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‘Buena Vista Social Club™’ is Phenomenal, Theater Review
If you are a world music lover, you don’t need any introduction to the “Buena Vista Social Club,” a group of Cuban musicians that Cuban producer and musician Juan De Marcos González, brought together in a recording studio in Cuba to eventually release an album in 1997. González is to be credited for his passion to capture the striking beauty and spirit of traditional Afro-Cuban music of the Buena Vista Social Club, while some of the members were still alive and able to perform and record in 1996.
Surprising everyone, the Buena Vista Social Club musicians, who had been a hit in the 1950s and disappeared after the Cuban Revolution, created a smoking hot album in 1997 that won a Grammy in 1998. Subsequently, they were the subject of the documentary initiated by musician/songwriter Ry Cooder and filmed by Wim Wenders, that rocked the BVSC into the stratosphere of global fame by 2000, when the documentary was nominated for an Academy Award.
The Atlantic Theater Company’s musical, Buena Vista Social Club™ is based on the titular documentary with references to Buena Vista Social Club: Adios, a second documentary filmed in 2016. The superb musical, directed by Saheem Ali (Fat Ham), has as its creative consultant David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit). With book by Marco Ramirez and music by the Grammy Award winners known as the Buena Vista Social Club, the production currently runs with the ebullient magnificence of songs, brilliant tonal hues, dances and movements at the Linda Gross Theater with one intermission until 21st of January. The Buena Vista Social Club™ is a touch of paradise with Afro-Cuban rhythms and sonority that are unforgettable.
When you see it, and you must, you will not be able to sit still. The music fills you with its joyous power and heartfelt beauty. The production which extends beyond the crass label of “jukebox musicals” gives a reverential bow to the album, the documentaries and importantly, the magnificent musicians and singers who were vaulted to a success they had never known when they started out.
The production, loosely narrated by Juan De Marcos (Luis Vega), boasts a song list that is steeped in the incredible social club’s rhythms and cadences that spiritually manifest the history and diversity of the Cuban people. At the opening, De Marcos, who stands in Egrem Studios-the Old Havana music studio where musicians in the 1990s still record states, “A sound like this, it tends to travel.” His prophetic remarks reference how Buena Vista Social Club’s songs resonated and still resonate throughout the world today, even though most of the original members of the BVSC have passed. Only Omara Portuondo, the National treasure of Cuba, still sings and tours.
The key to opening the lock on the social club that dissolved with all the social clubs that Castro disbanded to end discrimination in Cuban society is Omara Portuondo. As the musical indicates, her notoriety and fame in Cuba allows her to serve as the bridge between the traditional musicians no longer heard and herself who is very much in the Cuban music scene in the 1990s and today.
Thus, the musical focuses on Omara and flashes back and forth from the past to the present in recounting her history with the BVSC, as well as introducing the members, and revealing how they were a part of the popular social club in a Cuba whose segregated clubs prevented various groups from singing and dancing together. The musical’s arc of development unspools as De Marcos attempts to interest Omara in making a recording of the musicians from long ago, who are still alive to keep the torch of Cuban folk music vibrating and lighting the way for musicians and fans of a younger generation.
Initially, when Vega’s, De Marcos approaches her, Omara (Natalie Venetia Belcon), is not interested because she doesn’t sing with a live band anymore. Her attitude is cold, aloof and proud, but later, we discover this hard shell fronts for deep pain underneath, concerning her alienation from her sister and niece because of the Revolution and the US embargo barring any exchange of visitors between the two countries. Recording the album would bring up tenuous memories. However, her dismissal of De Marcos on the surface appears to be because she is famous and he is an unknown, who intends to exploit her beloved renown for his own purposes.
Cleverly, De Marcos plays one of her old recordings with the BVSC. Only then, reflecting back to the past, does she relent and give her stipulations for the recording. First, she must be the voice that’s front and center, as De Marcos writes the arrangements. Second, she must be in control to select the singers and musicians. Thus begins the process, conveyed with humor and pathos, that Omara and De Marcos use to bring back the members of the BVSC, so that they are able to record together and reestablish the vitality, importance and universality of Afro-Cuban music, making them a global phenomenon.
The musical is an important tribute to revitalizing how the BVSC Afro-Cuban stars were incredible singers and musicians. It also intimates in the flashbacks and lovely balletic dances featuring the Young Omara (Kenya Browne), and her sister Haydee (Danaya Esperanza), the historical, social schemata of a diversely segregated Cuba, referencing its importance in the Slave Trade, the divisions between the rich and the poor, as well as Castro’s plan to bring equality to the country that backfired and instead created a hell and misery for the Cuban people. This was especially so after the revolution and the flight of wealthy Cubans and middle class off the island.
As is pointed out as a major theme, which indicates the segregation still is manifest concerning Cuba, the division became forever known as “the ones who stayed” and braved out the situation in their mother country, and the “ones who left” and went to various parts of the United States and elsewhere.
Crucially, Omara is an important symbol of transition and the voice and the bridge between the rich and the poor, the socially upscale strata of Cuban society, and the segregated, representing the traditional Cuba with which all Cubans can identify, if they put their prejudices away. Indeed, in this musical, the character of Omara magnifies the best of Cuban culture. She recalls the past and weds it to the present, in the tears and pain of the loss of family and her sister Haydee, who died before she was ever able to see her again. Because Omara was already famous, she was able to negotiate travel as she employed her talents on tour. This mobility was not possible for the other BVSC musicians who were not as famous, and lived under the oppression of segregation and poverty before and ironically, after, in Castro’s Cuba.
Obviously, the ones like Omara who had mobility or the thousands of others who left, had some money to establish themselves elsewhere, even though they lost their lands and businesses to Castro’s “communistic” usurpation. It is a wealth Castro didn’t share with the Cubans who stayed, reminiscent of Vladimir Putin’s behavior toward the Russian people in today’s Russia. Like a predominance of the Russian society, the Cubans who stayed were impoverished and the musical references that during the “Special Period” when the dissolved U.S.S.R. split up, there was no longer any “communistic” aid to Cuba. Thus, the people starved.
The hope of recording an album with BVSC members was to earn a bit of money, as many of the musicians and singers we meet and learn about in their relationships to Omara and the club were barely scraping by from day to day. During the production we meet the incredible individuals who Omara was close to and sang with in the 1950s when they were young and in 1996 during the recording. These include the charming, funny Compay (Julio Monge), the sweet, loving Ibrahim (Mel Seme), the wonderful pianist Ruben (Jaindardo Batista Sterling) and Eliades (Renesito Avich).
The seminal moments of the production however, meld the present to the past, revealing how Omara connected with each of the BVSC members in the flashbacks with the Young Omara and the Young Haydee. The musicians/singers include the Young Compay (Jared Machado), the Young Ibrahim (Olly Sholotan), and the Young Ruben (Leonardo Reyna).
The balletic sequences with dancers portraying the Young Omara and Young Haydee, choreographed by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, developed and directed by Saheem Ali. These sequences seamlessly and stylistically reveal the differences in opinions between the sisters, regarding the BVSC which Haydee feels is beneath her. Also revealed in these flashback dance sequences, is Omara’s sadness in losing her sister and family forever because of the Revolution and US Embargo. As Belcon’s Omara sings of her feelings, the poignance of her expressiveness resonates with all Cubans and punctuates the cruel punishment visited upon the people by both governments, revealing the malevolence of political machinations. However, it is in the power of the songs that the Cuban people thrive and with dignity transcend the brutality.
The BVSC playlist is sung in the native tongue of the BVSC, and on one level doesn’t need translation because the music “speaks” for itself. However, the musical’s closed captions in Spanish, should also have had an English counterpart. In English, the lyrics can relate the historical culture of the Cuban people which is referenced throughout in the English dialogue and storyline. English closed caption lyrics, as well as Spanish, would convey the complete picture of the BVSC and its tremendous importance socially, politically (their democratic diversity should not be diminished), and spiritually.
The BVSC’s immutable human values conveyed in their incredibly poignant rhythms and music is what resonates and draws in fans globally in an egalitarian message that makes sense and that most human beings yearn for. Politics and the power hungry divide to conquer. The music of the people soars, uplifts, transcends hardship and unifies. This production’s value is priceless and the ensemble of musicians and singers are fabulous in memorializing the Buena Vista Social Club for all time.
The creative team brings the director’s vision together in a beautifully stylized way that breathes life into the real musicians and singers who made up the BVSC (1950s, 1996). These creatives include Arnulfo Maldonado (sets), Dede Ayite (costumes), Tyler Micoleau (lighting), Jonathan Deans (sound), J. Jared Janas (hair, wigs & makeup), Dean Sharenow (music supervisor), Marco Paguia (music director, orchestrations & arrangements), Javier Diaz, David Oquendo (additional arrangements), the swings and band.
The company of Buena Vista Social Club™, Atlantic Theater Company, 20th Street between 8th and 9th. https://atlantictheater.org/production/buena-vista-social-club/
‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ Alicia Keys’ Glorious Musical, a New York High
Vibrant, relentlessly electric, Hell’s Kitchen with music and lyrics by Alicia Keys and book by Kristoffer Diaz sends one out into the night elated and energized. In a sold out run at the Public Theater, Hell’s Kitchen is transferring to Broadway for five good reasons. These include award-winning Alicia Keys’ glorious music, Adam Blackstone’s music supervision, Camille A. Brown’s dynamic choreography, Michael Greif’s thoughtful direction and Alicia Keys and Adam Blackstone’s arrangements of key songs from her repertoire, and three new ones.
Integrating Keys’ playlist with an organic storyline rooted to a New York setting during a period of a few months, Greif, Keys and Diaz’s choices stir up the magic that makes this work sizzle beyond the bounds of the typical jukebox musical.
