versus mortal battle is very amusing as the New Jersey suburbanite can be a most vexing creature.  Hurricane Diane, the play, is unquestionably a winner.  Hurry to see it before biblical floods wipe out the East Village.

www.nytw.org

www.wptheater.org

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To Kill A Mockingbird

“When horror comes to supper it comes dressed exactly like a Christian.”  Uttered by the town drunk (Neal Huff), this quip is one of a slew of noteworthy ones from the eminently quotable To Kill A Mockingbird.   I’ve personally endured dinners with showy self-proclaimed Christians who are sadly misguided bigots filled with hatred.  Harper Lee’s 1960 novel takes place in the Jim Crow Alabama of 1934. This classic novel has now been adapted into a mesmerizing new play by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men).  Many of us have read and admired this iconic Pulitzer Prize winning work of American literature.  With race relations in this country seemingly retreating backwards, the timing of this spectacular achievement is ideal.

Celia Keenan-Bolger (Peter and the Starcatchers, The Glass Menagerie) is Scout, an adult actress playing a very young girl.  In the play’s superbly effective structure, she is also one of the narrators along with her brother Jem (Will Pullen) and their friend Dill (Gideon Glick).  The production smoothly transitions from memory play to courtroom drama to small town observations and back again.  The three actors are astonishingly fine in capturing the innocence of youth, the mysteries of grand adventure and the painful disillusionment of growing  up in an unfair world.

The role of Atticus Finch as the lawyer who represents an unjustly accused black man in the deep south won Gregory Peck an Oscar.  Jeff Daniels (Blackbird, God of Carnage) makes this man’s emotions and belief system come alive so naturally.  He is not a towering bastion of elitist liberalism but an intelligent and ordinary man trying to do the right thing.  Teaching his children proper behavior is of paramount importance.  The scintillating dilemma explored here is the sizable gray area between the finely etched lines of right and wrong.

To Kill A Mockingbird has been criticized (and even banned by imbecilic school boards) for its use of racial slurs which frankly seem to accurately illuminate a time and a place.  This production does not shy away from offensive language and it is empowering.  Mr. Sorkin also takes the opportunity to flesh out the major black characters of the accused Tom Robinson (Gbenga Akinnagre) and the Finch’s maid Calpurnia (LaTanya Richardson Jackson).  Both performances are stellar.  There is pain lurking everywhere in this play.  Mirroring life, once you open your eyes the truth cannot be unseen.

Southern whites are both villains and heroes.  Erin Wilhelmi’s Mayella Ewell looks distressingly fragile.  When she takes the stand to tell her story, the scene is raw and unforgettable.  That moment takes place after her father (Frederick Weller) has already spewed his own brand of venom.  Their words are searing and devastating.  Both performances are awesome.  Not to be outclassed, Dakin Matthews’ Judge Taylor presides over this chaos as our spiritual guide traversing the murky waters of American justice.

Ms. Lee’s father was an attorney who defended two black men accused of murder in 1919.  The legal profession is certainly also on trial in To Kill A Mockingbird.  Empty jury box chairs are presumably for us, the audience, to fill.  Horace Gilmer is the prosecutor who shovels and spreads shit all over this particular case.  Kudos to Stark Sands for an indelible portrait of a beacon of immorality.  Each member of this cast achieves greatness within Director Bartlett Sher’s exquisite storytelling flow and movement.  With Miriam Buether’s fluidly dreamlike yet simultaneously realistic scenic design, this production is a marvel to behold.

Racism is still frighteningly relevant in our imperfect society and quickly becoming more worrisome.  One of the Oscar nominated Live Action Shorts this year is Skin.  This film brutally tackles racial violence dished out by beer guzzling, gun-toting, angry white men.  Sometimes I find these movies uncomfortably straddling the fence between condemnation and glorification.   Harper Lee’s story contains repulsive events but never crosses any line; we ultimately know what is right and what is wrong.  Evil is not celebrated.

To Kill A Mockingbird addresses the sad truth that mobs have no conscience or shame.  This play should be performed on American stages for decades to come.  Not to condemn or glorify but to remember and enlighten.  One can only continue to hope and educate the next generation.  Prayer obviously hasn’t been the salvation.  We need elected leaders and appointed judges whose compasses point squarely at humanity.  People who stand firmly on the side of doing the right thing.  Everyone needs to make a date with Scout and examine (or reexamine) the vein of hatred that nearly split this country in two.  And still threatens to again.

www.tokillamockingbird.com

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State of the Union (Metropolitan Playhouse)

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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Deeds Not Words (The Tank)

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.

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