Flash/Frozen

A True Story from 1961

In this year of the bizarre ice skating competition at the Winter Olympics, Flash/Frozen arrives Off-Off Broadway to tell a story I did not know. A fatal plane crash in 1961 killed the entire U.S. skating team on its way to the World Championships in Prague.

Tim Brown was a four time silver medalist at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and also won two silvers at World’s. In 1961 he won the bronze and qualified for the Olympic team. He did not travel due to illness and the fourth place finisher, Doug Ramsay, boarded that fateful plane.

Lance Ringel has dramatized this tragic event through these two people. Tim was the experienced veteran who never beat his nemesis David Jenkins, the 1960 Olympic gold medalist and a four time champ at nationals. His bitterness is tongue-in-cheek bitchy and entertaining.

Sixteen year old Doug was the up and coming star. He was famous for being an audience favorite. In our modern era of Nathan Chen’s multiple quadruple jump performances, this teenager wowed with the triple jump. He was the only skater at the 1961 U.S. competition to perform one.

The play has a pseudo-documentary structure. A film of JFK’s inauguration on January 20, 1961 opens the show. We hear him say that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. The play starts on that date and concludes less than a month later. In that time both men tell their stories and share their dreams.

Clint Hromsco portrays Tim Brown, always the second banana. After the crash he tells us the press was “merciless”. He cheated death. The unanswerable question: “how do you get over something like that?” His performance nicely straddles the line between unlikable and likable so he is an absorbing character.

Riley Fisher engagingly conjures up the twinkle eye sparkling newness of youth as Doug Ramsay. There is a nice contrast written into this plot contrasting the established veteran against the future star. We see it in sports all the time and it works well here.

The play could be enhanced with a third role. The voiceover narration attempts to set the action and propel the dates forward. An observer looking back at this catastrophe might add an additional level of analysis to what is essentially back and forth monologues.

The concept of “compulsory figures” is an important part of this story. Way back when, these circular patterns counted for as much as sixty percent of the total score. You can understand why the young jumper is bummed he placed fourth due to a disappointing result in this area. I attended the show with someone born after ice skating dropped this element. A narrator could also help fill in the blanks as we did after the play ended.

Wyatt Stone’s figure skating choreography is cutely clever and additive to the tale. Flash/Frozen reminds us that chance is a part of life. Mr. Ringel’s play easily could have been depressing but instead manages to keep the spirit of these athletes alive. This hour long piece could further grow by adding additional spins but the story and the telling were both interesting and a tad heartbreaking.

Flash/Frozen is being performed at Theatre Row through March 20, 2022.

www.bfany.org/theatre-row

About This Reviewer - March 14, 2022

Hart Island

Intriguing is the first word which came to mind after viewing the unusual and captivating Hart Island. For those who take this journey the experience will linger. The scope is as small as a wave lapping on a shoreline and as big as the gargantuan eons of Earth’s history.

Tracy Weller wrote this heady meditation about the largest mass gravesite in the world. Since the Civil War, a million people have been buried there. These souls were on the fringes of society; the poor, the homeless, the unclaimed. The island itself has long existed on the periphery of society with no access allowed. The recent COVID health crisis brought increased attention as the daily burials grew from 25 to 120 per week.

The installation is a multi-level, multimedia explosion of quiet reflection. Images tease. Ms. Weller portrays a narrator in a recording studio. She is taping the voiceover to New York Journey’s “Lifecycles and Systems: The Seen & Unseen Islands of New York, The Natural & Unnatural Human Experience”. Some of the material is upsetting and the Narrator has to pace herself.

Many of New York’s islands are covered along the way. The currently named Roosevelt Island was once known for penitentiaries, asylums and hospitals before its rebranding in 1973 for residential housing. Isolation is a theme which flows through this show both physically via the islands themselves and also amongst the lives which are touched by them directly or indirectly.

This travelogue of island history is supplemented with six individuals represented only by their initials. They are specific and unknowable. Each has a connection to a story which haunts them in some way. While the recording narrative propels the show forward on one level, the individual laments practically beg for reconciliation and healing.

Another level of engagement is the one experienced when you enter the space. Dirt runs the length of the environment and is peppered with artifacts. Is this a dump? An archeological dig? A baseball, cookie tin and water pitcher lay there. Although you may be watching a moment in time, the perspective may also be interpreted as a recorded vision of New York (and human society in general) if this show were encapsulated and revealed in the future.

