114 (2018-2019): Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY (seen October 31, 2018)

"No Turkey, Please, We're Pilgrims”

At this very moment in 2018, there are many schools across the US where children are preparing projects, including plays, depicting the traditional story of Thanksgiving. That story, of course, would feature pilgrims (historically, Separatists) and Indians (now American Indians, Native Americans, First Nations, or simply indigenous peoples) in 1621, feasting together in peace—probably on an historically inaccurate turkey and stuffing—to celebrate a bountiful harvest following a year of devastating hardship. 

In The Thanksgiving Play, an endearingly funny, considerably educational, satirical farce by Larissa FastHorse, who identifies as an indigenous person, we get a drumstick-in-cheek lesson about just how problematic that story is. Originally produced at the Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland, OR, it’s now at Playwrights Horizons. 

Margot Seibert, Jennifer Bareilles, Greg Keller, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Joan Marcus.

In a program note, FastHorse describes the familiar account of the early interactions of white settlers and indigenous peoples as a lie: “That which was recorded and reproduced was usually an intentional choice to support governmental policies of manifest destiny and genocide to make America larger, wealthier, and great.”

Margot Seibert, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Joan Marcus.

This is serious stuff, capable of inspiring reams of historical, political, anthropological, and ethnographic discourse. However, FastHorse pulls off the remarkable feat of expressing her dismay at the distortions by ridiculing them mercilessly while simultaneously making hilarious fun of political correctness. Plays by Native Americans are rarities on the New York stage. Hopefully, The Thanksgiving Play will open the door for others.

Margot Seibert, Jennifer Bareilles. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The setting is a conventional classroom (precisely designed by Wilson Chin and lit by Isabella Byrd); in it are four theatre artists—a director and three actors—joined to create a politically correct play about Thanksgiving. The frantically optimistic director, Logan (Jennifer Bareilles), is a high school drama teacher who’s received a grant with which she wants to produce a 45-minute work of “devised theatre,” in other words, one created improvisationally in collaboration with her cast. 

Margot Seibert. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The actors, all white (and all so comically perfect I won’t say anything further about them), are her slacker boyfriend, Jaxton (Greg Keller, Belleville), a second-rate street performer, yoga practitioner, and obsessive PC advocate; Caden (Jeffrey Bean), a middle-aged elementary school teacher and aspiring playwright, who uses picture books to teach the others about Thanksgiving; and Alicia (Margo Seibert, Rocky), a gorgeous actress whose guileless simplicity appealingly combines talent, ego, and ignorance. 

Alicia was hired mainly because Logan, whose grant depends on her hiring a Native American, saw a headshot depicting her in indigenous guise and assumed that was her ethnicity. When Logan, despairing, learns of her mistake, Alicia responds: “Whatever, it's theater.  We don't need actual Native Americans to tell a Native American story.  I mean, none of us are actual Pilgrims are we?”

Jennifer Bareilles, Greg Keller. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Alicia’s heritage and colorblind casting in general thus join the many PC-related topics with which FastHorse stuffs her theatrical bird. Among these are veganism, yoga, feminine hotness, the commodification of sex, gender sensitivity, coded language, historical inaccuracy, public school prayers, meditation, female empowerment, white privilege, racial labels, and post-racialism.

Laughs are also generated at the expense of street theatre, improvisation, acting as a career, and rehearsal practices. Much of the humor stems from the characters’ well-meaning but comedically oversensitive tiptoeing around saying or doing anything inappropriate.

Jennifer Bareilles, Margot Seibert. Photo: Joan Marcus.

At several points, the cast drops character to don Tilly Grimes’s costumes in clever interludes representing variant Thanksgiving scenarios. The prologue, for example, begins with the actors lined up as three pilgrims and a turkey, singing, to the tune of “On the Twelve Days of Christmas” about the nine days of Thanksgiving. Another employs body puppets (also by Grimes) attached to the actors, whose own faces remain exposed, and in yet another the actors assume rebellious hip-hop attitudes.

Greg Keller, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Logan eventually has a brainstorm about the best way to dramatize Thanksgiving, one I’ll leave for you to discover. However—given how hard it is tell the story without offending someone—it couldn’t be more pointedly elegant.

Jennifer Bareilles, Greg Keller, Jeffrey Bean. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Bernhardt/Hamlet) pulls these bits off just as effectively as he does the play’s fast-paced comedy, straight-faced cluelessness, and farcical mayhem, including football played—Ugh! (in more ways than one)—with a pair of bloody heads. 

Greg Keller, Jennifer Bareilles. Photo: Joan Marcus.

One comes away from The Thanksgiving Play feeling it’s impossible to dramatize controversial historical events in a way that will satisfy everyone. And why, for example, is the story of Thanksgiving automatically better because told by a Native American, even if it uses facts hitherto unexpressed? How much of a story’s power is lost if equity takes precedence over drama? And is even-handedness actually possible? That’s why Logan’s seemingly outlandish solution—sardonic as it may be—is so thoughtful.

Greg Keller, Jennifer Bareilles, Jeffrey Bean, Margot Seibert. Photo: Joan Marcus.

In the real world, theatregoers will be thankful for Larissa FastHorse’s having exploded and explored the Thanksgiving story through satire both broad and subtle. The Thanksgiving Play deserves some thanksgiving of its own.

OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

Show-Score.com

The Thanksgiving Play

Playwrights Horizons/Peter J. Sharp Theatre

416 W. 42^nd St., NYC

Through November 25

170. Review of THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA (December 3, 2013)

170. THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA

 

 

The Bernie Madoff scandal has proved rich pickings for writers in search of a juicily dramatic subject. A couple of years ago the small screen witnessed a season of the Glenn Close series “Damages” based on the story, with Lily Tomlin playing the wife of the Madoff-inspired swindler, while, more recently, Woody Allen’s movie, Blue Jasmine, cast Alec Baldwin as the crook and Cate Blanchett as his hard-hit spouse. This season alone has seen two plays on the New York stage that would not exist without Madoff, THE UNAVOIDABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM DURNIN, starring David Morse as the Madoff avatar; the play lacked a wife figure to interrogate about the questions everybody still wants to ask: did Ruth Madoff know, or even suspect, that her spouse was scamming his clients out of their life savings? Was she blindsided? And did Madoff stash money away for her in case he was found out and sent away? “Damages” alluded to these problems, and they are front and center in THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA, the engrossing new play at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s City Center Stage 1 that introduces actress Amanda Peet to the front ranks of promising playwrights.