Clearly, the coming of age story about a seventeen-year old living in Manhattan Plaza takes its inspiration from Keys’ life. She lived in Manhattan Plaza with her mother, and then she took off, living independently after about a year, all before seventeen. Diaz’s book moderates Keyes’ exceptionalism, especially that she began to establish her musical prodigy at 7, and by seventeen was arguing with Columbia records about control of her music, image and songs for an album she already created.
Ali (Gianna Harris the night I saw it), dramatically casts herself as a Rapunzel in cargo pants and Tommy Hilfiger underwear and tops, locked away in the isolated “tower” of Manhattan Plaza by her mother, Jersey (Shoshana Bean). Though mom intends for her to stay safe from the dangers of Hell’s Kitchen, which is gradually being cleaned up of its unsavory druggy characters by then Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Ali questions her mother’s judgment.
Narrating her story in the present, Ali flashes back to key events and key people she meets in her life at the large, subsidized housing arrangement for artists initiated by Estelle Parsons and others. Parsons and other fed up actors, musicians, dancers, etc., encouraged city fathers to create apartments where artists could live while working in the city whose rising costs have continued to this day.
(Joan Marcus)
Artists then and now bring in millions/billions of dollars to the second largest entertainment capitol of the world, yet, subsist on poverty level wages, plying their craft, despite being unable to maintain themselves even on welfare. As a former actress, Jersey is able to meet the requirements at the Plaza for a small living space with Ali, still working part-time as an actress when she can get jobs. However, forced to scramble to support them, Jersey, works the night shift with a steady job, having essentially given up her career to take care of Ali, who doesn’t understand or appreciate the sacrifices her mother has made.Instead, Ali focuses her complaints on her absent father who abandoned the family, and her lack of freedom to hang out with friends and strike out on her own to do what she wants.
The overriding conflict in Hell’s Kitchen is between mother and daughter in their story of reconciliation, which on another level writes a love letter to New York’s loudness, brashness, street people, and atmospheric social artistry in the 1990s.
Key to the arc of development is that Jersey doesn’t want Ali to follow in the shadow of her “mistakes” (she got pregnant and had to raise Ali), which she sings about in “Teenage Love Affair” as she affirms why Ali’s soulful father Davis (the smooth-sounding, seductive Brandon Victor Dixon) was not the type of man to settle down. Having heard this story before, the fun and juice of her mother’s passion for her father prod her emotions. She is seduced to walk the alluring tightrope of danger to replicate her mother’s forbidden experiences while trying to find her true purpose which will lift her up from identity disappointments and anger about her father’s neglect. But how can you tie down a crooning club singer who is always on the move and looking for excitement around each corner of life?
This background is presented in Act I (‘The Gospel,” “The River,” “Seventeen,” You Don’t Know My Name,”) as Ali seeks her identity and purpose apart from the family situation she rejects, spurred on by her friends to throw herself at Knuck (the adorable Lamont Walker II when I saw it). The twenty something is one of a three-person bucket drumming crew providing excitement and sexy currents busking in the courtyard of Ali’s residence. Ali’s attraction to him is so palpable, Jersey warns the doorman and her police friends to “watch out” for her daughter’s wiles with the “bucket drummer,” which miffs Ali. When tensions increase with her mother, Ali seeks comfort from Miss Liza Jane’s classical piano playing in the Ellington Room of the Plaza, which so inspires her, she realizes she’s found a part of herself, (“Kaleidoscope”).
Although Keyes’ own storyline is much more complicated, Diaz keeps it simple in order to integrate Keys’ repertoire which includes eleven numbers in Act I and twelve in Act II (according to the program). In Act I, the songs weave Knuck and Ali’s coupling in “Gramercy Park,” and “Un-thinkable (I’m Ready),” and gyrate into an amazing “Girl on Fire” in a heady, rigorous number that involves the entire company and ends in an explosion of emotions.
Unable to contain themselves, Knuck and Ali are intimate in Ali’s apartment. Is it any surprise that Jersey looses it when she finds the older Knuck and her underage daughter on the living room sofa in a rerun of Jersey’s life with Davis? Shocked that the precocious, sexually self-possessed Ali is seventeen (making him a rapist), Knuck is infuriated and races out. He is one step ahead of Jersey but is arrested, and humiliated in public, which Ali tries to prevent but can’t.
Because of her colliding impulses and emotions, Ali has recklessly endangered and effectively punished Knuck for his affections which he tried to resist. In a gender role reversal, she has exploited him as the “innocent,” while “getting off” on using her sexual power. Too late, she backtracks with empty apologies and remonstrances.
The event resolves in the Ellington Room where Ail seeks comfort, while Miss Liza Jane sings the instructive and heartfelt “Perfect Way to Die,” highlighting the culture’s racism, police brutality and discrimination as the daily portion of hatred and violence that communities of color still have to face and fear. Act I concludes powerfully with the song highlighted by Peter Nigrini’s projection design in black and white of victims of future police brutality. Miss Liza Jane and Ali conclude in hope with a focus on Ali’s lesson at the piano. The reveal is that art is the way out of the ghetto, the violence, the discrimination, the institutional racism that so often cuts down Black men and colored populations.
Act II (“Authors of Forever,” Heartburn,” “Love Looks Better,” “Work on It,” to name a few), follows with a lengthy resolution after Ali experiences a loss, ends her brief encounter with Knuck, and Jersey calls in Davis to help her daughter overcome her emotional depression and grief. Together, father and daughter sing a lovely duet with Davis at the piano. Mother and daughter have a new appreciation of one another and the musical ends on a celebratory bow to the city with Keys’ “Empire State of Mind.”
The covers, Gianna Harris, Lamont Walker II, and Crystal Monee Hall are spot-on marvelous, working seamlessly with Shoshana Bean’s powerhouse singing and emotionally riveting portrayal of Jersey. Bean’s Jersey is a tumbling cycle of love, fear, anger and confusion as she tries to negotiate the rebellious Ali. Likewise, Harris perfectly portrays her attempt to kindle a relationship with Davis. The smooth, relaxed portrayal by Brandon Victor Dixon, shines as the counterpart of Jersey. His mellow, and beautifully mellifluous singing is sensational. Dixonl clearly reveals why Bean’s Jersey fell hard for him and was so acutely disappointed and broken when they couldn’t make it as a family.
The musical, pegged as entertainment with the intent of heading for a Broadway audience avoids going as far as it could only inferring Knuck’s arrest might have ended up in a brutal attack against him. Instead, the death that occurs is a loss that is devastating, but not aligned with any cultural indictment. It is most felt by Ali and it triggers her feelings to be more supportive and loving of her mother which ends up in a satisfying and uplifting conclusion.
Nigrini’s colorful projections of New York City lighten up Robert Brill’s grid-scaffolding, dark scenic design and minimalist set pieces. Dede Ayite’s costume design is setting appropriate and dated for that period in time. Lighting design by Natasha Katz, sound design by Gareth Gwen, and hair and wig design by Mia Neal all are in concert with Greif’s vision of a Hell’s Kitchen which is undergoing transformation and hope, despite unresolved institutional racism and discrimination.
I was most drawn by Camille A. Brown’s choreography and the dancers amazing passion and athleticism incorporating a variety of hip hop dances from the period and then evolving into something totally different. Unusually, there is movement during times when least expected, but all correlated with the emotion and feeling of the characters making the dancers moves emotionally expressive and coherent.
Hell’s Kitchen is a winner. Look for it when it opens on Broadway or try your luck with tickets based on availability at the Public Theater on Lafayette Street, downtown. https://publictheater.org/
‘The Gardens of Anuncia’ Lyrical, Unique, Fanciful, Directed by Graciela Daniele
In order to deal with the past, sometimes memories must be altered to beautify the ugliness of their reality. This is one of the themes in Michael John LaChiusa’s musical, The Gardens of Anuncia, directed and choreographed by Graciella Daniele. The Gardens of Anuncia is currently running at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse.
The musical’s picaresque, lyrical journey memorializes the women who inspire and encourage the artistic soul of Annuncia (Kalyn West), as she grows into a teenager, who then will flourish in her global career as a director, choreographer and dancer. The journey intimated is that of Graciella Daniele, Tony Award nominee (ten times), and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award. Though she never won a Tony, Daniele’s directing and choreography of Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, Annie Get Your Gun, Marie Christine, Once on This Island, The Pirates of Penzance, and Ragtime, are among her most memorable achievements.
Wisely, LaChiusa focuses not on the public career of Daniele, but on those who grounded the choreographer and director to prepare her to be an overcomer, ready to face obstacles and not be daunted by them. Through present narration by the older Anuncia (the charming, endearing Priscilla Lopez), on the eve of her acceptance of the Lifetime Achievement Award, in the garden of her country house, Anuncia meditates in flashback about her childhood with the three great women who influenced her, making her who she is today. As she readies herself to bury her aunt’s ashes, a final goodbye, she works through her memories, some hurtful, all poignant, growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the Peronista government and movement in the 1940s and 1950s.
Auncia’s memories are vignettes that encompass vital turning points and revelations in the lives of the Younger Anuncia, Tia (Andrea Burns), Granmama (Mary Testa), and Mami (Eden Espinosa), all of them flowers burgeoning in the beautiful garden of her mind. Bounded by the older Anuncia’s narrative, we are introduced in the “Opening” to the women and their routines in the life they live daily in Granmama’s house in Buenos Aires. Together, the women raise the youngster and support each other after Mami and Anuncia are abandoned by Anuncia’s father, referred to as “That Man.” Lyrically, poetically, La Chiusa moves from present to past as the older Anuncia lands on memories that eventually reveal how each of the women traverse the paternalism of a male world and thrive.
The superb Priscilla Lopez (i.e. The Skin of Our Teeth, Anna in the Tropics), originated the role of Diana Morales in A Chorus Line, winning an Obie Award and Tony nomination. Lopez and Kalyn West portray Older Anuncia and Younger Anuncia, playing off one another seamlessly with grace. Through her reflections, the older Anuncia merges with her younger self to gain strength to finally put to rest the pain of the past, manifested in her finally burying her Tia’s ashes. As Lopez brings humor, poignancy, wisdom and loveliness to the older Anuncia, West embodies the innocence, increasing understanding, anger and astuteness when she asks questions and discovers the truth behind the answers that Tia, Grannmama and Mami give her.