The headiness of the material commands attention. Characters intersect and separate. Tales are told in a non-linear fashion. The listener might fill in the blanks or may simply choose to consider the painful indifferences of a troubled human race. Hart Island is gloomy, hopeful, mesmerizing, challenging and altogether unique.

Kristjan Thor directed this visually and mentally stimulating rumination. The tones range from darkly somber and deeply intimate to delicately confrontational and breathtakingly exasperating. Christopher and Justin Swader’s set design is creatively evocative of the various locales but also prompts engagement. Take the ladder down and peer into this diorama. Hart Island demands gazing at the periphery.

That gazing is enhanced through a production design that can be dimly foreboding, intentionally obscuring or starkly illuminating. The technical designs for lighting (Christina Tang), sound and music (Phil Carluzzo), and video and projection (Yana Biryukova) are memorably atmospheric.

All seven performances are intensely realized. The script has them articulating words, sentences and monologues, sometimes in complex unison. There is an element of group therapy concerning profound personal loss and a need for salvation. Movement is deliberate as is the language spoken. The dialogue is storytelling and utterances in equal measure.

Humans are an infinitesimal speck along the expanse of time. Ms. Weller makes us – and herself as Narrator – look at some of our failings and summon redemption. Rather than ignore the islands and relative isolations we create, this show asks us to look intently and deliberately at them. As an added bonus there are many tidbits scattered throughout such as the meaning of eutrophication and the General Slocum steamship disaster.

Hart Island is presented by Mason Holdings. Their mission is to “create intimate, experiential theatre inspired by the unseen and unheard”. This theatrical event should be seen and heard both both for its expansive intellectual reach and its extraordinarily immersive empathy. Discussion afterwards is ensured.

Hart Island is being performed at The Gym at Judson through April 9, 2022.

www.masonholdings.org

www.thegymatjudson.com

About This Reviewer - March 12, 2022

The Daughter-in-Law (Mint Theater)

The Daughter-in-Law

For nearly three decades the Mint Theater has been reviving forgotten plays. With one exception I have seen every production since 2007. This troupe can be counted on for exquisitely detailed presentations of thought provoking concerns from yesteryear. D.H. Lawrence’s The Daughter-in-Law is the first one to be revived a second time; the first was a success in 2003.

The English setting is a coal miner’s district in 1912. Rising dissatisfaction has led to a national strike vote. The walkout is to begin in six days. Mr. Lawrence takes the action inside a family home. Much of the storytelling takes place around the dining room table in the days before televisions and technology. The glimpse is into a bygone era yet the issues are timeless.

Luther and Joe are the sons of Mrs. Gascoyne. They are miners with soot and a broken arm worn as badges of honor. A neighbor stops over with some distressing news. Her daughter is pregnant. Newly married Luther had dalliances with her a few months prior. What to do?

The scheming, domineering mother has some ideas despite her contemptuous relationship with her daughter-in-law. Plots are hatched. Layers are peeled away from the outer shells of these characters. Internal uncertainties bubble to the surface and an intriguing drama unfolds.

The Daughter-in-Law is written in an East Midlands dialect known as Ilson, a combination of Old English with lingering Norse influences from centuries of Viking rule. The barely literate men contrast starkly with the better educated daughter of the title. Some fellow theatergoers seemed to struggle with understanding the accents. A helpful program glossary illuminates the period terminology. I had no problem following along and felt immersed in this family’s tribulations.

Why did this woman marry him? On one level this play is about women and choices in an era where they suffocate in domesticity. The beauty of this piece is the frankness of how this material is discussed. Mr. Lawrence saw life as it was and did not censor reality. Famous for his controversial style in novels such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover, he pushed boundaries.

This particular work was never produced in his lifetime. He wrote eight plays and only two were mounted in very small scale productions. In the 1960’s, four decades after he died, the Royal Court presented three of them. They were finally hailed as realistic masterpieces of English working-class life.

A 2022 staging is interesting timing. The author was quieted due to his frank discussion of truthful realities that large segments of society wanted buried. America’s current climate is awfully similar. The contrast of considering century old dynamics against the world today is definitely part of the Mint DNA. You appreciate the play and the production but also the historical relevance which is shockingly not so dated.