Blythe Danner and Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

            Ms. Peet’s play, of course, doesn’t use the Madoff name, and the family dynamics are obviously not the same, but the situation is close enough to our fantasies of what might have occurred once the bastard was caught and imprisoned to lend what happens a veneer of truth. There surely will be other plays, movies, and TV shows that will examine the dramaturgic possibilities present in the story, but for now New Yorkers can spend an intermissionless hour and a half at a nicely turned dramedy starring the vibrant Blythe Danner. Ms. Danner plays the 71-year-old Judith, a Mrs. Madoff-like character (including her Jewishness) trying to stay out of the limelight by living in a one-bedroom condo with an ocean view in Pensacola, Florida. Costarring is the fine Sarah Jessica Parker, portraying Becca, Judith’s down-on-her-luck, actress daughter.
 

Michael Stahl-David and Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

             The 43-year-old Becca arrives for Thanksgiving at the condo with her 29-year-old boyfriend, Gabe (Michael Stahl-David), who calls himself a “guerilla journalist.” Judith asks if that has something to do with Jane Goodall, one of a number of such one-offs, including an Alzheimer's joke, intended to provide a comic undertone for an ultimately dramatic piece about a onetime livewire and big spender reduced to living in a small Pensacola retirement apartment. Neither this, nor her having a maid-assistant, is necessarily within the financial restraints that have been put on her, and the play’s revelation of just how she can afford these things becomes a major fulcrum for what follows. Becca is there not only for the holiday: Gabe, we quickly learn, wants to make a “docu-series” about Judith, which he explains to his skeptical would-be subject is not to be confused with a reality show. I won’t say how she responds, but will note that questions are raised about Gabe’s integrity. Complicating matters is the arrival for Thanksgiving of Lizzy (Zoe Levin), the beautiful young daughter of Becca’s sister, Ali (Ali Marsh). Judith, meanwhile, has so many ailments that Lorena (Nilaja Sun), the Jamaican-accented maid, has to oversee her pill regimen (13 pills four times a day). When Judith faints and is hospitalized, her daughter, Ali, Lizzie's mother, flies down from New York but when it turns out that Judith is not in any danger (her Zanex caused her to faint), Ali begins to rage about having come for nothing on behalf of a mother she's sure knew all along what her husband was doing; angrily, she begins to search for the money she's convinced is hidden somewhere. Fireworks soon explode as sister confronts sister, and children face off against their mother. As the complications and revelations intensified, one lady down front couldn't resist saying, "Oy, oy, oy!" which drew a big laugh.

From the light banter of the opening scenes to the dramatic confrontations of the later ones is a gradual but theatrically satisfying journey. There is intelligent dialogue, believable characters, reasonably credible exposition, a smattering of scatological humor (farting, if you must know), some vividly rough language (Lizzie hates the word "vagina" and prefers "pussy"), and thoughtful content about greed, accountability, truth, deception, integrity, and family love. At one point Becca has a major ethical choice regarding a lot of money. I suspect that post-play conversations will often ask “what would you do if you were in her situation?”

          Ms. Peet doesn’t always manage to fully justify the exits of her characters so that the stage can be occupied convincingly (and at length) by others whose dialogue must be kept private; this is a common difficulty in writing interior scenes using multiple characters with secrets but it has to be overcome so it seems less contrived. Also a bit forced is the tropical storm that cuts the power to the condo, leaving Gabe and Lizzie alone, and a sliding door that no one can open seems fraught with unnecessary symbolism. Finally, the closing scene seems inorganic and somewhat nebulous.  

The play is vigorously performed, with Ms. Danner and Ms. Parker at their best. The still glamorous Ms. Danner gets to play a woman with many colors, and she brings humor, fire, and spice to her portrayal. Ms. Parker’s Becca is a vulnerable creature who can be all charm and good spirits one moment, and the next seriously conflicted and angry. Her svelte figure and trademark hairstyle are intact, and, at the end, she wears a dress (designed by Tom Broecker) straight off the back of “Sex and the City’s” Carrie Bradshaw. But while the characters look alike, there’s far more angst and desperation in Becca.

            The supporting cast is universally excellent and convincing, from Zoe Levin’s smut-mouthed Lizzy, to Nilaja Sun’s smart-mouthed Lorena, to Michael Stahl-David’s veracity-challenged Gabe, to Ali Marsh’s defiantly suspicious Ali. They work skillfully under Lynne Meadow’s always perceptive staging on Santo Loquasto’s thoroughly lifelike replication of a sunbelt condo. Jill BC Du Boff offers smart music choices in the scene shifts, and Jason Lyons’s lighting is just right, especially a transitional sequence before the last scene that conveys the passing of time as the shadows of the vertical blinds move slowly across the stage in keeping with the progress of the sun.

There's nothing common about THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA. The next time I see Amanda Peet on the stage or screen, she’ll have earned a new level of respect from many theatergoers, including me.

114. Review of JERICHO (October 6, 2013)

114. JERICHO

 

 

Jack Canfora’s JERICHO joins a small handful of 9/11 plays, among them Sam Shepard’s THE GOD OF HELL (2004), Anne Nelson’s THE GUYS (2001), and Neil LaBute’s THE MERCY SEAT (2005).  Like most other plays in the genre, it doesn’t actually explore the event itself but uses that horrific day as a springboard to study its effect on people who survived it. This two-act, two-hour play, which takes place in 2005, four years after the tragedy, blends romantic love, family angst, marital collapse, Jewish identity, and ethnic distrust in a dramatic structure that has some promising elements but whose walls have a few too many cracks in them.