From Tia, Young Anuncia learns to use her imagination to explore her world in, “Listen to the Music.” Additionally, Tia explains why she isn’t married and implies that she is happier without being tied down, having to answer and be obedient to a husband (“Smile for Me, Lucia”).
From her mother Mami, she receives the gift of ballet classes to strengthen her flat feet, as well as her interest in the dance. In Espinosa’s interpretation of the sensual “MalaGueña,” Mami dances the tango and sings about the club where she goes to dance with various partners in order to have fun, something that Granmama disapproves of.
Mary Testa’s Granmama adds humor and irony to the relationship the women have with each other. From Granmama, Anuncia learns her love of the dramatic and theatrical, as her Granmama’s reactions are always over the top. Her relationship with her husband, Anuncia’s grandfather, is explosive and extreme. It is forged in scandal and passion, thought it ends up in an eventual tiresome marriage, after which Granmama, eventually kicks him out. In “Waiting/Dreaming,” Anuncia learns they long for each other when he is away in the merchant marine, then can’t wait until he leaves, after a few days of crazy arguments and harangues when he returns.
From each of these incredible women, Anuncia attributes elements of her inner soul. Importantly, she also learns how and why “That Man,” her father, abandoned them and left them destitute, forcing Mami and Anuncia to move in with Tia and Granmama. All of the songs and events take place with the backdrop of danger and “disappearances,” during the Peron regime, a regime which also threatens the family when Mami is arrested.
The events in flashback and flash forward, with Older Anuncia’s narration that bridges them, unspool fluidly in a stylized, minimalist set design by Mark Wendland. The past and present flow into each other in Older Anuncia’s memory, suggested by the ease by which the characters step into the present in the garden of flowers that Older Anuncia talks to, beautifully intimated by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer’s lighting design.
The garden is the perfect place of solitude where Old Anuncia revisits conversations and events with these beloved women, who shaped her and sent her with confidence and beauty into the wide world. The colorful, atmospherically lighted beads with attached flowers (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer), separate the downstage where the conversations and reminiscences take place, with the past behind the beading where the characters exit.
Lopez, in her direct address to the garden of flowers that includes the audience, animates and enlivens them. Lopez is so specific in her performance, we believe she sees the peonies, the irises, the anemones and forsythias, though nothing is there. However, we note that this is who Anuncia has learned to be, influenced by Tia, to use her imagination.
Thus, in her garden of delights, she is able to converse with the floral pageantry she has planted, as well as the two male deer who come to visit her and nibble on her vegetables. The deer, who are brothers, are hysterically portrayed by Tally Sessions. The first deer gives her the wonderful advice to “Dance While You Can,” as they do a bolero. The second deer, shows up after an interval in time. He shares with the Older Anuncia that he lost his half-brother, who was hit by a car, obeying a “deer crossing” sign. The half-brother is bitter and droll. Lopez’s Anuncia returns the advice she received from the cheerful brother to the nihilistic half-brother, almost cheering him up.
The other male parts are portrayed by Enrique Acevedo who is Granpapa, That Man (Anuncia’s father) and other characters.
Older Anuncia’s garden meditations where she speaks to the plants and the deer are charming, ethereal and magical. They are part of her cultural heritage and legacy from Tia. Like her conversations with Tia, Mami, Grandmama and the others who have passed on, they are a part of her and not “ghosts” or something to be frightened of. The enlivened memories eventually bring the Older Anuncia to closure so that she can finally bury Tia’s ashes. It is time to rest her memories, it is time she lays them in peace in the garden of her mind, manifested in her country house garden.
Daniele directs and stages the actors specifically and acutely so that they seem to create their own geometric patterns and rhythms. The choreography remains simple and evocatively cultural, reflecting the time and place to emphasize the Older Anuncia’s memorialization of the women who are so dear to her. Though West does some ballet, it is more representational, as befits the glimpses into the past, as if Anuncia looks into the mirror and can only bear snippets of reminiscences. Indeed, memories are elusive and questionable. Did certain events happen? There is one that the Younger Anuncia affirms happened and wishes she could forget.
From the lyricism, to the suggestiveness and poetic nuances, LaChiusa’s musical is in a category by itself. As elusive as a butterfly’s shimmering, gossamer wings, The Gardens of Anuncia floats into our consciousness with its poignant softness and seduction with stirring themes about the power of imagination, the profound love conveyed by relatives to strengthen progeny, about legacy, and about the wisdom and love it takes to understand the impact of one generation shepherding the next.
The ensemble are exceptional. They merge, flow, harmonize, dance, spinning into the garden’s loveliness, then retreating back into the corner’s of the Older Anuncia’s mind. Just great!
Kudos go to all the creative team who explored and solidified Daniele’s vision of LaChiusa’s evocative, unique musical. In addition to those mentioned above, these include Toni-Leslie James (costumes), David Lander (lighting design recreation), Drew Levy (sound), Michael Starobin (orchestrations), Deborah Abramson (music director), and Alex Sanchez (co-choreographer).
The Gardens of Anuncia, Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse. Website: https://www.lct.org/shows/gardens-anuncia/
‘The Refuge Plays,’ Nicole Ari Parker and Daniel J. Watts are Smashing
Nathan Alan Davis’ The Refuge Plays, directed by Patricia McGregor, chronicles a family’s survival with a play whose structure employs an interesting twist. The production, a world premiere, begins in the present and flashes backward in generational segments to 70 years prior, spanning four generations. Though the three plays or segments may stand alone, the characters repeat in each and the thread of the main character’s resilience is the principle linchpin around which the events revolve.
In its world premiere presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company in association with New York Theatre Workshop, The Refuge Plays unspools its epic saga during three hours and twenty minutes, and two intermissions. It runs until November 12th at the Laura Pels Theatre.
In Davis’ epic of family bonds happening away from any social construct after World War II, we note how the reigning matriarch and great, grandmother Early wields subtle power and presence despite her advanced years. The superb Nicole Ari Parker is a standout in the role as she evokes the elderly, middle aged and teenage Early.
Contrasted with her great grandson Ha, Ha (JJ Wynder), who expects others to do for him, Early takes it upon herself to chop wood for the stove which also provides heat, despite her granddaughter Joy’s protests that her seventeen-year old son Ha Ha should be doing the chopping, which he says he doesn’t know how to do.
From that action alone the clue is given that Early’s age belies her life force and vibrancy. Living in this cabin in the woods off the grid, which she and husband Crazy Eddie (the superb Daniel J. Watts), built with their own hands decades before, she makes the best of her roughly-hewn life, which she shares with family. Remaining isolated from culture, technological developments and progress, they have managed to find a measure of comfort and peace that society doesn’t offer. The inference is that is perhaps that is why they are still alive. Though not living in the lap of luxury, they want for nothing. What carries them onward are the the authentic community and relationships they forge with each other.
Davis symbolizes Early as the seminal earth mother who sustains her family’s survival, which we understand watching the characters in the present and their movement into the past. From the outset, we note the elderly Early is determined, feisty, funny and authentic no nonsense with family members.
Though she doesn’t get along with her son’s wife Gail (Jessica Frances Dukes), she allows her to stay with them for the sake of their daughter Joy, who once left then came back. Making cryptic comments at times, Early puts up with Gail, though it is obvious she approves of her granddaughter for what they share. Both mourn Walking Man (Jon Michael Hill), who we hear died in a freak accident when a cow crushed him with its weight as he slaughtered it.
In the first segment, “Protect the Beautiful Place,” Davis sets the tone and presents the four generations of family members living in a two room cabin, cramped together, not seeming to mind the lack of personal and private space. This cabin that they call home is a refuge from all that would destroy and divide them, we realize, by the play’s conclusion.
Arnulfo Maldonado’s set design reveals the rawness of their life that indicates economically that they are lower middle class. Only Gail has her own bedroom. Early, Joy and Ha ha sleep together in the living room in a chair, a sofa and the floor. In the same room they cook and eat with spare utilitarian minimalism. The outhouse is around the corner and in the distant past, a younger Early took the water in pails up from the river.
In “Protect the Beautiful Place,” the supernatural eerily wends its way into the family’s routine as they wake up and get ready for their day. The spirit of Gail’s husband Walking Man is a welcome visitor. He moves between the veil of life and the afterlife, and all know of his presence and communicate with him. Recently, he has appeared and announced to Early that Gail will pass on and join him. The family, even Ha ha, accepts this notion, though Gail resists it. During the course of the family interactions, we learn that the women hope that Ha Ha finds a woman to love and have children with to continue the family’s bloodline, though he is only seventeen. We also learn clues about the family history that Davis clarifies in subsequent segments.
When Walking Man visits Gail in a dream, he helps her to make up her mind about joining him. The eventual result occurs through an interesting sequence of events. Thus, we see that the family, encouraged by Early, has created its own myths and folklore which is as natural to them as breathing. Importantly, that one generation has exceeded another is striking and a testament to Early’s resilience and survival instincts. By the conclusion of The Refuge Plays, we understand how Early’s youthful struggles strengthened her, gave her courage and fostered the thriving of this family whose dominance will be taken up by the innocent, clever, book-smart Ha Ha with his new found girlfriend.
The second part, “Walking Man” features Early’s son after he leaves home, wanders to Alaska and other parts of the world, then returns home to his mother and father. Maldonado’s sets include the outdoor space in front of the cabin which is indicated by a front door. During the course of Walking Man’s return home, he talks to his father’s brother, uncle Dax (the humorous Lance Coadie Williams), and two spirits who are his grandparents Clydette (Lizan Mitchell) and Reginald (Jerome Preston Bates). Through them he discovers the truth of his legacy and why he has no birth certificate, why his mother raised him to be self-sufficient and why he is compelled to wander the earth, which he doesn’t understand.