High quality is synonymous with the Mint Theater. The Daughter-in-Law is no exception. Everything is fine from the acting and direction to the sets, costumes and lighting which are perfectly proportioned in the intimate City Center Stage II space. A dusty old relic sparkles back to life once again.

The Daughter-in-Law is running through March 20, 2022.

www.mintheater.org

About This Reviewer - March 8, 2022March 14, 2022

Jane Anger

If you, like me, find the full title of this play absurdly compelling, a pleasurable treat awaits! The Lamentable Comedie of JANE ANGER, that Cunning Woman, and also of Willy Shakefpeare and his Peasant Companion, Francis, Yes and Also of Anne Hathaway (also a Woman) Who Tried Very Hard.

The year is 1606. The plague is raging and people are “freaking out”. Social distancing is de rigueur. A pony length is the safe distance for this era. Of course that requires the play’s characters to do “the pony” now and again. Silliness rules and laughs are abundant.

Jane arrives wearing a 17th century medical beak. Her audience learns that this is a great time to be a cunning woman. She used to be a whore but is “now more ambitious”. Jane will eventually make her way to visit William Shakespeare in London. He is currently isolated amidst the death carts picking up bodies in the street. The two share a past which inspired some of the Bard’s love sonnets.

Apparently the plague is causing Willy distress resulting in writer’s block. This “voice of all people” is a raging egomaniac telling us that he is “famous and timeless” and has “universal appeal”. Going into quarantine “I’m expected to be more prolific and timely than the last time”. His contemporaries like Thomas Middleton are ridiculed: “they think it is provocative to break genre”.

The Francis of the title is an aspiring actor who pretends to be sixteen and strongly desires a role as an ingenue in one of Willy’s works. An Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” interchange using the word Sir is hilarious. A renamed Frankie has a pamphlet of a play called King Leir. A bit of thievery might be the cure for writer’s block. King Lear effusively flows from the pen.

The plot exists as a mechanism to deliver a multitude of verbal and physical hijinks. Chamber pots and sexual organs. The sporting of a very cool earring and rapier wit. A very sticky pudding. Jane Anger revels in sophomoric cleverness and the actors chew the scenery. One of them quite literally.

Jane arrives to help Willy get his proverbial shit together. They negotiate a deal. Jane Anger is a writer from history who was the first women to publish a full length defense of her sex in English. This play is a farcical jumble bashing male superiority through the wide eyed lens of a feminist rant.

Willy’s wife Anne Hathaway emerges from her historical obscurity to join the merriment. Willy describes her as sickening but she is immune from the plague. She caught and survived it when caring for their now dead son Hamnet. The ridiculous amusements are non-stop.

Michael Urie is a smashingly unhinged Shakespeare enveloped in a cloak of mancave realness. Amelia Workman is a strong and confident Jane but do not mess with her. The same can be said for Anne Hathaway (playwright Talene Monahon). This Anne knows she is insufferable and everyone hates her (like another similarly named woman from a more modern era).

Last, and most certainly not least, is the magnificent clown Ryan Spahn who portrays Francis. If Mr. Urie is unhinged then Mr. Spahn must be classified as deranged. All four performers are excellent and this show is gleeful fun. The ending was a trifle anticlimactic after all the proceeding lunacy but that’s a quibble.

If you want to go to the theater and have a great time, make haste to see Jane Anger. Ms. Monahon’s wildly enjoyable comedy revises the notion that revenge is a dish best served cold. This one brings the heat and mercilessly wounds its intended victims, also know as men.

Jane Anger is playing at the New Ohio Theatre in Greenwich Village through March 26, 2022.

www.janeangerplay.com

www.newohiotheatre.org

About This Reviewer - March 7, 2022March 7, 2022

This Bitter Earth (TheaterWorks Hartford)

This Bitter Earth

Jesse tells us right from the start that “sometimes I can feel the earth move”. Divisive issues of race, class and sexuality certainly can do that. This Bitter Earth discusses all of them. As you might expect, the taste can be off-putting depending on one’s views. Playwright Harrison David Rivers serves up a slice of America within the confines of a single relationship.