            Despite this being a relatively straightforward domestic dramedy (albeit with a character seen only in someone’s imagination), Jessica Parks’s smartly designed set avoids the typical physical elements of the office, two Manhattan apartments, bar, and suburban house in which the action transpires; instead, she creates a metaphorical background composed of household detritus, as if the living spaces of the characters had been demolished and all their furniture and appliances shoveled into two large heaps. (According to online photographs, at least one earlier production opted for familiar walls and windows.) When the minimal furniture to set a scene is required, the actors--moving to mostly folksy music selected by sound designer John Emmett O'Brien--carefully remove the necessary pieces from the piles, and return them when the scene is over. Since much of the play revolves around a 9/11 survivor named Josh (Noel Joseph Allain), and a good portion of the action is set in the middle-class Jewish home in which Josh grew up in Jericho, Long Island, it seems that the vista before us conflates the idea of the literal destruction of the Twin Towers with the tumbling walls among Josh’s loved ones.   

            Since 9/11, Josh, who seems to be in his late 30s, has responded to the tragedy with survivor’s guilt. He has become bitterly dissatisfied with life in this country, and his secular Judaism has turned Orthodox (he wears a yarmulke), leading him to insist on moving to Israel, where he believes he will experience the sense of a community he is unable to find in America. Josh, despite being highly articulate, as is everyone else on stage, never satisfactorily explains his malaise, which seems too vague to drive him to leave his wife and family. He seems unhappy that Americans simply moved on with their lives with what he distastefully calls "American optimism," instead of continuing to wallow in the tragedy, as the Israelis do with theirs. His deeply disillusioned wife, Jessica (Carol Todd), is totally opposed to these developments (she says she's more scared of the Jews in Israel than of the Arabs and that Josh has made her wish she weren't Jewish), and the marriage heads swiftly for the rocks. In addition to Josh and Jessica, four other people are involved. Rachel (Jill Eikenberry) is Josh’s clichéd suburban Jewish mother, who plans to move to Florida and--before she learns about their discord--wants to sell her home to Manhattanites Josh and Jessica. Josh’s bachelor brother, Ethan (Andrew Rein), who also has no truck with Josh’s beliefs, is in a relationship with Beth (Eleanor Handley), the pretty daughter of an Irish mother and a Palestinian-born father who came to America as a baby. Because her husband, Alec, died on 9/11, the day after she told him she was leaving him, her guilt prevents her from having intercourse with Ethan. (Like the central figure in BIKE AMERICA, she's fond of calling herself a "fuck-up.") This brings her to Dr. Kim (Kevin Isola), Beth’s shrink, a 47-year-old Korean-American woman played by a young, white, male actor. The reason for this odd casting is that she sees in Dr. Kim a resemblance to Alec, a reaction attributed to the phenomenon of transference. Moreover, because Beth has not been taking her meds, she engages in hallucinatory conversations with Alec (Kevin Isola, again).

           Regardless of its motivation, the trope of a leading character having an imaginary confidant as a way of exploring what can't be expressed to others or as a way of thinking out one's problems is becoming as worn-out a conventional device as the aside and soliloquy (still with us, of course, including in this play). Mr. Canfora does ameliorate the convention to a degree by contrasting Beth's being haunted by someone only she can see with Jessica's concern about grieving for by the pre-9/11 Josh, which she calls the opposite of being haunted: "Everyone can see you, but I'm the only one who knows you're not there," and "you might as well be dead."

             The central themes converge at a Thanksgiving dinner (when else?) when all the characters (apart from Dr. Kim) are present, and Beth, annoyed at what she later calls Josh's bullying, drops the P bomb on him about her father's heritage, even though Beth has practically no interest in or connection to her roots (apart from her taste for hummus: cue the laugh). Josh and Beth, however, begin to find some common humanity after he makes his big reveal to her about how his behavior on 9/11 established the reason for his own guilt. There follows a sort of epilogue scene when the lonely Josh calls Beth from Israel and the rapprochement continues. (We never do learn just what Josh does for a living that enables him to simply leave the USA behind and move to Israel, where he seems to be having no financial problems.)

            The play’s dark subject matter is leavened throughout with humor, some of it expressed in the sex talk between the frustrated Ethan and the unwillingly resistant Beth; in the repartee between Beth and her late spouse, who spoofs his own nonexistence; and in the wisecracks at the expense of Rachel’s Jewish motherhood, such as her laying guilt trips on her children and leaving phone messages that go on forever ("She filibusters into the machine," complains Jessica). All the characters are expert at firing sarcastic zingers, which come fast and furious, but only occasionally strike the "laughter" bull's-eye. There are, as well, several sharply angry scenes, such as when Jessica and Josh go at each other over his recent religiosity and desire to move to the Promised Land.

The most touching moments arrive toward the end when Beth and Josh, communicating over the phone when he calls from Israel, talk about the multiple meanings of the Hebrew word “shalom.” As on many other occasions in the play, Beth soliloquizes to the audience, and the effect of her words comes not from their organic relation to the give and take of dialogue, but from the narrative expression of ideas. The words may be moving but they’re related to what has been happening only in the abstract; they tell us, in essence, how to feel, when the best drama should show, not tell. 

