Category Archives: Off Broadway
‘London Assurance’ directed by Charlotte Moore at The Irish Repertory Theatre, a Rollicking Christmas Treat
(L to R): Colin McPhillamy, Elliot Joseph, Caroline Strang, Rachel Pickup, Robert Zuckerman, Evan Zes, Meg Hennessy, Brian Keane, Ian Holcomb, ‘London Assurance, by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
London Assurance, the vibrant farce by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore at the Irish Rep is the perfect production for the Christmas season to keep the cheer bright. The acting is superb, the pacing of high jinx is acutely shepherded by Moore. Altogether, there is everything to like and enjoy and nothing to find fault with in this production which runs until 26 January.
A mix between a drawing room comedy and slapstick without the physicality but oodles of wordplay, Boucicault’s London Assurance also satirizes stock character types, social classes and the notions of marriage for convenience which were beginning to be blown away by the idea of love matches, at the time the play takes place Christmastime, 1841.
(L to R): Brian Keane, Colin MPhillamy in ‘London Assurance,’ by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
The action begins when dissolute Charles Courtly (Ian Holcomb) arrives with his friend Dazzle (Craig Wesley Divino) in the morning hours after a night of hard drinking and partying. Charles lives with his father Sir Harcourt Courtly (Colin McPhillamy is perfection as the fop who is easily duped by his own puffery). Courtly believes his son to be the innocent, demure, hard-working student who eschews gambling and drinking. Charles is the antithesis. Servant Cool (Elliot Joseph) lies to protect Charles.
(L to R): Meg Hennessy, Caroline Strang in ‘London Assurance,’ by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
After Dazzle and Cool carry Charles off in a drunken stupor, Sir Courtly enters in his dressing gown wishing for his breakfast. Courtly reminds Cool of the recent most important events of his life. He and his friend Max Harkaway (the fine Brian Keane) have arranged for the elderly Courtly’s marriage to Max’s young, beautiful niece Grace (Caroline Strang) in exchange for an obviation of debts, and her dowry. If Courtly or Grace nullifies the arrangement, Grace’s money will be Charles’ inheritance.
The arc of development involves the foiling of Courtly’s plans when all visit Max’ country estate in Gloucestershire where Courtly is supposed to finalize his engagement to Grace. Max has invited Dazzle and of course Dazzle brings along Charles for the adventure and fun the visit promises to be, though Sir Courtly doesn’t realize that Charles has joined the party. At Max’ estate, Grace meets a disguised Charles who poses as Augustus Hamilton to dupe his father who believes him to be home studying. Both Holcomb and McPhillamy pull off the bad disguise non-recognition and Sir Courtly’s dubious response to his son’s “lookalike” with great humor.
Caroline Strang, Ian Holcomb, in ‘London Assurance,’ by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
Charles, ever the playboy, flirts with Grace unaware that she is his future mother. For her part Grace is sanguine about marrying Sir Courtly, but falls in a hot love with Charles. What are they to do? How can they put off Sir Courtly and Uncle Max Harkaway and effect their marriage to each other? By this point in the plot the playwright has drawn us in for Sir Courtly is no particular catch and to American audiences today, the idea of a woman having to drop her dowry in the lap of an elderly gentleman in order to survive is almost unthinkable, especially when the marriage has been arranged for her.
In the succeeding scenes we meet the lovely friends of Max, Lady Gay Spanker (the wonderfully comedic Rachel Pickup) and her ancient-looking husband Adolphus Spanker (Robert Zukerman draws many laughs with his outrage about his wife leaving him) who is vital, spry and a force of nature that Lady Gay Spanker loves as her protector. However, when Charles beseeches Lady Gay for her help to dissuade his father from sealing “the deal” with Max for Grace, Lady Gay thinks of a humorous idea to break up plans of Sir Courtly’s marriage.