Jesse meets Neil at a bar one night. Both are very drunk and flirting gaily. This cornerstone moment of two distinct worlds colliding will loom throughout the play. Jesse is black and Neil is white. That difference is obvious. A peek under the covers shines a light on two individuals who approach their lives within our society differently.

Jesse is an aspiring writer. He is extremely introspective. In moments of pain, he thinks about an Essex Hempbill poem which advises taking care of your blessings and nurturing them. That affirming positiveness is a structural backbone for this story. We are all different in what we are good at, how we think and our approach to living life.

Neil is a happy liberal white man who has emerged from some semblance of privilege. He is an avowed Black Lives Matter activist. Jesse’s political apathy is a sour note to their live together harmony. Predictable relationship tensions and recent histories will test their resolve.

There’s a good deal of simplistic hand wringing early on. “I can’t believe you’re not bothered by what’s going on” and “helping people is not bullshit”. The characters will reveal themselves more deeply through agreement and disagreement. The plot is believable and deceptively straightforward.

A sharp contemplative tone emerges beginning with a monologue which recounts a New York Magazine interview Frank Rich did with Chris Rock. A white man asking a black man about the first black President. The moment brilliantly encapsulates the complex nature of understanding varying perspectives.

Black Lives Matter stirs up emotions in many people. Some put signs up on their lawns. Others post Blue Lives Matter on Facebook and Twitter. Still others, like Jesse, proclaim that All Lives Matter. Neil hilariously equates ALM to running through a cancer fundraiser yelling “THERE’S OTHER DISEASES TOO”. Sharp quips like that keep this play entertaining as the layers are building.

Damian Jermaine Thompson (Jesse) and Tom Holcomb (Neil) instantaneously establish their character’s intense chemistry with each other. The beautifully played opening scene – a happy-go-lucky courting ritual – turns haunting as the knotty problems of evolving relationships and life’s injustices come to bear.

The play’s structure is non-linear and bounces back and forth regularly and effectively. Director David Mendizábal steers the many transitions confidently. The ending felt abrupt and slightly confusing. However, the river rapids and meandering creeks within this particular tale encourage confrontation with our troubled world. This story may exist simply as a vehicle for understanding ourselves and our reactions to what is happening on stage and in our country.

Mr. Rivers challenges his audience through these two imperfect yet realistic people. Our societal history is being written every day. How can we see the world more similarly? Is that a goal? What will the future look like? On this bitter earth “sometimes our souls need a release”. Here is a play which seriously looks at our humanity through its current cracked mirror format. We can see parts that work very well and so many that will require repair ahead.

Performances for This Bitter Earth continue in Hartford, CT through March 20, 2022. Streaming begins March 7th and the quality is very good.

www.twhartford.org

About This Reviewer - February 3, 2022February 3, 2022

Skeleton Crew (Manhattan Theatre Club)

Skeleton Crew

The workplace is a Stamping plant in Detroit in 2008. As you can imagine, these are tough times for American auto manufacturing. Suppliers like this factory are dwindling fast. In order to survive the industry implosions, many companies adjust their workforce down to a Skeleton Crew. This excellent play dives into the world of four individuals whose livelihoods depend on these jobs.

Faye (Phylicia Rashad) is a twenty nine year veteran of the plant. She has earned her status and is the Union representative to management. Curmudgeonly and gruff, Faye follows the rules which suit her. No smoking in the breakroom is not one of them. Management has attempted to post the requisite “No Smoking” signs – even personalizing them with her name – to no avail.

Reggie (Brandon J. Dirden) is her nephew. He has elevated himself to a suit and tie management role. He hilariously tries to reason with Faye but the efforts are futile. Anyone who has experienced long-time co-worker banter will recognize the dynamic at play.

Two other characters populate this play. Shanita (Chanté Adams) is a star employee, currently pregnant but seemingly uninvolved with the baby’s father. Dez (Joshua Boone) struggles with timeliness and wears a visible chip on his shoulder. These four interact in this company’s breakroom on matters both trivial and life changing.

Other car suppliers are closing up shop all around and naturally there is concern about their particular plant. Without divulging too many plot points, there are tensions. Someone is stealing from the plant. Shutdown rumors are flying. This play focuses our attention on the impacts of corporate decisions on the everyday people who sweat and make the goods which produce the profits.