                JERICHO, which premiered at the New Jersey Repertory Company, and has had other showings elsewhere, has a good cast that does its best with the sometimes compelling, sometimes self-conscious writing. Ms. Eikenberry, the best-known player, is warm and attractive but doesn’t do anything especially novel with the stereotypical Rachel; it is a bit of a stretch, though, to buy her as a Jewish mother (ironically, Ms. Eikenberry's husband, actor Michael Tucker, stems from an Orthodox background). Making a more vivid impression are the younger women. Ms. Handley, with her good looks, excellent voice, and sharp intelligence, holds the stage when she's on but seems much too well put together to be the "fuck-up" she calls herself. Ms. Todd's Jessica, who has some of the most biting lines, brings the right touch of drunken rancor to her spousal unhappiness. Mr. Alain’s Josh sometimes seems stumped by the lack of things given him to say in scenes where his beliefs are challenged; the character needs to be more fully fleshed out. Mr. Rein, who in no way appears to be Mr. Allain's brother, has a lightly comic manner that works well for Ethan's moderate temperament. The notion of having Mr. Isola play both a Korean-American woman and Beth’s late husband does not come off as cleverly as the playwright may have imagined; both characters behave in much the same way and nothing is done to physically differentiate them, so it takes a bit of time before the idea of who is whom sinks in.

            While I did not feel as negative about JERICHO as the friend who accompanied me, neither did I think it of more than passing interest. The subject matter is of great interest but the play seems a tad too formulaic to ring true. Whether 9/11 will ever inspire a truly memorable play is unknown. I do know that JERICHO shows how hard it is to write one. The walls of JERICHO don't quite tumble but there's often a sense that, with a little push, they just might.

           

 

137. Review of A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN NOVEMBER ON THE BANKS OF THE GREATEST OF THE GREAT LAKES (January 13, 2014)

"A Savory Play in January on the Boards of Stage II at City Center"

From left: Gerry Bamman, Mia Katigbak, Nina Hellman, Brooke Ishibashi, Heather Alicia-Simms, Jessica Almasy, Christian Felix. Photo: Heather Phelps-Lipton.

Playwrights have long recognized that one of the most effective ways to explore the dynamics of interaction among friends and family members is to gather them at someone’s home for dinner. Not infrequently, dinner in such cases happens on holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving, the annual eating and greeting rituals when families, no matter how far they’ve scattered, come together for mutual gobbling, guzzling, gabbing, and griping. Kate Benson’s tasty concoction, A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN NOVEMBER ON THE BANKS OF THE GREATEST OF THE GREAT LAKES, is the most recent addition to the Thanksgiving canon, joining other recent examples such as The Pensacola Commons and Jericho.

From left: Heather Alicia-Simms, Nina Hellman, Brooke Ishibashi; above: Ben Williams, Hubert Point-DuJour. Photo: Heather Phelps-Lipton.

Dinner—or its preparation, at any rate—is the gravy lubricating this imaginative New Georges production, produced at City Center’s Stage II in association with the Women’s Project. First seen last year in a more limited run at Dixon Place, for which it received near universal huzzahs, the production has returned with most of the original cast. I imagine it will again warrant widespread praise, but I’m not quite ready to give it a Michelin star. A BEAUTIFUL DAY is an offbeat work that not everyone will swallow easily; there was at least one early departure when I attended, which is a shame because, apart from an ambiguous ending, there’s a lot here to savor.

From left: Christian Felix, Jessica Almasy, Brooke Ishibashi, Mia Katigbak; above: Ben Williams, Hubert Point-DuJour. Photo: Heather Phelps-Lipton.

Ms. Benson, yet another product of Brooklyn College’s remarkably successful MFA playwriting program, imagines that the Wembly family is assembling for their annual feast at the shore-front Great Lakes home of one of three middle-aged sisters, whimsically named (as is everybody), Trifle (Nina Hellman), Cherry Pie (Heather Alicia Simms), and Cheesecake (Brooke Ishibashi). What makes the otherwise unexceptional event exceptional is the premise that the dinner is viewed as a competitive sports event, a metaphor that director Lee Sunday Evans catches handily and runs with, scoring a theatrical touchdown. (The conceit is reminiscent of Woody Allen's 1972 movie, BANANAS, which opens with sportscaster Howard Cosell commentating on a Latin American revolution, and ends with him doing the same at the consummation of a marriage.) She’s assisted by flawless, perfectly timed teamwork from an ethnically diverse—and thereby universal—ensemble.

The actors generally speak Ms. Benson’s juicily bite-sized lines, with their built-in stumbles and repetitions, directly to the audience rather than to each other; their heightened delivery seems as precisely scored as the specifics of their movements. Each step in the preparation for and execution of the big meal is carried out in perfectly choreographed, almost dance-like staging; although considerable attention has been paid by costume designer Kathleen Doyle to the quirky yet perfectly character-defining clothes everyone wears, there are no props or furniture at all, everything (including the huge turkey being roasted) being suggested through mime, sometimes literal and sometimes fanciful. It's a far cry from James A. Herne's 1892 play, SHORE ACRES, when a full holiday dinner, bird and all, was cooked and eaten during the performance.

From left: Gerry Bamman, Mia Katigbak, Kristine Haruna Lee, Jessica Almasy, Christian Felix, Heather Alicia-Simms, Nina Hellman. Photo: Heather Phelps-Lipton.

Sara C. Walsh’s clever setting has the general appearance of a basketball court, with complex floor markings denoting mapped-out strategy patterns. Upstage is a high, paneled wall containing a door, and a large glass window through which a wall with old-fashioned wallpaper is visible. Above is a windowed room in which two sportscasters, using microphones, observe and comment on the goings-on below, including moment by moment decisions, and even facial expressions.

Instead of names, the sportscasters are designated as # (Ben Williams), who does the “action,” and @ (Hubert Point-DuJour), the color commentary guy; both are new to the production. As they describe the play-by-play, they also engage in occasional banter expressing their own competitive natures. Their dialogue, like that of most sportscasters, is sprinkled with references to the weather and scenery, and there are laugh-worthy memories of Thanksgiving past disasters, like “the Gravy Boat Episode of 1979.” Various sports are alluded to, but football seems the predominant image as we move through four quarters of action in 75 intermissionless (halftime is over almost before it's begun) minutes.