After he learns this truth, Walking Man doesn’t have the heart to confront his mother with the specific details, though he confronts Crazy Eddie who he has accepted as his father. Angry, Walking Man intends to take revenge on the world and kill anyone he finds who exhibits the wickedness of his blood father. Early, stalwart, trusting in God, doesn’t insist with her son, but makes a suggestion and leaves him to his own decisions.
The segment ends with a new influence in Walking Man’s life, his future wife Gail, who the spirits have brought to him. We know this because of the lighter which Gail has been given by Clydette and Reginald and which she uses to light Walking Man’s pipe. The lighter, exhibited by Gail in the first segment which Ha Ha’s girlfriend Symphony (Mallori Taylor Johnson), picks up and uses, reveals the spiritual and ancestral influences that surround this family and guide it to peace and security.
The third segment, “Early’s House” flashes back to Early as a teenager living in the forest with her baby, Walking Man. Through her conversations with Watts’ Crazy Eddie who seeks her out and brings her food, we discover how she has survived through the winter after bearing her child alone. The relationship they develop over the course of the segment is powerfully drawn by Davis and acted with smashing resolve by Parker and Watts. As Crazy Eddie draws her out of herself so she trusts him, similar to how a feral animal is wooed by a well-meaning animal lover, Early reveals herself.
The place by the river she has chosen to be her sanctuary to receive respite and peace. Because she has been forbidden to return home, she determined to turn her back on society and her parents and make it in the woods. Nature has embraced her and with faith in God and the supernatural, she has received sustenance and wisdom to survive with Walking Man.
Parker’s amazing portrayal of the young Early reveals the depths of a woman who will fight against all odds to live and care for her child whom she loves. Ironically, there is more peace in nature than there could be found back in her home and former lifestyle which she has renounced to keep Walking Man with her.
The gentle Crazy Eddie is the only one who seeks her out and attempts to help her. Because he, too, has been wounded like Early, hobbled by extensive war injuries, she pities, accepts and trusts him. Both need one another and gradually they receive each other’s help and care. And it is in this place by the river that Eddie and Early sanctify their union and build a rudimentary cabin where they will live and raise Walking Man, whom Eddie unofficially adopts as his son.
“Early’s House” is poignantly written and acted with spot on authenticity. Davis brings together all of the character threads and elements so that we realize how Early compelled herself to forge a family which burgeons and will be sustained past the seventy years that we witness this saga. Excellently directed with fine performances all around, The Refuge Plays is fascinating especially in its structure and poetic, striking dialogue.
A fault at the outset was in the sound design which was corrected in the latter segment. Props go to Emilio Sosa’s costume design, Stacey Derosier’s lighting design, Earon Nealey’s superb hair and wig design and J. Jared Janas make-up design.
For tickets to the unique production, The Refuge Plays, go to their website https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2023-2024-season/the-refuge-plays/performances
‘Gutenberg! The Musical!’ Featherbrained, Loopy, Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells Shine!
If you are looking for laughs and ridiculous fun, Gutenberg! The Musical! is the show for you. Thanks to the superbly wacky performances in this farce where Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells make a twosome of bat-sh*t silliness, Gutenberg! is a standout. Currently running at the James Earl Jones Theatre with one intermission in a two hour time slot, the zaniness is a treat to take you out of yourself. And who doesn’t need to “forget your troubles and get happy” in these times that try all of our souls?
The premise is well known: amateurs strike out for Broadway, draw in by the allurement of the “great white way.” In this iteration, two guys from New Jersey decide to toss the dice and bankroll a musical they’ve written to pitch it at a backer’s audition they set up at the James Earl Jones Theatre for a one night rental. Because they have to scrounge up the money by using the last dime of their inheritances, they can only afford a bare bones cast. Both play a total of twenty parts. They never change costumes except for hats in bold, black print which state their roles. For accompaniment they’ve hired a three-piece, local band that plays weddings, bar mitzvahs, retirement parties, etc.
Their thought is if they are good enough (ah, there’s the rub), they will get funding from producers to mount their musical on Broadway. Thus, Gutenberg! is theater “vérité,” happening with immediacy. Sitting in the audience, we are told, are various producers who’ve received invites. Thus, the audience bears witness to whether or not these Jersey guys have what it takes to sizzle and shine or fizzle and die on the vine of their dreams.
Scott Brown and Anthony King (book, music and lyrics), launch the show into the stratosphere of inanity. Not only are Bud (Josh Gad) and Doug (Andrew Rannells) below average talents, they have little expertise about what makes a musical or any show for that matter. Furthermore, their lyrics, rhymes and meaning rival the simplicity of Dr. Seuss.
But all is not lost. Interestingly, Dr. Seuss is extremely popular because it capitalizes on being silly. Additionally, the wild duo are winning and lovable. What Bud and Doug lack in talent and expertise, they make up for with enthusiasm, joie de vivre and hilarious, charming schtick.
As a side note, Gad and Rannells, who haven’t been together since Book of Morman, are terrific in curtailing their exceptional talent just enough to be a tad off, making their portrayals as Bud and Doug even funnier. Of course, this adds to the inside joke about who they really are and what they are capable of. Indeed, the audience was tuned to the inside jokes.
Gad and Rannells have fun playing it to the hilt with tongue in cheek direct addresses to the audience and a shattering of the fourth wall, as they move along the plot about a dry subject, the life and times of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press. As it turns out Gutenberg is a topic about which little is written and much can be embellished and fictionalized. That is why Bud and Doug have found it to be a glorious subject for a “fantastic” musical.
Ironically, referring to their content as historical fiction, they share little factual information about the man and the time. In falling back on fabrication, which currently is trending in political news and the radical conservative, nihilistic, QAnon wing of the “Republican” Party, Bud and Doug’s fantastic tale is hugely satiric. It indirectly points the finger at the last seven years of Trumpism, when the playing field of misinformation became normalized through the efforts of conservative media. Lies of omission, conspiracy theories and sheer made-up junk swanned as legitimate and newsworthy.
Take for example reports on Italian space lasers causing the 2020 election to be stolen from former president Donald Trump. (Look up recently convicted Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, if my reference to Italian space lasers eludes you.) Such theories are inane fabrications such as those found in this musical.
On the other hand for all its guffaws, belly laughs and puerility, Gutenberg! is as serious as a heart attack. If you peek underneath the abundant blanket of hysteria, it actually makes grave points.
That Scott Brown and Anthony King convert the momentous occasion of the birth of Gutenberg’s printing press, a turning point in history, into a farce that nuances themes about the perils of illiteracy, is profound as well as riotous. In truth illiteracy and “not reading books” is disastrous, when considering the culture wars of the South and their twisted turn into banning books. Making indirect inferences to the QAnon pride of ignorance against the elitism of the educated, Gutenberg! twits us with its ridicule about our present time.
This is especially so with the musical’s humorous, historical reminder of how ignorance leaves an open door for the power hungry. In its Act II arc of development, after the printing press has been invented, the villainous, devilish monk completes his scheme to target Gutenberg and destroy his press. Representing the power of the church which historically exploited the ignorant and illiterate, we understand the benefits of keeping the uneducated, non-reading masses brainwashed, oppressed and afraid.
In portraying the monk with a nefarious purpose, Gad is riotously funny. He pings all the notes of the stereotypical wicked, leaving the audience LOL. Of course, his crafty portrayal stings, if one moves beyond the laughter to the quiet message underneath. Despotism only works well with the uneducated, non-reading, non-thinking masses who are often too distracted to distinguish the truth from fiction and lies.
Throughout the winding action which involves anti-semites, Gutenberg’s fictional German town of Schlimmer, a wine press becoming a printing press, a pretty, violent white cat named Satan, a maid named Helvetica, pencils that kill, Brechtian breaks and commentary about the musical, and so much more, Gad and Rannells create their comedic, whirlwind sketches at Alex Timber’s breakneck pace. Seamlessly stirring the narrative segues, then plunging back into the action as they don the various hats of the characters they portray to trigger spot-on caricatures with their voices and gestures, they send up the “politically warped” stereotypes and spin this delightful musical farce with lightening speed.
We have been led into the “secret world” of a backer’s audition for a production that is a loser and a winner. Maybe with a little revision, a tweak here and there, a consolidated cast, a reworking of the more incredible elements, a producer will envision its commercial vitality? Maybe not. You have to see it to find out if the producers line up to sign on or hold their noses and back out quietly.
Importantly, during the process, Gad’s Bud and Rannells’ Doug steer the audience from joke to quip to zany song with an aplomb that is exhaustive and exhausting. Assisted by Scott Pask’s scenic design of the stripped down stage, Emily Rebholz’s costume design which is appropriate for Doug and Bud’s dorkish affability, Jeff Croiter’s lighting design and Tommy Kurzman’s hair design, the actors fulfill Timber’s tone and vision for this seemingly facile, but humorously febrile, profound musical. M.L. Dogg and Cody Spencer’s sound design is spot on; I could hear every word.
Kudos goes to the orchestra which includes Marco Paguia (conductor/keyboard 1), Amanda Morton (associate conductor/keyboard 2) and Mike Dobson (percussion). Additional arrangements are made by Scott Brown and Anthony King. T.O. Sterrett is responsible for music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations.
This is one to see for the fun of it. It is also a sardonic criticism of our time, which, thankfully, doesn’t slam one over the head with pretentious probity. For tickets go to the Box Office at 138 West 48th Street or visit their website online https://gutenbergbway.com/ It closes January 28th.
‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,’ Hysterical, Fun, Profound
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding by Jocelyn Bioh in its world premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre), is a rollicking comedy with an underlying twist that, by the conclusion, turns as serious as a heart attack. Bioah’s characters are humorous, quick studies that deliver the laughs effortlessly because of Bioah’s crisp, dialogue and organic, raw themes about relationships, community, female resilience and the symbolism of hair braiding which brings it all together.