The heart of this play is the moral debates between doing what is right and wrong. That those choices are complicated makes for thought provoking theater. This may be a story about four people but the themes bring forth large scale observations. When I hear politicians (of both parties, frankly) promise they are bringing back manufacturing jobs to America, the situation dramatized here certainly make those words feel hollow. Government policies and the need for cheap labor drove the changes. (Remember all the children making clothing in China anyone?) Skeleton Crew exists to show the damage on a more personal scale.

The performances are exceptional across the board. Adesola Osakalumi plays “the Performer”. He represents the nameless, faceless factory workers going about their robotic tasks day after day. Seen through the windows during scene changes, he reminds us of the daily repetition through dance and movement. The videos of robots on the factory line are silent reminders of the evolution of manufacturing in this industry (and others).

Skeleton Crew has a number of plots and subplots along with secrets and revelations. Much coffee is made and consumed. Dominique Morisseau’s play beautifully captures the soul of the working class as well as the conflicts for those beginning to rise economically higher in their pursuit of the American “dream”. Under Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s assured direction, the portraits of these characters are realistic and evoke mixed emotions. As in life. A great evening of theater.

Skeleton Crew is running on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through February 20, 2022.

www.manhattantheatreclub.com

About This Reviewer - November 17, 2021

One Empire, Under God (The Tank)

Off-Off Broadway – and The Tank in particular – is a place where experimentation is encouraged and celebrated. Anthony J. Piccione’s play One Empire, Under God is a wildly overwritten treatise primarily covering politics and religion. Seemingly every single current hot button topic is also thrown into the mix. The stew is jumbled with tasty bits and muddy flavors.

Four hundred years from now a born again alcoholic will rise to save America from the deranged liberal socialists. Slander and prejudice continue to rear their ugly heads in society. Jesus and Christianity will return to their rightful place as the real religion. More specifically that refers to Protestantism not the misguided Roman Catholics and other assorted heathen beliefs. Juicy material for sure.

The story follows Damian Cunningham (Trey Shields) who wants to be more active in his conversion. He receives guidance from an inky priest (Mark Verzatt). He creates a Virtue Cast and quickly there are tens of millions of followers. His ego swells and his didactic self-aggrandizement leads him to the Republican nomination for President of the United States. The basic message is simple: Republicans are good and moral while Democrats swim with Satan. (Think Breitbart 2401 A.D.)

The play is completely serious not silly or ironic. The first act, Dawn of a New Evangelism, centers around the creation of a new political savior. There is a long, extended path to get to the Presidency including primaries, debates, vote counting, etc. Despite occurring centuries into the future, the issues are no different than today including climate change which is mentioned but not explored. The current President is a woman (Mary Miles). Her transgender Vice President is now running for the highest office. You can guess how the Republicans will paint that picture for America.

There is a large cast for this production and they function in multiple roles but also as a type of media chorus. News tidbits are flung far and wide. It is both effective in moving the plot forward and also repetitive. Most scenes in the play underscore the plotting at least twice so things often get bogged down. To say the White House scene in Act II is laborious is an understatement.

The second act, Dusk of the American Millennium, takes the play in an interesting new direction by moving time significantly forward three hundred years. The tone and situation completely changes. Like the first half, however, most scenes take too long to nail their points and move on. The experience is less like watching a play and more like sitting through a staged reading of a screenplay.

Many performances stood out and embraced the weighty subject matter with gritty realism. As the rebel alliance partners in Act II, Marcus R. Smith (General River Kalvin) and Gian Caro (Josh Garcia) render their characters with realistic and believable life. The bond is obvious and naturally played. The central character of Josh has the most depth and a backstory that plainly explains his motivations. Mr. Shields nicely conveys a conflicted and misguided Damian, the Republican leader who rises to the throne. As the transgender candidate, Clara Tan has some nice moments in an underwritten role. There is no other defining feature for them except gender.

If this highly topical play (or movie) moves forward, editing would be helpful in reducing plot repetition and scene length. Since the story is set in a distant future, a few more surprising details would be helpful in placing the events outside our current tumultuous time. The hologram device works particularly well. An ambitious effort, One Empire, Under God is meant to provoke and challenge. That the story is not so far-fetched is the dire warning here.