Rachel Pickup in ‘London Assurance, by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
In great good fun she seduces the pompous Sir Courtly to fall in love with her behind her husband’s and Grace’s back. Sir Courtly who believes himself to be twenty years younger and on the cutting edge of fashion, is tricked by Lady Gay. He rushes after her to win her kisses and affection. Of course, when Spanker hears that his wife may separate from him, his reaction is hysterical. Meanwhile, Lady Gay is having the time of her life in harmless fun to help out two young lovers who doubt each other’s love. The complications rise and Lady Gay works her miracle for a good cause, until…
This is no spoiler alert. You will just have to see this humorous LOL production to appreciate how the playwright adds complex and humorous twists to the relationships and magnifies mishaps and errors raising the stakes and jokes to a delightful climax with a duel.
Colin McPhillamy, Rachel Pickup in in ‘London Assurance, by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
Charlotte Moore’s sense of comedic timing, what does and doesn’t work has been engineered to a fine froth so that the actors appear to be these authentic, vivacious, funny individuals. I cannot imagine Colin McPhillamy, Ian Holcomb, Rachel Pickup, Robert Zukerman, Caroline Strang, Evan Zes (the funny conniving lawyer) Brian Keane, Craig Wesley Divino, Elliot Joseph and Meg Hennessy sounding and behaving any differently in real life than they do onstage. Their performances are stunning. Their timing is spot-on.
Interestingly, the cast has managed to portray their characters so that they are not “the types” they appear to be, but are funny because their traits are humorous. Evan Zes as the “sneaky, obtrusive” lawyer Mark Meddle dismissed by Meg Hennessy’s “go-to-girl” Pert, with the accusation of “slander” is an example. In the hands of these actors this is accomplished with seamless effort. Additionally, the actors handle the asides to the audience with an easy, intimate confessional tone that enhances the comedy. Finally, we enjoy the foibles of each character whom the actors have invested in with their perceptive, canny skills.
Robert Zuckerman, Evan Zes in ‘London Assurance, by Dion Boucicault, directed by Charlotte Moore, Irish Repertory Theatre (Carol Rosegg)
The sets sparkle with beauty and apparent luxury thanks to James Noone’s scenic design. The interiors are befitting of what one would expect of Sir Courtly’s and Max’s residences. Likewise, Sara Jean Tosetti’s costume design and Robert-Charles Vallance’s hair designs authenticate the period and social status of the characters with excellence. Lady Gay’s purples (I loved her costumes that reflected her expansive, lively character) matched with a lighter shade of purple for her husband’s cravat (?). As a couple they reflected a refined, spiffy, fascinating dynamic. Indeed the creative team’s techniques and strategies inspired by Charlotte Moore’s vision for the production were not overblown, but were “a Goldilocks.” Rounding out the team are Michael Gottlieb’s lighting desgin and M. Florian Staab’s sound design. The music was lighthearted and chosen for the splendid mood of the production.
Once again Irish Repertory Theatre proves its stalwart magnificence for the season with this marvelous comedy that Charlotte Moore, the ensemble and creative team have imbued with their joie de vivre and experience. If you don’t see it, you will have missed a special production. London Assurance runs with one intermission until 26 January. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘One November Yankee,’ Starring Harry Hamlin, Stefanie Powers at 59E59 Theaters
Harry Hamlin, Stefanie Powers in ‘One November Yankee,’ written and directed by Joshua Ravetch at 59E59 Theaters (Matt Urban)
One November Yankee the comedy written and directed by Joshua Ravetch sports an intriguing structure. The play is four scenes: a flashback and a flash forward framed by beginning and ending scenes between a brother and sister that take place at MOMA. This is where art curator Maggie and modern artist Ralph are putting the finishing touches on Ralph’s art installation. The play is about siblings, different pairs in each of the scenes played by Stefanie Powers and Harry Hamlin. Each pair of siblings with a combination of love and rancor face-off against each other with humor, with pathos. Eventually, they resolve their differences. With one pair the resolution has an unusual twist.
As the production opens Maggie and Ralph argue about Ralph’s art work. Maggie avers with sarcasm and witticisms about what the project stands for and what it is. In the center of the presentation area is a “tangled mangle of debris,” that appears to be a yellow Piper Cub that has crashed in the woods. We later discover the installation has a basis in truth. Ralph has entitled his piece “Crumpled Plane,” to exemplify his social criticism of a “Civilization in Ruin.” Maggie, who has helped to bring money in to fund the project is not “thrilled” with Ralph’s work.