We watch as the three sisters struggle to assemble a large, round table, worrying if there’s enough room for everyone; discover that Cherry Pie’s divorced daughter, Gumbo (Christine Haruna Lee), “a bit of a wildcard . . . who could really foul things up,” as one announcer says, has changed her plans about not coming; and hear the front door buzzer signaling the arrival of the relatives, among them the grandparents, Grandada (Gerry Bamman) and SnapDragon (Mia Katigbak), he nearly deaf, she recently blind, and a slew of granddaughters, their partners, their children (including twins), and a horde of great grandbabies (unseen); 13 of these characters are played by Jessica Almasy and Christian Felix, although just who they are at any moment isn’t always clear.

Things really get hairy when the turkey and its stuffing are being prepared, each move of which is analyzed by # and @ for its gamesmanship and skill, with Grandma SnapDragon showing her mettle in the clutch when disaster threatens. After all the mishaps and fuss, dinner is rapidly devoured, at which point the play, already surrealistic, shifts to a much more bizarre level with an unexpected absurdist conclusion concerning the army of great grandbabies that you'll find either devilishly pertinent or head-scratchingly puzzling. 

A BEAUTIFUL DAY, while never truly hilarious, invokes many chuckles, and you’ll probably grin a lot while watching it. Still, the one-joke concept, like the turkey, does tend to dry out after a while, and you'll have to taste it for yourself to see if Ms. Benson's ending is a desert worth waiting for. 

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN NOVEMBER ON THE BANKS OF THE GREATEST OF THE GREAT LAKES
Stage II at City Center
131 W. 55th Street, NYC
Through February 7

176. Review: PRESSING MATTERS (seen April 23, 2017)

"Depressing Matters"

When I first saw the title of this flimsy program of one-acters by Jennifer Jasper I thought it would be a great one for a play about the dry cleaning business. One of the five plays on the program, “Thanksgiving in July,” does indeed show clothes being pressed on an ironing board, but whether that’s where the title comes from or not is anybody’s guess. Otherwise, the pressing matters dramatized here are the ordinary ones most of us experience in the course of our lives. And many of them are depressing.  

Oliver Genesis, Ito Aghayere. Photo: Russ Rowland.

Every season has a tiny number of programs devoted to one-acts, or, to use what now seems to be their more usual name, short plays, perhaps because of the plethora of one-acts running from an hour or so to nearly two without a break. The long one-act, in fact, is as ubiquitous as the two-act; if you’re seeing a three-act or longer play it’s surely a revival. 

Few writers, David Ives being one of the exceptions, have succeeded in the short play category. Neil LaBute is a frequent contributor to the genre but I’ve never seen a satisfactory example from his pen. Like almost all the other programs I’ve viewed over the past five years, Jasper’s has moments of interest but, on the whole, is seriously flawed.

Each play is introduced by having an actor put plastic stick-on letters onto a small blackboard hung at one or the other side of the stage, but never both sides simultaneously. If you're not sitting in the right seat you'll have trouble seeing what's on the board. It would have been better to use large cards, the way old-time vaudeville used to do. 

Oliver Genesis, Ito Aghayere. Photo: Russ Rowland.

“et-y-mol-o-gy,” running only 10 minutes, begins the evening with the kind of stunt concept you might expect from a class project: take seven words and write a play around them. The lives of Calvin (Genesis Oliver) and Susan Anne (Ito Aghayere) are encapsulated in the context of a spelling bee. A series of words is announced, spelled out, and their connection to the characters’ relationship from grade school to old age enacted, all with only two chairs, to mark the passing years. Two lives are thus sketchily encompassed within words ranging from “flatulence” to “Alzheimer’s.”

Ito Aghayere, Oliver Genesis. Photo: Russ Rowla

In “Inheritance,” reminiscent of Schnitzler’s La Ronde, Bernard (Saum Eskandani) is upset at his wife Betty (Jenn Harris) for having gotten pregnant again, since money is so tight. Their scene morphs into one in the 1970s where Betty has died and Bernard, older, argues with Joan (Aghayere), the grown daughter with whom Betty was pregnant. This links to a scene right after between Joan, a feminist, and Ian (Oliver), whom she meets at an equal rights rally, followed by one, years later, between Ian and his daughter by Joan. It’s a viable structure but the characters and situations are so flatly banal the result is more an idea than its fulfillment. 

The one play that might have a longer shelf-life, perhaps as an acting-class piece, is “Free Range,” in which Judy (Harris) is seated in a courtroom while questioned by an offstage attorney (Oliver) about an incident involving her two young kids. It has a smartly satiric touch regarding the overprotectiveness of modern child-raising methods. Harris gives it the only performance of the program that rises above mediocrity. 

Saum Eskandani, Molly Carden. Photo: Russ Rowland.

“Oscar Clyde Denman” is an odd piece that follows a girl named Miss (Molly Carden) from age 11, when her father (Genesis) sexually molested her, to young womanhood, years in which she was unable to live a normal life because of her obsessive compulsive disorder. Representing her OCD is the eponymous Oscar Clyde Denham (Eskandani), an ever-present, British-accented butler dressed in tails. He stands against her bedroom wall until needed to advise and restrain Miss from doing something, like leaving for college or having a romance, she might regret. Again, a potentially viable idea is too innocuously dramatized and weakly acted, particularly by Eskandani, to make an impression.

Molly Carden, Jenn Harris. Photo: Russ Rowland.

Two plays follow the intermission on the nearly two-hour program. First is “Thanksgiving in July,” another work that plays with time, not always clearly. It pictures the relationship between two women, Essie (Carden) and Chloe (Harris), married to each other, as they prepare for a family Thanksgiving dinner in July because Chloe is dying and may not make it to November. It’s a poignant, if soapy, premise with characters and dialogue merely skimming the surface. 

Oliver Genesis, Ito Agahayere, Saum Eskandani, Jenn Harris. Photo: Russ Rowland.