One Empire, Under God will be performed at the Tank through November 21, 2021.

www.thetanknyc.org

About This Reviewer - November 16, 2021

Radium Girls (Metropolitan Playhouse)

Masks. People obfuscating the truth about science and personal danger. Corporations avoiding responsibility for their actions. Lawyers purposefully manipulating the system. Women as second class citizens. Headlines from today, certainly. Radium Girls, however, takes place in the 1920’s in Orange, New Jersey. The themes are the same in this famously true story of industrial poisoning.

The United States Radium Corporation opened a factory which painted luminous watch dials for use by soldiers in World War I. The paint was created by Doctor Von Sochocky (David Logan Rankin). The young women in their teens had steady work but had no idea the risks they were taking. In order to save time and money, the girls were instructed to bring the paintbrushes to their lips or tongues to sharpen the points. They completed hundreds of watches per day.

Over time, the girls began to fall ill. Mouths start bleeding. Teeth fell out. In one of the most horrendous descriptions, entire jaws could be removed due to the deterioration. This play is about certain of the ladies who sued the company for “compensation.” For those who know this story (and I am one of them), there are no plot surprises. The horrors of unchecked capitalism still draw powerful parallels a century later.

As is typical with Metropolitan Playhouse productions, the budget is spare and creatively effective. Three tables and chairs are alternatively factory floors, offices, homes and hospital beds. Everything about this Off-Off Broadway theater suggests the past so this staging in this location works perfectly to absorb the story. The play is not a great one as the exposition, especially in Act I, is somewhat clumsy. The tale, however, is riveting.

Director Laura Livingston shines a spotlight on our COVID times by employing masks to represent the dead. They are periodically placed on the shelf throughout the play as a reminder of the seriousness of this corporate greed and indifference to human life. The technicians in the company did not suffer similar fates as they were given lead shields to work behind. The women, though, were encouraged to lick radiation all day long.

This play contains more than thirty characters with 10 actors. Half play multiple roles and all do terrific work. Ms. Livingston’s production keeps everything clear and easy to follow. The technical elements, particularly the lighting design, create an atmosphere suitable to the story. The glow on the tables was a nice touch.

The story centers around Grace Fryer (Olivia Killingsworth) and Kathryn Schaub (Grace Bernardo). Grace is the “good girl” type while Kathryn is tougher and more questioning. Both actresses excel in their characterizations. No matter what their individual personalities, the impending result will be the same. Watching them is both heartbreaking and illuminating. Grace was the one who can be described as lead plaintiff.

A young vibrant woman with a full life ahead of her dropped out of school to work in the factory. She and her boyfriend (Kyle Maxwell, excellent) are planning their future and getting engaged to be married. In concentrating the story around one particular relationship, the harm perpetuated by this company cuts deeply.

Arthur Roeder (Kelly Dean Cooper, also excellent) climbs up the ladder and becomes the head of the company. The stock price, the company’s image, the legal maneuvering and the coverups are all addressed here. Advertising is defined as not just presenting a product; “it’s the way you promote it.” From the mouth of this CEO: “scientists, government; they have no idea what it takes to run a business.” For some audience members, familiarity will bring contempt.

There is a nice touch at the end of this story when the CEO and his daughter are talking. She mentions that science has come so far since the terrible events which struck these ladies in their prime of life. Perhaps she is partially correct. But she says this while lighting a cigarette. History repeating itself again and again. Now is the time to shed light on the story of the Radium Girls. We must look at the past with eyes wide open if we are to imagine a potential future where fellow human beings are more important than corporations and profits.

Performances of Radium Girls are scheduled through November 21, 2021.

www.metropolitan playhouse.org

About This Reviewer - November 13, 2021

Woman In Black (McKittrick Hotel)

There are few venues for live immersive entertainment as interestingly moody and fun as the McKittrick Hotel. My first experience, over a decade ago, was Sleep No More which is still running. The audience literally runs around a hotel. Other shows happen on different floors. Woman in Black is in the Club Car space. It is subtitled “a ghost story in a pub.” The English pub setting is ideal.

Apparently this show has been running in London for thirty years and was made into a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe. A fairly large sized audience grabs drinks and takes a seat facing the stage. An older man named Arthur Kipps (David Acton) comes out and begins reading his manuscript. He informs us that the story must be told as “I cannot carry the burden.”