The quippy thrust and parry of their argument is well-crafted with bits of irony. Harry Hamlin who is Ralph, and Stefanie Powers as Maggie carry off the coolness and chic of these well-healed characters with fine-tuned humor and aplomb. What becomes intriguing are the references and through-lines Ravetch establishes about the three different brother/sister relationships. These are picked up in the next scenes (a flashback, and flashforward to the present) and are cleverly related as we watch how the sibling pairs collaborate to make the best of difficult situations.
Harry Hamlin in ‘One November Yankee,’ written and directed by Joshua Ravetch at 59E59 Theaters (Matt Urban)
In the initial play frame Ravetch introduces the metaphor and thread of flight. Maggie describes how she is forced to fly Jet Blue coach (something which she never does) to get to New York and be present for Ralph’s exhibition. Is it a premonition of what she will be able to afford when Ralph’s exhibition doesn’t get off the ground? Perhaps. After being diverted to Philly because of bad weather, Maggie’s only recourse is to fly on a puddle jumper to Vermont where she must take a Greyhound to NYC. The puddle jumper thread hits home when she confronts her brother’s art installation, a smashed yellow puddle jumper with a forest behind it. This crashed plane symbolizes the possibility of another “crash,” the crush of negative critical reviews of Ralph’s art installation which may lead to the loss of Maggie’s job and the end of her career.
During the course of Ralph’s attempt to defend his work against Maggie’s jibes, he references their relationship to the one of the brother and sister who went missing after the plane crash he’s attempting to effect through art. This crash and the other hundreds of plane crashes which occur over the U.S. and which he represents with this artistic endeavor, complete with videos of the Wright Brothers, “flying machines” of old, and the journey of the yellow Piper Cub has great meaning for him. His art mimic’s life’s art, and as in much of the play is a facsimile to what has happened and will happen.
Ralph explains that his exhibit symbolizes how the expected “glorious” future which began with the Wright Brothers and promised “flying cars,” convenient monorails in suburban settings and an end to traffic jams has devolved into the decline and a “Civilization in Ruin.” What “began at Kitty Hawk, ends here in this room,” he suggests. That this is an overblown, self-important, humorous notion which Hamlin as Ralph delivers as a serious pronouncement is ironic as Power’s Maggie calls him on it. She responds to this and his defense of his work with sarcasm. Eventually she lands on the subject of her birthday which she spent alone without him because he forgot, another possible reason why she is so edgy.
Harry Hamlin in ‘One November Yankee,’ written and directed by Joshua Ravetch at 59E59 Theaters (Matt Urban)
Obviously, this brother and sister vie between being close as siblings and rancorous as rivals. The scene ends with Ralph playing the video of the Yellow Piper Cub’s journey as Maggie reads the article about the brother and sister lost in the mountains of New Hampshire five years prior. As the plane on the video flies into the flashback, Ravetch unspools what happened to the next brother and sister pair as they attempt to negotiate their downed plane that appears the same as Ralph’s artwork.
In the next scene Powers and Hamlin play Margo and Harry who sport different demographics than the first couple revealed in their dress, manner, hair and speech patterns. Both sets of siblings, however, are Jews and the humor connected with this gets a laugh, with the fine pacing and dead pan delivery by Hamlin and Powers. We discover that it is Margo’s carelessness that has brought about the crash which becomes more dire as time progresses for they are unequipped for the cold with no provisions and no functioning radio communications or beacon to signal where they are. Furthermore, Harry is injured and cannot walk out of the woods.
The second pair of siblings relate bits and pieces of their life and annoyances they’ve had with each other as they attempt to figure out what to do, for example, whether to wait for rescue or attempt to save themselves. References that Maggie and Ralph made in the framed scene five years later are eerily appropriate and tie in to the interactions of Margo and Harry. The space/time continuum melds somehow with the plane crash and the playwright suggests that each male/female sibling relationship has commonalities in a family dynamic that is relatable and empathetic. Ravetch is playful in drawing the similitude of characterizations. However, as the parallels and detail threads coincide, there is also a haunting and poignant tenor that we are seeing something profound in all of humanity.