Finally, in “Destination Unknown,” Jasper goes for comedy in a scene set in an airport boarding area controlled by a difficult ticket agent (Harris) whose treatment of the frustrated passengers waiting to board a delayed flight is meant to be funny. The idea of mocking airport personnel and protocol is especially ripe for comical treatment at this moment, but “Destination Unknown” wouldn’t pass muster as an SNL sketch on an off night.

Jenn Harris, Oliver Genesis, Ito Aghayere, Saum Eskandani. Photo: Russ Rowland.

Whatever hidden virtues might be dormant in Jasper’s plays, director Adrienne Campbell-Holt hasn’t revealed them in her plodding, low-energy, borderline amateurish staging. The performances only rarely rise above the mundane, and, with not much to praise about the production values, it’s best not to say anything about them at all.

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Pressing Matters

Clurman Theatre/Theatre Row

410 W. 42^nd St., NYC

Through May 20

92 (2018-2019): Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY (seen October 4, 2018)

“Blowin’ in the Wind”

The many fans of the wonderful Irish playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, The Night Alive) will no doubt be excited to see a new play by him but music lovers will be even more excited at its incorporation of many classic songs by Bob Dylan. I wish I could say both of these brilliant talents come off equally as well.

Caitlin Houlahan, Colton Ryan. Photo: Joan Marcus.

What makes Girl from the North Country—now at the Public Theater after a hit premiere at London’s Old Vic and a West End transfer—so special, however, is the showcase it provides for one magnificent cover after another of Dylan’s oeuvre. This is thanks largely to the extraordinary orchestrations and arrangements of Simon Hale (with contributions from McPherson himself) and the singing of an exceptional cast.

Even if, like me, you find McPherson’s play—set during the Depression in a boarding house in Dylan’s home town of Duluth, Minnesota, in November and December 1934—less than stellar, you’ll probably agree that it serves aptly as a dramatic context into which Dylan’s songs fit beautifully. And that’s regardless of the fact that he was born seven years after the fictional events depicted. Girl from the North Country, named, of course, after a Dylan classic, is so musically agreeable that I’m forced to put my caveats about its dramaturgy aside and recommend it with a five-star rating, whether you’re a Dylan fan or not.

Jeannette Bayardelle and company. Photo: Joan Marcus.

“Blowin’ in the Wind,” one of the troubadour’s best-known songs, is not among the 20 sung or played during the show, but “Idiot Wind” is, and the dialogue makes frequent references to the metaphor of the wind’s blowing during the hardscrabble days faced by all the troubled characters. Everything transpires in the confines of Nick (Stephen Bogardus) and Elizabeth Laine’s (Mare Winningham) “guesthouse,” most of it taking place around preparations for and consumption of Thanksgiving dinner.

Nick is deeply in debt and Elizabeth has early onset dementia, which doesn’t stop the otherwise decent Nick from carrying on with Mrs. Neilsen (Jeannette Bayardelle), a widow waiting for the money her railroad employee husband left her to clear probate. The Laines’ 20-year-old son, Gene (Colton Ryan), is a jobless, alcoholic, would-be writer. In one of the plot elements most difficult to swallow, their 19-year-old daughter, Marianne (Kimber Sprawl), is black, abandoned by her parents as an infant and raised by the bighearted Laines. Marianne’s problem is she’s five months pregnant by a Lake Superior boatman who’s sailed off into the Minnesota sunset.

Mare Winningham, Stephen Bogardus. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Guests at the house are, in addition to Mrs. Neilsen, the down and out Mr. (Marc Kudisch) and Mrs. Burke (Luba Mason), and their tall, mentally challenged, 30-year-old son, Elias (Todd Almond). The Burkes are later joined in the middle of the night by Joe Scott (Sydney James Harcourt), a good-looking, black boxer, and Reverend Marlowe (David Pittu), a bible salesman, each of them trailing unpleasant secrets.

Filling out the cast of principals are three more characters. One is Dr. Walker (Robert Joy), the local doctor, who also occasionally serves as the Our Town-like narrator, speaking into a standing mic to provide expository background and, at the end, a (posthumous) summary of what happened to the people we’ve met. Then there’s the thickly bearded Mr. Perry (Tom Nelis), an elderly “shoe mender,” who offers money to make the reluctant Marianne his live-in companion (marriage to her being illegal). Finally, we have Kate Draper (Caitlin Houlahan), the pretty girl who leaves Gene to marry someone more stable.

This assemblage is further amplified by a gifted four-member, racially mixed, backup-singing and dancing ensemble (Matthew Frederick Harris, John Schiappa, Rachel Stern, and Chelsea Lee Williams) who apparently represent friends and neighbors. The show’s fluid conventions allow moments when the ensemble members get brief solos, just as the principals often drop their characters to become part of the ensemble’s choral numbers. They may even play musical instruments, as when both Marc Kudisch and Luba Mason demonstrate their drumming skills.

Mare Winningham. Photo: Joan Marcus.

McPherson’s multiple plot strands follow each character, introducing elements of financial loss, alcoholism, abandonment, loneliness, marital stress, sexual longing, adultery, romantic heartbreak, fisticuffs, blackmail, gunfire, and death. Still, an ersatz quality keeps invading the premises. It’s unlikely, for example, that these 1930s Midwesterners would have dropped so many f-bombs. Also not ringing true is an intrusive moment of magic realism when Marianne describes the encounter that led to her pregnancy. 

Kimber Sprawl, Sydney James Harcourt. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Then there’s the racial issue. Given the play’s own emphasis on race-based biases in 1920s and 1930s Duluth (Dr. Walker cites a notorious 1920 lynching), the idea of a black child being raised by white parents while barely raising any local eyebrows seems a stretch. Even the entry of the black Joe Scott into the household, and his casual reaction to Marianne’s presence, doesn’t feel right. This air of unreality is further underlined by casting a black actress, excellent as she is, as Mrs. Nielsen, Nick’s lover.