A younger man, The Actor (Ben Porter), comes on stage to provide guidance to the purposefully boring resuscitation of this nightmarish tale. It is meta theater. It is fun for a moment or two. However, it goes on far too long before they jump into the story. We came for the “howlings and shrieking and groanings and scuttlings.” They do arrive in the form of an old fashioned creepy country house ghost story.

The Actor becomes the Solicitor who travels to the house via horse and carriage. The older man takes on the new character of the driver. They bounce along the unpaved roads in a spirited bit of whimsy. Both performers play multiple parts, changing jackets and hats along the way. Unfortunately the first act goes on far too long. All five of us were dying (pun intended) to get out of very uncomfortable chairs.

The solicitor arrives at the scary mansion and discovers there is much paperwork to go through. He tells us that his “main sensation is one of tedium.” We agree but for the wrong reasons. This play takes a very long time to get where it is going. Is the payoff worth the wait? No but the packed audience might disagree with my assessment.

There is nothing remarkable about the old school ghost story plot and the mysteries which are revealed. There are some effective scares allowing the audience jump and scream. That they do so vigorously means they really, really want to scream. I did not scream.

Both actors are reprising their roles from London. They are both intense and enjoyable to watch. The lighting (Anshuman Bhatia) and, especially, the sound effects (Sebastian Frost) are top notch. All of the ingredients are present for a delicious fall fright fest. The story length, however, sinks this one. Towards the end, revelations are thrust out in a mad dash to the finale. I was happy when it ended, sorry to say.

I did have one unexpected chuckle. When Mr. Porter was traversing the audience in fear, his face seemed an exact replica of Hugh Skinner who plays Prince William in the outrageous sitcom, The Windsors. Wishing you were watching something else is not a nice thing to say no matter how true.

Woman in Black is running at the Mc Kittrick Hotel until January 30, 2022.

www.mckittrickhotel.com

About This Reviewer - November 12, 2021

Is This a Room

On June 3, 2017, a 25 year old Air Force intelligence specialist named Reality Winner was visited by the FBI at her home in Augusta, Georgia. They had a search warrant. She was suspected of leaking proof of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Is This a Room is a staged play based on the verbatim transcripts of that recorded encounter.

Emily Davis portrays Reality Winner and that is her uncanny but actual name. The performance is excellent. Since we know she went to prison, there is not a sense of mystery in this show yet Ms. Davis almost makes us believe she knows nothing at the start. From jitters to wet terror, we watch her as the layers unfold. The tension is palpable.

Agent Garrick (Pete Simpson) is the main questioner. He attempts awkward social banter to get the conversation rolling. He is accompanied by Agent Taylor (Will Cobbs) and Unknown Male (Becca Blackwell). Each of these men nicely inhabit the characters as spoken. There is a bumbling governmental goofiness to their physicality which suits the words. Unknown Male, who talks little, blurts out the show’s title in a question, “Is this a room?” The moment is bizarre, means nothing and is never answered.

There is a great deal of tension built as the agents circle and prowl their victim. She is not really a match for them but attempts to be elusive for a time. The set (Parker Lutz) is intentionally minimal so this is about the dance between the hunters and the hunted. The direction by Tina Satter keeps the language and movement swirling.

The official transcript is redacted in many places. The show handles that through sound (Lee Kinney and Sanae Yamada) and lighting (Thomas Dunn). That is effective as a presentation of the mystery which we are not cleared to know about. It is also frustrating as the transcript never allows us to understand the severity of the leak. Reality believes people have a right to know this “history.” Why we are not allowed to know is a question that should be answered in society where the government is advertised as “for the people.”

The play clocks in at slightly more than an hour. Is This a Room is certainly stylish and well acted. Did it make me think about these issues in any new way or shed any new light? Not really.

As we watch major political and governmental figures ignore subpoenas from Congress, it is perhaps important to reconnect with Ms. Winner’s story. She is the first person imprisoned under Trump’s Espionage Act. She leaked classified information; there is no question of that. Are there bigger and more serious crimes out there? The wealthy and politically connected have a lot more chance of eluding the questioners than did this young woman. That is our America. Let’s continue to argue about vaccines and masks while the laws remain unequally applied for all citizens.

Is This a Room is running through November 27, 2021 in repertory with another transcript inspired play, Dana H. on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.

www.isthisaroombroadway.com

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