The setting is in Harlem, at Jaja’s Hair Salon where African hair braiding and the latest styles are offered. For those white gals and guys who envy the look of long lovely extensions but are too afraid to don them, it is understandable. You have to have a beautiful face to sustain the amazing, freeing look of long braided tresses that you can fling with a gentle or wild toss, evoking any kind of emotion you wish.
During the course of the play, we watch fascinated at the seamless ease with which the actors work their magic, transforming otherwise unremarkable women into jaunty, confident and powerful owners of their own dynamic presentation. While we are distracted by the interplay of jokes and mild insults and gossip, the fabulous shamans weave and work it.
In one instance, Miriam (the fine Brittany Adebumola) takes the entire day to metamorphose her client Jennifer (the exceptional Rachel Christopher). Jennifer comes into the shop appearing staid, conservative and reserved with short cropped hair that does nothing for her. But once in Miriam’s chair, something happens beyond a simple hairdo change.
After MIriam is finished discussing her life back in Sierra Leone, which includes the story of her impotent, lazy husband, her surprise pregnancy and birth of her daughter by a gorgeous and potential future husband, and her divorce from the “good-for-nothing”, paternalistic former one, Jennifer is no longer. Miriam has effected the miraculous during her talk. Jennifer has become her unique self with her lovely new look. As she tosses her head back, we note Jennifer’s posture difference, as she steps into the power of how good she looks. Additionally, because of Miriam’s artistry, Jennifer is the proud receptor of a new understanding and encouragement. She has witnessed Miriam’s courage to be open about her life. If Miriam can be courageous, so can she.
Jennifer leaves more confident than before having taken part in the community of caring women who watch each other’s backs and hair, which by now has taken on additional symbolic meaning. Incredibly, Miriam works on Jennifer’s braids the entire play. However, what Jennifer has gained will go with her forever. The dynamic created between the storyteller, Miriam, and the listener, Jennifer, is superb and engages the audience to listen and glean every word they share with each other.
On one level, a good part of the fun and surprise of the production rests with Bioh’s gossipy, earthy, forthright characters, who don’t hold back about various trials they are going through involving men, who exploit them. Nor do they remain reticent if they think one of their braiding colleagues has been surreptitiously stealing their clients, as Bea accuses Ndidi of doing in a hysterical rant
Another aspect of the humor deals with the various clients who come in. Kalyne Coleman and Lakisha May each play three roles as six different clients. They are nearly unrecognizable for their differences in appearances. They change voices, gestures, clothing, mien, carriage and more. For each of these different individuals, they come in with one look and attitude and leave more confident, happier and lovelier than before.
Portraying three vendors and James, Michael Oloyede is hysterically current. Onye Eme-Akwari and Morgan Scott are the actors in the funny Nollywood Film Clip that Ndidi imitates.
For women, hair is key. Bad hair days are not just a bad joke, they are a catastrophe. Bioh capitalizes on this embedded social, cultural more. Presenting its glories, she reveals the symbolism of “extensions,” and “new appearances” as they relate to uplifting the spirit and soul of women who are required to look gorgeous.
Above all, Bioh elevates the artists whose gifted hands enliven, regenerate, encourage and empower their clients. Along with Miriam (Brittany Adebumola), these include Ndidi (Maechi Aharanwa), Aminata (Nana Mensah) and Bea (Zenzi Williams). Sitting in their chairs, under their protection, trusting their skills at beautification, we recognize the splendid results, not only physically in some instances but emotionally and psychically.
The only one who isn’t an African braiding artist is Marie (Dominique Thorne). She is helping out her mother Jaja (Somi Kakoma), who owns the salon and who is getting married that day, so she can get her green card for herself and Marie. Jaja who appears briefly in wedding garb to share her excitement and happiness with the women who are her friends, then goes to the civil judge to be married. However, Marie can’t be happy for her mother. Likewise, neither can old friend Bea, who has told the others the man Jaja is marrying is not to be trusted.
Nevertheless, the point is clear. Within the shop there are artists who are working their way toward citizenship. And Miriam is saving money to bring her daughter to the US. Though Bioh doesn’t belabor the immigration issues, but instead, lets us fall in love with her warm, wonderful characters, it is a huge problem for the brilliant Marie, who has been rejected from attending some of the best colleges. Her immigration status is in limbo as a “Dreamer.”
And like other immigrants, she is living her life on hold in a waiting game that is nullifying as well as demeaning because, as Jaja points out repeatedly to her, she can be a doctor or anything she wants. Her daughter, Marie, is brilliant, ambitious and hard working. Taking over the African hair braiding salon is not good enough. She can do exploits. But without a green card, she can do nothing.
Directed by Whitney White whose vision for the play manifests the sensitivity of a fine tuned violin, the play soars and gives us pause by the conclusion. The technical, artistic elements cohere with the overall themes that show the hair salon is a place of refuge for women to commiserate, dig deep and express their outrage and jealousies, then be forgiven and accepted, after a time. It is a happy, busy, brightly hued and sunny environment to grow and seek comfort in.
David Zinn’s colorful, specific scenic design helps to place this production on the map of the memorable, original and real. This salon is where one enjoys being, even though some of the characters snipe and roll their eyes at each other. Likewise, Dede Ayite’s costume design beautifully manifests the characters and represents their inner workings and outer “brandings.” From her costumes, one picks up cues as to the possibilities of what’s coming next, which isn’t easy as the production’s arc of development is full of surprises.
Importantly, Nikiya Mathis’ hair & wig design is the star of the production. How the braiding is done cleverly with wigs so that it appears that the process takes hours (it does) is perfect. Of course the styles are fabulous.
Kudos to the rest of the creative team which includes Jiyoun Chang (lighting design), Justin Ellington (original music & sound design), Stefania Bulbarella (video design), Dawn-Elin Fraser (dialect & vocal coach).
This is one to see for its acting, direction, themes and its profound conclusion which is unapologetic and searingly current. Bioah has hit Jaja’s African Hair Braiding out of the park. She has given Whitney White, the actors and the creatives a blank slate where they can enjoy manifesting their talents in bringing this wonderful show to life. It is 90 minutes with no intermission and the pacing is perfect. The actors don’t race through the dialogue but allow it to unfold naturally and with precision, humor and grace.
For tickets go to the Box Office on 47th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues or their website https://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/shows/2023-24-season/jajas-african-hair-braiding/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjwvfmoBhAwEiwAG2tqzDaZkpYxm9EVbEs9yQ0hCPDF5gTyx9a8iy4yFCkwZxfd3skrmdD8oxoCAfgQAvD_BwE
‘Purlie Victorious,’ a Riotous Look in the Backward Mirror of 1960s Southern Racism
White power structures die hard. However, they do fall apart when the younger generation helps to topple them.
This is particularly true in Purlie Victorious, a Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, currently in revival on Broadway at The Music Box. It is the next generation that overwhelms the cement-like apparatus of noxious, white paternalism in Ossie Davis’ trenchantly funny play. Thus, we cheer on the pluck, humor, audacity and cleverness of the young reverend Purlie Victorious Judson, exquisitely inhabited by the unparalleled Leslie Odom, Jr. of Hamilton fame. Odom, Jr. leads the cast with his kinetic and superb performance.
The premise for the play that initiates the action is steeped in hope and youthfulness-the righting of a an ancestral wrong symbolically-the despotic terrorism of slavery’s oppressive violence. With mythic actions and intentions Purlie returns home to the Georgia plantation where he was raised, to claim his inheritance and take back the honor which racist owner Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee siphoned off from his family through peonage (servitude indebtedness).
How Purlie does this involves a fantastic and hysterical scheme, eliciting the help of the adorable Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins (the riotous Kara Young). Purlie, who met Lutiebelle in his travels, intends to pass her off as his Cousin Bee, who will charm Ol’ Cap’n (the perfect foil, Jay O. Sanders), into giving her the $500 cash that was bequeathed to their aunt by her wealthy lady boss. After succeeding in the scheme to dupe Ol’ Cap’n, Lutiebelle will give Purlie the cash. With cash in hand, Purlie will purchase and restore the Old Bethel Church, so he can preach uplifting freedom to the sharecroppers, who are enslaved by peonage to Ol’ Cap’n.
As Purlie relates his scheme to family, Missy Judson (the fine Heather Alicia Simms), and Gitlow Judson (the riotous Billy Eugene Jones), they avow it won’t work. At first, Gitlow refuses to take any part because he is one of Ol’ Cap’n’s favorite “darkies.” Gitlow has risen to success through his amazing cotton picking labors. Ol’ Cap’n bestows upon him the anointed status of chief oppressor of the “colored folk” working for Ol’Cap’n. He keeps them nose to the grindstone at their backbreaking work.
However, when Purlie introduces his relatives to Lutiebelle, and unleashes his persuasive and inspiring preaching talents on his kin, they give the scheme a whirl. What unfolds is a joyous, sardonic expose of all the techniques that Black people used when dealing with the egregious, horrific, white supremacists of the South, represented by Ol’ Cap’n, The Sheriff (Bill Timoney), and The Deputy (Noah Pyzik).
The irony, double entendres and reverse psychology Purlie and family use when confronting Ol’ Cap’n are sharp, comedic, and of moment. Though Ol’ Cap’n owns the place and exploits the sharecroppers using indebtedness, on the other hand, we note that Gitlow is able to manipulate Ol’ Cap’n with his “bowing and scrapping” which, as we are in on the joke, is brilliantly humorous.
It is in these moments of dramatic irony when Ossie Davis’ arc of development reveals how the characters work on a sub rosa level, that the play is most striking and fabulous. The enjoyment comes in being a part of knowing that Purlie and the others are able to “get over,” while Ol’ Cap’n is unable to see he is “being had.” Additionally, with the assistance of Ol’ Cap’n’s clever, forward-thinking son, Charlie (the wonderful Noah Robbins), Ol’Cap’n is completely flummoxed, having missed all the undercurrents which indicate he is being duped.