Stefanie Powers, Harry Hamlin in ‘One November Yankee,’ written and directed by Joshua Ravetch at 59E59 Theaters (Matt Urban)
One overriding question remains. Did Ralph decide to create his artwork of a disaster which occurred to Harry and Margo because of some ethereal reason? Why has his imagination been so stirred? As we leave the second set of siblings facing the dark and cold, we are left with Margo’s indecision to stay or leave to find rescuers. The scene ends as they sing a song from the past to comfort each other as the evening of cold closes in.
The third scene flashes forward to the setting of the plane crash in present time, the same month as the Ralph’s art opening which has been inspired by Margo and Harry. In this scene part of the mystery is solved by hikers Mia and Ronnie, again portrayed by Powers and Hamlin, who stumble upon the crash. These siblings, too, parry and thrust and yield prickly comments, merging discussions of the past issues as they search the area and find clues to what happened to the passengers. Again, Ravetch conveys similar elements and threads from the previous scenes and drops them in the Mia and Ronnie scene weaving a fabric of relationships. Mia and Ronnie discover what is left of one of the siblings, whose body is now a skeleton. Of course they must alert the authorities to see what happened to the other sibling
The scene shifts once more to MOMA. Maggie and Ralph capstone their relationship, face the music and the former reading of the plane crash segues into Maggie reading aloud a critical review which is priceless. The last tie in is to the real crash site which is evocative and the final mystery about the missing sibling.
The fun of the production is watching how Powers and Hamlin portray with lightheartedness and authenticity three sets of siblings during the backdrop of dealing with “One November Yankee,” the name of the Piper Cub. As it turns out, the title of the plane, too, is symbolic. The set design by Dana Moran Williams is ambitious and Kate Bergh’s costume design suggests the differences among the siblings. Lighting design by Scott Cocchiaro and sound design by Lucas Campbell help to execute Ravetch’s vision for the production.
One November Yankee is 90 minutes with no intermission. It runs at 59E59 Theaters through 29th of December. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘The Half-Life of Marie Curie,’ Lauren Gunderson’s Work Uplifts With Brilliance and Currency
(L to R): Franesca Faridany, Kate Mulgrew, The Half-Life of Marie urie, Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
Iconic Madame Curie, the two-time Nobel Prize winner in the fields of chemistry and physics, was told by the committee awarding her prize the second time that she shouldn’t show up in person to receive it. She was having “women’s troubles,” we learn in Lauren Gunderson’s The Half-Life of Marie Curie, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. The play is a profound and humorous evocation of the close friendship between Marie Curie (the magnificent, in-the-moment Francesca Faridany) and Hertha Ayrton (the equally magnificent, always present Kate Mulgrew). Ayrton, the British engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor, was a suffragette and a celebrated genius in her own right. She paired as the perfect friend to Curie and helped her when Curie was at a nadir in her life.
Gunderson’s play whose setting is in Paris and England, reinforces the importance of women’s preeimence in the cultural flow of ideas in every field of endeavor. Furthermore, it highlights how folkways about women’s relegation to second class citizenship was a socially defeating, nihilistic ethic for the advancement of women and especially for the advancement of men. Gunderson reveals how Curie triumphed over the most antiquated of mores, especially after she loses the security and probity of her husband status in society after his death.
Franesca Faridany, ‘The Half-Life of Marie urie,’ Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
In her collaboration with husband Pierre both made ground-breaking discoveries identifying and naming polonium (after her native Poland) and radium. They coined the word “radioactivity,” to list a few of their accomplishments together. Curie’s work even after Pierre died established for all time that a women’s place was not behind the scenes as the little housewife, but could be in the forefront of the evolving scientific age. Curie, then and now, as is Ayrton, a beacon for all of us.