Elizabeth is as likely to be not only lucid and articulate in one moment as she is in the next to be mentally distracted. Despite Winningham's winning performance, this often makes it confusing as to just how bad her condition is. It’s also a bit much to see Nick, inches from his wife, not only speaking candidly about her to Mrs. Nielsen but openly discussing their affair as if Elizabeth weren’t there. These are just a few of the problems that make McPherson’s script less than it might be.

Luba Mason and company. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The playwright’s staging, aided significantly by Lucy Hind’s movement direction, mingles heightened theatricality with Depression-era realism, sometimes evoking the feeling of painters like Thomas Hart Benton. However, because of the show’s position between a straight play and a musical, not everyone can avoid overacting to achieve it.

Rae Smith’s open scene design—movable walls, background vistas, and furniture—allows for the omnipresent company to move things about in the semidarkness. Smith’s period costumes are especially on the mark, and little could be done to improve the deftly imaginative lighting of Mark Henderson.

Some have questioned whether Girl from the North Country is or isn’t a jukebox musical. Of course, it is, given that the script is designed to allow the insertion of multiple, preexisting, songs. There are many kinds of jukebox musicals. This one is the type that fits the songs of a particular performer or writer into a new story, such as Broadway’s Head over Heels, with its Go-Gos’ score used for a plot set in the middle ages.

One of the things that makes Girl from the North Country different is that Dylan’s lyrics often have little to do with the moments they illustrate, or do so only tangentially. Even the title song has nothing to do with the play, at least not directly. More significant than their specificity is their emotional value, which comes across in the impact made by both their words and music, especially as performed in this production, where every song sounds freshly minted.

Todd Almond and company. Photo: Joan Marcus.

I’m already looking forward to the show’s album, so I can again listen to Jeannette Bayerdelle sing “Went to See the Gypsy,” Kimber Sprawl perform “Tight Connection to My Heart,” Scott deliver “Slow Train,” Almond warble “Duquesne Whistle,” and, among so many other gems, Winningham (known mainly as a dramatic actress) do wonders for “Like a Rolling Stone” and, with the company, set your heart racing with “Forever Young.” You can believe me when I say I'm not just blowin’ wind.

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Girl from the North Country

Public Theater/Newman Theater

425 Lafayette St., NYC

Through December 23

181 (2019-2020): Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY (seen March 10, 2020)

"May His Songs Always Be Sung"

There’s so much vigorous handshaking, hugging, kissing, and other forms of human contact in Girl from the North Country, the often thrilling Bob Dylan-scored musical now at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre, one can only imagine a backstage area filled with hand sanitizers, soap and water, disinfectants, and other forms of antiviral precautionary items. Sorrowfully, despite the multiple raves the show has garnered—give or take a few nitpicks, like my own, below—it seemed last night that the current health crisis is having an impact. Near me, at the rear of the orchestra, were a number of notably empty seats. 

Caitlin Houlahan, Colton Ryan. All photos: Matt Murphy.

At this point no one knows just how potent an impact the coronavirus epidemic will have on New York theatregoing but I can vouch for the fact that each of the last four shows I’ve seen—all at prime venues—has been far from full, despite good reviews or buzz. I myself, being of advanced age, am going to be cutting back on my theatregoing. As someone who tries to cover as many shows as possible—I’ve reviewed approximately 180 thus far this season—this is a difficult decision, but, unless the health crisis is quickly ameliorated, I suspect more and more like me will be doing the same. Some Broadway shows already have slashed ticket prices in order to make up for the loss in sales.

Colton Ryan, Kimber Elayne Sprawl, Mare Winningham, Jay O. Sanders.

If, however, you intend to keep going to the theatre but want to be especially selective, you won’t go wrong by choosing Girl from the North Country. I reviewed it here in October 2018, when it played at the Public, and have adapted that review below to reflect cast changes, alter a sentence here and there, and add a comment or two to what I previously wrote.

Jay O. Sanders.

The many fans of the wonderful Irish playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, The Night Alive) will no doubt be excited to see a new play by him but music lovers will be even more excited at its incorporation of many classic songs by Minnesota troubadour Bob Dylan. I wish I could say both of these brilliant talents come off equally as well.

Jeannette Bayardelle and company.

What makes Girl from the North Country—now at the Belasco, following its Off-Broadway stay at the Public, itself coming after a hit premiere at London’s Old Vic and a West End transfer—so special, however, is the showcase it provides for one magnificent cover after another of Dylan’s oeuvre. This is thanks largely to the extraordinary orchestrations and arrangements of Simon Hale (with contributions from McPherson himself) and the singing of an exceptional cast.

Mare Winningham, Kimber Elayne Sprawl.

Even if, like me, you find McPherson’s play—set during the Depression in a boarding house in Dylan’s home town of Duluth, Minnesota, in November and December 1934—less than stellar, you’ll probably agree that it serves aptly as a dramatic context into which Dylan’s songs fit beautifully. And that’s regardless of the fact that he was born seven years after the fictional events depicted. Girl from the North Country, named, of course, after a Dylan classic, is so musically agreeable that I’m forced to put my caveats about its dramaturgy aside and recommend it with a five-star rating, whether you’re a Dylan fan or not.

Luba Mason.

“Blowin’ in the Wind,” one of the troubadour’s best-known songs, is not among the 20 sung or played during the show, but “Idiot Wind” is, and the dialogue makes frequent references to the metaphor of the wind’s blowing during the hardscrabble days faced by all the troubled characters. Everything transpires in the confines of Nick (the outstanding Jay O. Sanders, replacing Stephen Bogardus) and Elizabeth Laine’s (Mare Winningham, better than ever) “guesthouse,” most of it taking place around preparations for and consumption of Thanksgiving dinner.

Mare Winningham, Jay O. Sanders.