The actors, beautifully shepherded by director Kenny Leon, effect this incredible comedy, which also has at its heart a deadly, serious message.
Black activist, writer, actor, director Ossie Davis wrote Purlie Victorious, which premiered on Broadway in 1961 at a time when Martin Luther King, Jr. had strengthened the Civil Rights Movement and celebrities were taking a stand with Black activists. In fact, Martin Lurther King, Jr. saw the production and was pictured with the cast, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, his wife, who portrayed Lutiebelle.
Particularly in the final speech that Purlie delivers, we can identify with the important themes of a unified human family being together on an equal plane. It is a message that is particularly poignant today, considering the political divisiveness of the white nationalists, a throwback to the Southern racists of the 1960s, like Ol’ Cap’n, who Jay O. Sanders makes as human as possible to allow his racial terrorism to leak through with humor. Because of Sanders’ balanced portrayal, Ol’ Cap’n is an individual who has become his own hysterically funny caricature and stereotype, precisely because he is so obtuse in his self-satisfied mien as their “great white father.”
In the play Davis’ themes about the cruelties of peonage resonate today in the corporate structures which have kept wages low while giving CEOs 500 times what their average workers make. Indeed, the play resonates with the idea of servitude and keeping the labor force however indebted (with student loans, loans, mortgages, credit card debts), so that individuals must work long hours to keep one step ahead of financial ruin. We note the parallels between then and now. The inequities then are in many ways reflective of current economic disparities between the classes, allowing for very little upward mobility from one generation to the next.
It is this that Purlie attacks and preaches against throughout the play. It is this inequity and enslavement indebtedness that Purlie intends to educate Black people about, so that they become free and whole. It is for this reason Purlie wants to purchase and renovate Bethel Church, where he will preach his message of freedom. As we listen, we also realize that the message resonates with everyone, regardless of race, except, of course, the white oppressors, who stand to lose their power, lifestyle and privilege.
This material loss, which would be their spiritual gain, is unthinkable to them. Davis’ indirect message is that this is the oppressors’ greatest sin. They don’t see that by internalizing the defrauding and inhumane values of white supremacy, they are the truly hellish, loathsome monsters, the “other,” they seek to destroy. The destruction only happens to them, while the strengthening happens to those they oppress.
Kenny Leon’s direction expertly guides his actors, moving them with perfectly timed pacing and comedic rhythm. The play develops from broad farce and hi jinks and moves to an ever-expanding roller coaster ride of frenetic humor and excitement. We note Purlie’s desperation and frustration with Ol’ Cap’n’s arrogance and presumptions about Black inferiority, which Purlie will not scrape to. Of course, Idella Landy (the wonderful Vanessa Bell Calloway), who has been a mother to Charlie, with love, influences him to override his father’s brutal attitude toward their family. Indeed, Charlie adopts the Judsons as the family he chooses to be with, rather than his arrogant, ignorant, abusive father.
Leon manages to seamlessly work the staging and find the right balance so the irony and true comedy never becomes bogged down in the seriousness of the message. Because of the lightheartedness and good will, we are better able to see what is at stake, and why Charlie comes to the rescue of his Black family, against his own father, who is an inhumane obstructionist past his prime.
The set design by Derek McLane allows the action to remain fluid and shape shifts so that we move from the Judson family home, to Idella Landy’s kitchen, to the Bethel Church at the conclusion. With Emilio Sosa’s costume design, Adam Honore’s lighting design, Peter Fitzgerald’s sound design and J. Jared Janas hair, wig and makeup design, the creatives have manifested Leon’s vision for the play. Additional praise goes to Guy Davis’ original music, and Thomas Schall’s fight direction.
This revival of Purlie Victorious is a wonderful comedic entertainment that also has great MAGA meaning for us today. For tickets to this must-see production that runs without an intermission, go to their Box Office on 239 West 45th Street or their website https://purlievictorious.com/tickets/
‘Dig’ by Theresa Rebeck, Caring for Plants and People, Review
In her comedy/drama Dig Theresa Rebeck (Bernhardt/Hamlet) examines the transformative moments that happen imperceptibly to individuals, when no one is paying attention and they are least expected. With serendipity and the synergy of human need, responsiveness and emotional immediacy, the energy for change becomes the forward momentum of this superb, exceptionally acted and directed production. Rebeck, wearing two hats as director and writer, effects a powerful character dynamic in the play, which first premiered at the Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont, and is now enjoying its New York City Off- Broadway premiere at Primary Stages, 59E59 Theaters.
With striking characters that Rebeck displays in their quirky, raw humanity, gradually stripped away to their bloody core in an identifiable, magical coalescence, the themes of hope and resurgence are unveiled. That this happens in a small town which is imploding for want of commercial viability, and to an insular shop owner in need of a personal revolution, is all the more engaging.
Importantly, in Dig, Rebeck prods us to recall verities of redemption and reconciliation, which abide in all of our lives. Second chances are possible, regardless of how dire or malevolent the circumstances appear in the lives of the damaged, lost and hurting.
The setting for hope and transformation is fitting. It is the plant shop, “Dig,” where set designers Christoper Swader and Justin Swader have done a magnificent job in displaying wall to wall greenery, and later, as the characters spark to life and regeneration, floral beauty. Roger is the reticent, thoughtful owner who has created “Dig.” He controls his singular botanical world, is knowledgeable about plants, and is an amateur botanist who has a “knack” with encouraging dying plants back to life. Healthy and unhealthy plants are a perfect metaphor for the human condition, and Rebeck with tongue-in-cheek amply uses this metaphor selectively and profoundly.
The playwright initiates this metaphor and other concepts in the opening scene between Roger (Jeffrey Bean in a brilliant, nuanced performance), and his longtime friend, Lou (Triney Sandoval effectively portrays his feisty and catalytic counterpart). Lou has abused a plant Roger gave him with the unwitting behavior of a plant neophyte. He’s underwatered and overwatered the “elephant ears” to it’s last “breath.” As Roger chides him like a school teacher, Rebeck’s humor gains traction. Immediately we understand the relationship between Lou and Roger and the otherworldly importance plants have in Roger’s life. After scolding Lou, he assures him that he will salvage the dying plant. Lou is relieved.
The action redirects when Lou’s daughter Megan (the terrific Andrea Syglowski), speaks up in defense of Roger about the money he gave Everett (Greg Keller in a humorous, off-beat turn) to buy them coffees. Megan, who has quietly disappeared into the background, sitting near the door, is barely noticeable because of her withdrawn posture. Additionally, she is overshadowed by the lively, antic banter between Lou and Roger. Clearly, there are undercurrents in Lou’s neglect of the plant and Roger’s gentle upbraiding. Concurrently, Lou’s suspicion of Everett, Roger’s truck driver, who Lou says smokes pot, is a criticism which chafes Roger.
Lou’s neglectful plant care and his guilty response have more meaning we discover later, when the parallels between caring for plants and caring for human beings comes to the fore. Likewise, Roger’s permissiveness with Everett comes back to “hit him in the face” like a bad karma rash.
In this initial exchange Rebeck has laid the foundation for the interactions among Roger, Lou, Megan, Everett, and Molly (the fine Mary Bacon), who drops in a bit later looking for tulip bulbs. Like strategically placed dominoes that topple and swerve around corners, do complicated gyrations and elaborate tricks, the characters’ knock and shuffle against each other with various encounters, emotional explosions, jealousies and eventual quietude, which Rebeck brings to a poignant and satisfying conclusion at the end of the two hours and one intermission.
How she effects this character sleight of hand, under-girded by the superb actors, leaves the audience feeling they’ve experienced a series of events with surprisingly disparate individuals who, are somehow similar. Each attempts to affirm their identity and place in a life that may or may not have meaning for them, save Roger who is perhaps ahead of the others in finding his place, though the town is dying like a poorly cared for plant. Into this mirror of humanity, we note the pain and struggle of finding a way to understand others, when not all of their truth has been revealed.
Megan, fresh out of prison and rehab is living with Lou, her adoptive father, who has taken care of her for her entire life. She lives with him because she has no money and nowhere else to go. She is responsible for an accident during which she killed her son through negligence. Confused, filled with guilt, Megan tried to end her own life and failed.
This backstory is revealed gradually by discovery through the comments the other characters make about Megan when she isn’t in their presence. Rebeck’s skill in disclosing who Megan and her father are, their close relationship, and the town’s response to Megan’s responsibility in the accidental death of her son, is effected with power and realism. It is a sad tale that has hushed up the community and left Megan with few friends except for the comfort of her father, her trying, martinet-like AA group, and Roger, Lou’s best friend.
Apprised of Megan’s story, Roger is tentative and gentle with her. But he is bewildered when Megan screams at a customer for being nosy about recognizing her (most probably in the news reports on TV). In a follow up of her anger, Megan curses Everett and forces her father to leave before they’ve enjoyed their coffees. Her fury is shocking, however Roger takes it in his stride and defends her against gossip which Everett repeats. It is in Roger’s and Everett’s discussion we learn the way which Megan accidentally caused her son’s terrible death.
In this pivotal scene the stakes are unveiled and Megan’s volatile, unbalanced personality which Lou has confided to Roger places her on a knife’s edge. However, Megan returns the next day to apologize to Roger and is manipulative in wanting to ingratiate herself with him for a job. Interestingly, the job would make her feel useful; she does not want to be paid. And though Roger says he needs no one and rejects her, she pushes her way in, immediately demonstrating her usefulness by potting a plant, Perhaps, she can make a difference in the shop, can stabilize her life and reinvigorate Roger’s life as well.
In her actions, we are watching Megan throw herself a lifeline. Drawn to something in Roger’s nature, perhaps his empathy and his incredible weirdness in caring for his plants and in setting up his environment which is soothing and peaceful, she attempts to try something different.