The Curies with Henri Becquerel received the Nobel Prize for their research on the “radiation phenomenon,” a prize hard won for Curie who was not nominated until a committee member and advocate for women scientists made a complaint to have her name added. Not only was Curie the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, she is the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice. And she is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different fields, a feat no man or women after her has managed to accomplish. One shudders to think about the women who are being kept down by males and the internalization of this oppression by women as right and true. And this is advocated by men who cannot brook a female in leadership positions due to their own internal frailties and insecurities.
Kate Mulgrew, The Half-Life of Marie urie, Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
How life on this planet might have been very different if women were allowed parity in the professions for the betterment of society is anyone’s guess. After seeing Gunderson’s work and witnessing the dynamic she crafts between these two genius friends, one comes away encouraged, regardless of whether one is male or female. For a major theme is understanding the great and vital necessity of establishing collaborative efforts and parity between the sexes. As a detriment to all, the elevation of one to the suppression of the other, is a noxious practice which has been attempted with a political vengeance in our culture in the last three years. Such retrograde actions only result in horrific damage for both sexes, especially the elites who depend upon the “little people’s” consumerism. It must stop and Gunderson’s celebration of these two women as an exemplar in our culture and other influencers insure that it will, hopefully sooner than later.
(L to R): Franesca Faridany, Kate Mulgrew, The Half-Life of Marie urie, Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
Gunderson highlights these themes about gender parity opening her play at a crucial point in the life of Marie Curie after Pierre’s death. Curie might have succumbed to her “women’s troubles,” if not for the encouragement and intervention of Hertha Ayrton. Hertha offers Marie an infusion of love and affirmation of their friendship, as well as a refuge at her seaside home in England, where Marie may recuperate from her physical ailments and emotionally resurrect from the trauma of scandal.
The “troubles,” Gunderson relates during Ayrton’s exhortations to Curie to remain firm and solid to weather the scandal of Curie’s affair with married Paul Langevin, Pierre’s student and fellow scientist. The playwright subtly and with dynamism forms the arguments between the two women, one cowering, humiliated in despair, the other, a proud, indomitable scientist and suffragette strengthening her friend. During their back and forth thrust and parry, we discover important details. The dialogue is sage, clever, poetic, humorous with little exposition, all in the service of defining the wonderful, well-drawn characters most beautifully acted by Faridany and Mulgrew. The writing exemplifies how these women portray their care for each other acutely, as they take us into their relationship. As a witness to this, we are grateful to be watching and listening to their elucidating adages and poetic wisdom.
(L to R): Franesca Faridany, Kate Mulgrew, The Half-Life of Marie urie, Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
What has happened to Curie in light of her contributions to science can only be described as monstrous. Mrs. Langevin, suspecting that her husband was in a “love nest” with Curie, works to expose and destroy her. She hires an investigator who breaks into their apartment and finds incriminating love letters which prove their adultery and are subsequently leaked to the papers. The press engages in a smear campaign portraying Curie as a home wrecker and a seductive Jew (she wasn’t Jewish) as they feed into the xenophobia and anti-semitism of the time. In keeping with entrenched folkways, the papers portray Mrs. Langevin as the innocent, ill-treated victim of their betrayal. The real truth is somewhere in between as Paul Langevin actually improves his stature as Curie’s lover. We never discover his relationship with his wife and he comes off as the cavalier and romantic rogue whose “wife salvages hearth and home” belying her malevolence toward Curie.
Curie introduces herself to us paralleling her life to radioactivity. We hear lovely music then sounds of what will be identified as a demonstration. When Ayrton enters her apartment, she finds Curie in great despair. She and her children are held hostage in their apartment by the angry mob protesting in the streets demanding Curie’s censure for her whoredoms.
Franesca Faridany, ‘The Half-Life of Marie urie,’ Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
Ayrton makes her grand entrance with humor and vitality and gradually helps to stiffen Curie’s resolve not to allow the scandal and vituperations of the press to completely overwhelm her into depression and career death. During the course of the humorous back and forth, we discover how Curie’s life has been upended, her career and work halted, her daughters harmed by the nefarious publicity in which Mrs. Langevin is happily vindicated and justice applied through malign falsehoods. The fact that Mrs. Langevin, “the woman scorned” goes after her rival publicly when her husband is equally responsible and deserves as much of the public ire as Curie, is a sad fact of the cultural folkways. Either way, women lose. Certainly Mrs. Langevin needs the financial support of her husband. Thus, she attacks Curie the one who endangers her home manipulating cultural mores. Ironically, Langevin rather “has his cake and eats it too.” (We discover later his wife is pregnant.)