Nick is deeply in debt and Elizabeth has early onset dementia, which doesn’t stop the otherwise decent Nick from carrying on with Mrs. Neilsen (Jeannette Bayardelle, in great voice), a widow waiting for the money her railroad employee husband left her to clear probate. The Laines’ 20-year-old son, Gene (Colton Ryan, superior), is a jobless, alcoholic, would-be writer.

Robert Joy.

In one of the plot elements most difficult to swallow, the Laines’ 19-year-old daughter, Marianne (Kimber Elayne Sprawl, wonderful), is black, abandoned by her parents as an infant and raised by the bighearted Laines. Marianne’s problem is she’s five months pregnant by a Lake Superior boatman who’s sailed off into the Minnesota sunset.

Matt McGrath, Mare Winningham, Todd Almond.

Guests at the house are, in addition to Mrs. Neilsen, the down-and-out Mr. and Mrs. Burke (Marc Kudisch and Luba Mason, each terrific), and their tall, mentally challenged, 30-year-old son, Elias (Todd Almond, excellent). The Burkes are later joined in the middle of the night by a good-looking, black boxer, Joe Scott (Austin Scott, replacing Sydney James Harcourt, very good but looking more like a dancer than a pugilist), and a nasty bible salesman called Reverend Marlowe (Matt McGrath, perfectly seedy in the role earlier played by David Pittu). Each trails unpleasant secrets.

Austin Scott, Kimber Elayne Sprawl.

Filling out the cast of principals are three more characters. One is Dr. Walker (Robert Joy, living up to his name), the substance-abusing local doctor, who also occasionally serves as the Our Town-like narrator, speaking into a standing mic to provide expository background and, at the end, a (posthumous) summary of what happened to the people we’ve met. Then there’s the thickly bearded Mr. Perry (Tom Nelis, spot on), an elderly “shoe mender,” who offers money to make the reluctant Marianne his live-in companion (marriage to her being illegal). Finally, we have Kate Draper (Caitlin Houlahan, sweetly satisfying), the pretty girl who leaves Gene to marry someone more stable.

Tom Nelis.

This assemblage is further amplified by a gifted four-member, racially mixed, backup-singing and dancing ensemble (Matthew Frederick Harris, John Schiappa, Rachel Stern, and Chelsea Lee Williams) who represent friends and neighbors. The show’s fluid conventions allow moments when the ensemble members get brief solos, just as the principals often drop their characters to become part of the ensemble’s choral numbers. They may even play musical instruments, as when both Kudisch and Mason demonstrate their drumming skills.

Mare Winningham.

McPherson’s multiple plot strands follow each character, introducing elements of financial loss, substance abuse, abandonment, loneliness, marital stress, sexual longing, adultery, romantic heartbreak, fisticuffs, blackmail, gunfire, and death. McPherson’s skill at creating

colorful characters with tangy dialogue keeps us engaged, even when the situations border on melodramatic contrivance. And some things simply don’t ring true, like having all these 1930s Midwesterners drop so many f-bombs, or an intrusive moment of magic realism when Marianne describes the encounter that led to her pregnancy. 

Marc Kudisch.

Then there’s the racial issue. Given the play’s own emphasis on race-based biases in 1920s and 1930s Duluth (Dr. Walker cites a notorious 1920 lynching), the idea of a black child being raised by white parents while barely raising local eyebrows seems a stretch. Even the entry of the black Joe Scott into the household, and his casual reaction to Marianne’s presence, doesn’t feel right. This air of unreality is further underlined by casting a black actress as Mrs. Nielsen, Nick’s lover, without a single comment about their miscegenation within an otherwise racially charged script.

Elizabeth is as likely to be not only lucid and articulate in one moment as she is in the next to be mentally distracted. Despite Winningham's winning performance, this often makes it confusing as to just how bad her condition is. It’s also a bit much to see Nick, inches from his wife, not only speaking candidly about her to Mrs. Nielsen but openly discussing their affair as if Elizabeth weren’t there. These are just a few of the problems that make McPherson’s script less than it might be.

The playwright’s staging, aided significantly by Lucy Hind’s movement direction, mingles heightened theatricality with Depression-era realism. Sometimes it evokes the feeling of painters like Thomas Hart Benton. However, because of the show’s position between a straight play and a musical, not everyone can avoid overacting to achieve it.

Rae Smith’s open scene design—movable walls, background vistas, and furniture—allows for the omnipresent company to move things about in the semidarkness. Smith’s period costumes are especially on the mark, and little could be done to improve the deftly imaginative lighting of Mark Henderson. Simon Baker’s sound design makes everything easy to listen to.

Some have questioned whether Girl from the North Country is or isn’t a jukebox musical. Of course, it is, given that the script is designed to allow the insertion of multiple, preexisting, songs. There are many kinds of jukebox musicals. This one is the type that fits the songs of a particular performer or writer into a new story, such as Broadway’s Head over Heels, with its Go-Gos’ score used for a plot set in the Middle Ages.

Company of Girl from the North Country.

One of the things that makes Girl from the North Country different is that Dylan’s lyrics often have little to do with the moments they illustrate, or do so only tangentially. Even the title song has nothing to do with the play, at least not directly. When a song is to be sung, the characters don’t do so within a particular dramatic context but, instead, step up to a mic and sing it for the audience. More significant than the songs’ meaning-based specificity is their emotional value, which comes across in the impact made by both their words and music, especially as performed here, where every number sounds freshly minted.

Todd Almond and company.

A CD is available of the London production but I’m looking forward to the Broadway recording, so I can again listen to Jeannette Bayerdelle sing “Went to See the Gypsy,” Kimber Elayne Sprawl perform “Tight Connection to My Heart,” Todd Almond warble “Duquesne Whistle,” and, among so many other gems, Mare Winningham (known mainly as a dramatic actress) do wonders for “Like a Rolling Stone” and, with the company, set your heart racing with “Forever Young.”

To paraphrase a lyric in that last one, may Bob Dylan's songs always be sung. 

Girl from the North Country

Belasco Theatre

111 W. 44th St., NYC

Open run