That Roger allows her into his life to “disturb his peace,” and assist him for no pay, is something that Lou objects to out of fear for his friend. He knows her unreliability and feels guilt for Megan’s causing the accident. Furthermore, with her alcoholism, unless controlled, she can “fly off the handle” and explode into a frenzy.
In a protective mode, Roger recognizes that she is willing to change and work toward improving herself with her apology. It is unmistakable that she took responsibility for acting improperly. Her humility to change is again affirmed for Roger when Molly comes into the store and Megan apologizes to Molly and accepts Molly’s invitation to a prayer meeting at church.
In Act II “all’s well that ends well,” until it isn’t. By that point the shop is blooming with lovely flowers and Roger has fired Everett for his pot smoking antics in the truck and his disrespectful, judgmental attitude about Megan. In an argument which Roger won, Roger suggests his critical attitude toward Megan is unfair because the details surrounding her son’s death were uncertain. Roger has feelings for Megan. And though she senses it and tries to advance their relationship beyond friendship, we learn that Roger has spurned her attentions.
It is in this act when her former husband Adam ((David Mason’s portrayal is potent and searing), tracks her down to to confront her about their son’s death. Once again, Roger defends her. However she stops him and forces him to leave so she can hash out the issues with Adam. This revelatory scene is another turning point where we understand their relationship in an explosion that Roger cannot mitigate or influence. It is up to Megan to deal with the shreds of her life that remain, with the only intervention that might heal her-Roger and the plant store-which she has influenced and helped to make thrive in the fading town. But there are obstacles. Everett resents her taking his place. And in an underhanded, slick seduction, his actions influence her to leave so he can get back into Roger’s good graces.
Rebeck and her cast and creatives have put together a smashing work whose honesty and power is breathtaking. DIG is a refreshing, bold, funny and poignant production which defies easy definition.
In magnifying Rebeck’s vision, the superb design team worked overtime. They include Christopher Swader and Justin Swader (scenic design), Fabian Fidel Aguilar (costumes), Mary Ellen Stebbins’ atmospheric, mood-suggesting lighting design and Fitz Patton’s original music and and sound design. These creatives give the production the medium which allows the actors to seamlessly move and inhabit their characters with humor and probity.
DIG is memorable and metaphoric and profound. In a limited engagement until October 22nd, it is not to be missed. For tickets and times go to their website https://primarystages.org/shows/current-season/dig/
‘Infinite Life’ by Annie Baker, a Review
The premise of award-winning Annie Baker’s play Infinite Life, premiering off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater, is that pain is the crux of life. Directed by James Macdonald, the production focuses on individuals who deal with pain along a continuum from heart-wrenching emotional angst to stoical virtuousness. Regardless of how they confront their suffering, it is never, ever easy. Indeed, most of the time, the pain endured by the characters we meet in Baker’s play foments a nightmare world of shattering identities, where the characters can’t recognize themselves through the agony.
Baker exemplifies this concept superbly with her characterization of Sofi (Christina Kirk) at various segments throughout her ironic, profound work. Through Sofi’s emotional outbursts and wild, antic, verbal expressions of sexuality, we understand the humiliation and self-loathing that often accompanies the resistance to pain’s annihilation of self, which Sofi and other patients acknowledge.
At the top of the play, Sofi converses with Eileen (Marylouise Burke), who walks very very slowly as she joins Sofi in the resting area where they become acquainted. It is then, we begin to understand where they are and why, when Eileen asks about Sofi’s fasting. Armed with a book she is reading, George Elliot’s Daniel Deronda, (an ironic, related, situational reference), Sofi answers Eileen’s simple questions haltingly, which indicates she may not want her “peace” or privacy disturbed by the talkative, fellow patient.
With just a smidgen of dialogue, Baker introduces elements which arise throughout the play and form the nexus around which Baker invites salient questions about consciousness and the synergy of mind, body, psyche and emotions. Key questions encompass the philosophical conundrum of what the characters must do with and for themselves in this “infinite life” of self, from which there is no escape, and fleeting happiness exists in an unwitting past where there was no physical torment caused by disease.
In a slow, dense, heavy unspooling, Baker introduces us to six characters, five women and one man. The women are dressed in casual workout clothes, loungewear and flowing tops (Ásta Bennie Hostetter’s costumes). These indicate the state of treatment they are in, whether “working it,” seeking comfort or relaxing.
The setting is an unadorned, outdoor space with scruffy, lounge chairs they recline on, bordered by a cheap, latticed, concrete block wall (scenic design by dots). We come to learn this area is the patio or balcony of an alternative healing clinic, that was once a motel. The entire production takes place in this outdoor area that overlooks a parking lot with a bakery wafting aromas of fresh bread from across the street that the characters comment on.
Here, as they “take the air, sun and dark night sky,” the women and man who have various maladies share the unifying, dire reality that they are in terrific pain with illnesses that have no solid cure and will probably reoccur. A variety of upbeat attitudes, modified hopelessness, positivity and stoicism resound through their conversations to distract themselves and each other. The conversations reveal the tip of the iceberg, below which the pain they endure alone, unseen, fills their days and nights.
Admirably, perhaps, these patients look to mitigate and heal seemingly without chemicals (no Oxycontin) or conventional medical methods. Nelson (Pete Simpson), who arrives late to the sunbathing scene, shirtless and attractive, has colon cancer which returned after surgery and mainstream treatment. He opts to try the alternative therapies at the clinic for twenty-four days, he confides to Sofi. He’s determined to follow in the footsteps of a friend who received relief at the clinic.
Sofi graphically shares the type of pain she has that involves her sex organs and has no cure which intrigues Nelson as a weird “come on.” Perhaps it is, but it is also her intriguing and extended cry for help in their scenes toward the play’s end. Likewise, Nelson shares graphic, intimate experiences with his colon blockage that involve tasting his own fecal matter. They share their nightmare world and appear to comfort one another, for a moment in time.
Their scenes together become a high point that intimates the possibility of intimacy but dead ends as far as we see and know. Both characters skirt the edges of hopelessness. Sofi doesn’t think she can make it through what the pain requires of her to sustain, which includes the dissolution of her marriage because of a mistake she made. Nelson implies that if his condition remains static, he will plunge back into radiation treatment and conventional medicine. Both appear hapless, buffeted by the circumstances of their body, beyond which they may or may not ever regain an illusion of control.
Through their journey toward relief, the patients have signed on to be put through their paces. The regimen and therapy that Sofi, Eileen, Elaine (Brenda Pressley), Ginnie (Kristine Nielsen), Yvette (Mia Katigbak) and Nelson have agreed to, require they fast, sleep, rest outdoors, drink concoctions fashioned for their various conditions, do passive activities like read, meditate, pray and, if they wish, rest and commune with each other in the common area, if their will and energy occasion it.
Over the first few days, each woman shares her condition and counsels Sofi, the newest arrival in their midst. For example they discuss that the second and third days are the worst, that after she pukes bile she’ll feel better, and she’ll get past her hunger and grow used to the fasting, etc. Narrating the time passages almost at random, Sofi announces hours or minute differentials before the next conversational scene occurs, as the women continue seamlessly sharing from where they left off hours before. Director James Macdonald’s staging is symbolically passive and static.
The effect is a linear, unceasing continuation as though time is not passing at all, and we are in an ever present present, a side effect of horrific pain. However, Sofi and lighting designer Isabella Byrd’s lighting, which switches from sunlight to darkness, disabuse us that time is standing still for these sufferers. Time marches on and drags them and their pain with it, as Sofi reminds us, though nothing appears to be happening on a material level. On a cellular, spiritual level it may be quite a different story; perhaps there is healing and mitigation though it isn’t readily visible to the naked eye.
As we become more familiar with Baker’s pain managers, we learn they are at various stages of their treatment, and marvel that some, like Yvette, are alive, despite their multiple conditions. Hers are numerous with exotic names along with the medication she lists was given to her during and after her bladder removal, cancers, catheterizations, and chemical poisoning side effects from all the doctors’ interventions.
Interestingly, Yvette is the most stoic and accepting that she will face whatever agony comes her way. The exhaustive list of her illnesses is an affirmation of the human will to “make it through” to the next day, where she will continue to suffer. There is valor in that, as Yvette’s will persists. Sofi is her counterpoint and is desperate and potentially, if things don’t change, suicidal.
The women’s conversation is banal and reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s plays, which find characters waiting opaquely and uncertainly, though here, Baker defines that the treasure they wait for is healing, an absence of the excruciating terror in their physical bodies. Yet, though we watch and listen to what appears to be stasis, sometimes, the characters in spite of themselves, are humorous and ridiculous.
This is especially so when sexual topics arise and go nowhere useful, and some raw sexual language that Sofi uses unwittingly discomforts Eileen, who is a Christian. For example Mia’s Yvette discusses her second cousin who narrates pornography online for the blind, which prompts a discussion of how it is possible for the blind to react to described sexual acts.
In another segment Ginnie initiates a conversation about a pirate who rapes a young girl who commits suicide. The story is part of a philosophical teaching taken from one of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s books. The provocative question Ginnie asks all to think about concerns the Zen Master’s statement that people are the pirate and the rape victim. The thought that are are capable of equal parts of sadism and masochism spirals into absurd and clever responses in a beautifully paced repartee between Nielsen’s Ginnie and Mia’s Yvette.
Following Baker’s “less is more,” undramatic plot where little appears to happen, director James Macdonald’s vision synchronizes with a minimalist, spare, unremarkable set design (dots design studio) befitting a place of transition, a way station after which patients will move back to their homes to continue healing, seeking treatment or dying. The overall shabbiness of the place, coinciding with the external, static situation of pain endurance, indicates the de-emphasis on the material surroundings. Instead, the focus is on the spiritual, deeper consciousness where the inner healing takes place sight unseen and manifests physically when the characters leave, for they’ve achieved some sort of relief. Perhaps some, but not all. Some are still there and in hell.