The gender conflicts Gunderson alludes to stem from the oppression of the patriarchy which controls every institution, and whose tentacles of power stretch globally. The double standards allowing men every freedom and women every restriction, especially with regard to sexual openness, Gunderson, through the voice of the ironic Ayrton lays bare. Enforced is the underlying truth that women, like children, must be silent, demure, passive, and above all, unemotional. Ayrton reinforces that this oppression must be undone with laws giving women the vote and ability to speak and stand for themselves autonomously for the greater good of society.
(L to R): Franesca Faridany, Kate Mulgrew, The Half-Life of Marie urie, Lauren Gunderson, Gayle Taylor Upchurch, Minetta Lane Theatre Audible (Joan Marcus)
Ayrton quips about how the culture deals differently with men when they have affairs. Men are lauded, encouraged for their virility. Women are character assassinated, labeled sluts, etc., especially when the man is younger. That Curie’s career is put on hold and she is stripped of almost everything including a place where she and her daughters can live in unmolested peace is a testament to the abysmal place of in the culture who are given no consideration. They are invisible, shunted to a no-where-land, chosen after last place, while men are foremost.
The clarity of the injustices of gender inequality are saliently pinpointed in Gunderson’s examination of Curie and Ayrton’s heroism. Their concerted efforts to combat the public’s outrage are admirable. Despite warnings to the contrary, Curie attends the Nobel ceremony, accepts her prize and makes a cogent speech all of which takes great effort. And that was just the beginning of the next chapter in the lives of both women, who worked together to help the soldiers with their discoveries during WW I, accumulating more intrepid achievements that would make anyone’s head spin.
This last chapter in their lives is poetically and poignantly rendered by Faridany and Mulgrew guided by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. The actors bring Gunerson’s words to life with radiance and potency so that these women become our endearing mentors. They reveal what is possible if one persists and stands against males in power who conduct smear campaigns and proclaim women have no place in their world. This is the great and irrevocable lie of fear and obstruction which cannot and will not stand. Like truth, parity, collaboration and the freedom to choose one’s own destiny before God is an inevitability that will increase for women encouraging them to shine their light so that others can see.
This is a sterling production which is so well-crafted and portrayed by the actors it is not to be missed. See it before it closes on 22nd December. The Half-Life of Marie Curie with excellently conceived scenic design by Rachel Hauck, costume design by Sarah Laux, lighting design by Amith handrashaker and sound design by Darron L. West is at Minetta Lane Theatre (Minetta Lane off 6th Avenue). For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ Starring Kristine Nielsen, Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Young Man From Atlanta, directed by Michael Wilson currently in revival at The Signature Theatre is one of Foote’s homely plays exploring loss, alienation and quiet reconciliations. Kristine Nielsen stars as demure, sheltered housewife Lily Dale Kidder in an uncharacteristic turn away from the high comedy of Taylor Mac’s Gary (it’s a blossoming). Aidan Quinn is her husband, wholesale grocer Will Kidder whose security and success is upended in the twinkling of an eye by the end of the play’s first scene. With these prototypical characterizations, whose actor portrayals are shepherded with sensitivity by Wilson, Foote treats us to a slice of suburban Americana in a representative middle upper class dynamic as a couple confronts the unspoken and faces the unspeakable with poignancy and primacy to move together into the winter of their lives.
Aidan Quinn, Kristine Nielsen in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
Foote opens the play at Will Kidder’s office where we identify Will’s assurance, ambition and success in his discussions with Tom Jackson (Dan Bittner) his assistant and underling in the company. It is an incredible irony and stroke out of left field that boss Ted Cleveland Jr. (Devon Abner) has appointed Tom to replace Kidder whom he fires because he is, in effect, “over the hill” and unaware of the new trends. However, during Tom’s friendly discussion with Kidder when we learn Will has built a new, expensive house perhaps to keep his wife busy and away from thoughts about their son who drowned, Tom is sanguine about his new position and Kidder’s impending doom. To his face he acts the innocent and only until Ted Cleveland Jr. tells Kidder he is fired and that Tom replaced him does the shock wear off and we realize Tom’s surreptitious nature.