The minimalist structure is the receptacle for the weighty philosophical, tinged with metaphysical ideas that the characters express between the arduous moments of waiting. Baker has them burst out with pithy statements universal to us all, reminding us that beneath the ordinary, difficult, daily hours each of us sustains, there is the painful construct that we are dying while we’re living. The glorious part is the absence of pain. Eileen says in a difficult moment of agony, “a minute of this is an infinity.” The unfortunate part is if illness and pain comes, there is the bracing life lesson that sickness reminds the sufferer. It is what Beckett’s character said in Endgame, and a statement he repeated. “You’re on earth. There’s no cure for that.”
Baker is fascinating upon reflection, reading the script. With the live production the dialogue was sounded spottily because of the theater’s acoustics, the unequally distributed sound design and low conversational tones of the actors, during various segments. Audience left remained in stark silence while audience right rippled with responses of laughter, throughout during the production I saw in preview. Pulitzer Prize winner Baker is known for her pauses and silences in the dynamic among the characters, which in this play added gravity and profound undercurrents. However, in the performance, the silences were noticeably from audience left as audience right chuckled in delight.
The lack of audience reaction because of sound design difficulties was obvious. Interior pain is more easily expressed on film with close-ups. In an attempt to express their pain’s trembling terror, some actors chose to moderate their projection downward into quietude. Throughout, Mia Katigbak and Kristine Nielsen could be heard. Marylouise Burke managed to get around the conversational tones with a haspy, raspy voice which carried.
Similarly, the other superb actors were present during their important moments that conveyed the play’s themes. However, the audio was not sustained, as it should have been. Ironically, I noted even the young man seated next to me leaned forward on the edge of his seat, and not because the suspense was overwhelming. He was straining to hear. Apparently, this is not a problem for director James Macdonald, though it was for audience members whose experience was less than stellar, unfortunately, for a play which, after its reading, I found to be exceptional, profound and thought-provoking.
Infinite Life runs at Atlantic Theater Company. It is a co-production with the National Theatre. For tickets visit the Box Office at the Linda Gross Theater on 20th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. Or go to their website https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/34237?sitePreference=normal
‘The Shark is Broken’ Three Men Missing a Shark, Broadway Review
Much of the real terror related to the film Jaws (1975), was experienced behind the scenes. The film was over budget $2 million and its flawed premise needed correction because the star of the picture, Bruce (the monster great white shark), was unworkable. To add insult to injury, director Steven Spielberg and the main cast were unproven at the box office and had issues to overcome. Finally, there was no finished script. For all intents and purposes, the film looked to go belly up, just like the three versions of mechanical Bruce, who foundered, sputtered and sank forcing the director and writer John Milieus into extensive rewrites.
However, Hollywood is the land of miracles. Jaws (adapted from Peter Benchley’s titular novel), broke all box office records for the time, despite the frankenfish never really “getting off the ground” the way Spielberg intended.
The Broadway show The Shark is Broken, currently sailing at the Golden Theatre until the 19th of November is the story of the three consummate actors behind the flop that might have been Jaws if Spielberg and his team didn’t rethink their broken monster, proving less screen time is more powerful when the shark finally shows up. The amusing play co-written by Ian Shaw (Robert Shaw’s son) and Joseph Nixon, and directed by Guy Masterson comes in at a slim 90 minutes. It features Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice the Musical) as Richard Dreyfuss, Colin Donnell (Almost Famous at The Old Globe) as Roy Scheider, and Ian Shaw (War Horse), who plays his father Robert Shaw.
The play focuses on these three actors who attempt to deal with the circumstances and each other as they try to make it through the tedious days waiting for Bruce, the real star, to “get his act together.” However, Bruce never does. Indeed, if one revisits the film, one must give praise to the superb performances of Dreyfuss, Scheider and Shaw who make the audience believe the shark is horrifically real and not a broken-down, mechanical “has been.”
Crucial to the film’s success are the dynamics among the actors which The Shark is Broken highlights with sardonic humor and a legendary sheen. Once the film skyrocketed to blockbuster status, the high-stress problems surrounding the film’s creation could be acknowledged with gallows humor. Such is the stuff that Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon configure as they reveal intimate portraits of the actors’ personalities, foibles, desperations and bonding, while waiting for their “close-ups” with Bruce. Though the play appears “talky,” the tensions and undercurrents form the substance of what drives the actors. Like a shark that glides with fin above water, what lies inside each of the actors threatens to explode when least expected.
Even seemingly mild-mannered, emotionally tailored Scheider flips out. When his luxurious sun bathing is curtailed and his presence demanded on set, Donnell takes a bat and smashes it on the deck in fury. Donnell has no dialogue but his actions and body speak louder than words and we see how underneath that calm demeanor, Scheider is capable of potential violence which he keeps on a leash and, like a dog, gets it to heel when he wishes.
Based on Robert Shaw’s drinking diary, family archives, interviews and other Jaws‘ sources, Shaw and Nixon pen an encomium to the actors’ efforts and relationships forged during their claustrophobic time spent on the Orca, which floated on the open ocean east of Martha’s Vineyard between East Chop and Oak Bluffs. As the actor-characters arrive, we note the resemblances to their counterparts, further emphasized by their outfits, (costumes by Duncan Henderson), speech (dialect coach-Kate Wilson), and mannerisms.
Donnell is the fit, tanned, attractive, temperate Scheider, well cast to portray police chief Brody, head of the shark expedition. Brightman is the pudgy, scruffy, angst-filled Dreyfuss, who sounds and looks like the actor, and is filled with brio and insecurity as Ian’s Shaw batters his ego. As a dead-ringer, Ian portrays his father Robert Shaw, who merges the steely-eyed, gravely voiced, hard-drinking Quint with himself so the boundary between actor and character is seamless. Ian’s Shaw is comfortable in his cap and jacket ready to conquer his prey which includes the poorly written Indianapolis speech, and Richard Dreyfuss.
Thanks to the creative team, Duncan Henderson’s set and costume design, Campbell Young Associates wig design and construction, Jon Clark’s lighting design, Adam Cork’s sound design and original music, and Nina Dunn for Pixellux’s video design, the scenes when the three are on the Orca waiting for the great white to arrive include the manifested cross section of the boat interior, undulating ocean with seagulls flying overhead, wave washing sound effects, sunsets, and a lightening storm during which Ian’s Shaw stands rocking near the boat railing as he challenges the storm. The designated force of Robert Shaw comes through particularly, as he stands arms outstretched, back to the audience, accepting whatever the chaotic, dangerous elements unleash on him.
What do these men do to redeem the time as they wait for one of the three versions of Bruce to be commissioned to work? They do what sailors have done time immemorial: play innumerable card games, read the newspaper, play pub games and verbally and physically attack each other parlaying wit, wisdom, insults and choking. The latter occurs when Brightman’s Dreyfuss calls Shaw’s bluff about giving up drinking. With a quick maneuver, Dreyfuss takes Shaw’s bottle and tosses it over the side, a severe cruelty for a drinking man. Ian’s Shaw leaps into ferocity. It is only Scheider’s peacemaking and his threat that Shaw will be sued for delaying the film further, that remove Shaw’s ham hands from Dreyfuss’ quivering throat.
The feud between Dreyfuss and Shaw is exacerbated by inaction and the actors’ boredom between scene takes. This gives rise to the competitive hate/love emotions between the two men, which escalate during the play and are a fount of scathing, sardonic humor. When confronted about it, Shaw insists he is helping to improve Dreyfuss’ performance, and indeed, the tension between the actors behind the scenes travels well to their portrayals on film. The thrust and parrying of epithets and wit, which Scheider attempts to mitigate to no avail, forms the backbone of the dialogue which comes at the expense of Dreyfuss’ savaged ego.
Shaw, a noted writer and giant on the stage, sharpens his wordplay on Dreyfuss’ attempts at rebuttal. It is only after a quiet moment between Scheider and Shaw when Scheider tells Shaw how much Dreyfuss admires him, that Shaw lets up, but only a bit.
Son Ian is not shy about his father’s alcoholism and he plays the role as if he was familiar with how crusty and gritty his father could get when he was “three sheets to the wind.” Though he lost him at a young age and most probably doesn’t remember him all that well, the point is made that alcoholism and loss is generational. Robert Shaw shares that he lost his father to suicide when he was a youngster and always rued that he could never assure his dad that things would be all right. By that point his father had killed himself. Robert Shaw also died young and left his nine children wanting him. Thus, homage is paid by Ian to his grandfather and father who both battled alcoholism and died before their sons could really know them.
At its most revelatory, The Shark is Broken is about fathers and sons and how their father’s abandonment and/or rejection traumatized the actors who struggle to get out from under the sense of loss, rejection and insecurity. Dreyfuss shares that his father left the family and wanted him to be a doctor or lawyer. Scheider reveals his father disdained his acting career, until he eventually accepted it and became proud of his son. It is the few shared moments like these where the men bond and find common ground that are strongest and wonderfully acted. The play might have used more of these moments and fewer attempts at ironic jokes about how Jaws won’t be memorable in film history.
Shaw’s reductio ad absurdum of the future of films as a measure of sequels: sequels will beget sequels of sequels that have sequels rings true, of course. But the statement for humorous purposes is far from prescient.
The Shark is Broken premiered in Brighton, England, went to a 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe run then opened on the West End before it arrived on Broadway. The play is humorous and entertaining with some missed opportunities for quiet, soulful moments. Certainly, those who have seen Jaws and its sequels will have fun and enjoy the near replica of the Orca and its inhabitants for a captured moment in film history made alive. The acting is crackerjack and Ian’s interpretation of the Indianapolis speech, which Shaw wrote himself, is at the heart of the film. As Ian delivers it, it is at the heart of the play and symbolically profound.
The Shark is Broken runs without an intermission at the Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street). For tickets and times, go to their website https://thesharkisbroken.com/
CAROLE DI TOSTI 