Foote, the actors and Wilson allow us to think the opening is just an expositional scene, when in fact the playwright is laying down tracks to steamroll over his protagonists by its end and throughout the play. Inherent in the first scene we note the main themes of the play and character flaws: secrecy, disconnectedness, dishonesty, underhandedness, blindness, pride, insecurity and wobbly integrity.
(L to R): Aidan Quinn, Dan Bittner,’The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson, Signature Theatre
(Monique Carboni)
Quinn’s Kidder takes the news badly and provokes Cleveland Jr. to waive his three month severance because of his blustery, boastful comments about starting his own company. Quinn is superb in revealing the bombastic as well as quieter moments of the character. Indeed, Kidder’s frustration and annoyance that his life and career are taking a dive into the toilet and his life’s work has been abruptly shortened is portrayed with heartfelt, spot-on authenticity by Quinn.
The themes become magnified in the next scenes. Rather than confide in Lily Dale about his firing the moment he steps in the door, he hides the truth from her and attempts to face the trial of coming up with the money for the house and other expenses alone. Repeatedly, the couple reveal that they have lived “quiet lives of their own desperation” without confiding in each other. The excuse is that they do not want to upset each other, however, in their lies of omission, they upset themselves more and make huge mistakes which increase the pressure under which they live, pressure which results in Will’s deteriorating heart.
Aidan Quinn, Kristine Nielsen, Stephen Payne in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
In the midst of this excitement are phone calls. It’s the young man from Atlanta who was the roommate of their deceased son Bill. Throughout the play, he is unnamed and remains a ghostly presence shading them with possible portents about their son’s life. Indeed, by not giving this momentous presence a name or face (he never materializes) he becomes a symbol of menace, of the lie that destroys quietly, of the deception that kills, of the unrevealed mystery that eats away at one’s soul from inside out. Unless and until Will and Lily Dale together deal with “the young man from Atlanta,” both protagonists will self-destruct. It is how they confront this spectre and what he is that propels the marvelous, tricky development of the play.
It is in the first scene that we are apprised of this “young man” in a phone call to Will’s office. Will refuses to speak to him. We sense there is an occult meaning as he calls again and then must be turned away. Foote keeps his mysterious presence looming in the background. Who is he, what does he want and why does he keep calling? Eventually, the material answers give clues to the play’s deeper meanings.
Kristine Nielsen, Stephen Payne in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
As the conflict progresses and Lily Dale and Will stop speaking to each other we discover clues that Lily Dale and Will reveal almost prying out the truth from themselves for fear that hearing it they will break down. Quinn and Nielsen work together beautifully at the gradual exposure of the light as the dawn breaks in their souls. Fortunately, the light breaks on them at different intervals and doesn’t completely overcome them, though Quinn’s performance yields that Will hangs on the edge of darkness. He may collapse and die on Lily Dale. But Foote’s intention is not more tragedy, it is deliverance in the quiet moments when still, small voices murmur in the dark hours of waiting for the dawn.
Because this couple are there for each other in their weakest moments, we understand that though their marriage has had sustained rough patches through the seasons, the most devastating one being the loss of their son and the occluded reason why he died, they do have each other. And it is to each other by the end of the play, they turn for hope and solace as they accept what they cannot change and not regret too much that they weren’t on top of themselves and their own blindness sooner.
Kristine Nielsen, Stephen Payne in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
Rounding out the characters are Lily Dale’s stepfather Pete Davenport and his grandnephew Carson. As Pete, Stephen Payne gives a fine, humorous and measured portrayal of one who appears to be kindly and steady if not too discerning. Davenport stays with Lily and Will. In a particularly well suited scene that drew great chuckles from an audience who understood and had been there, the couple hits up Pete for money separately then together in an attempt to raise the funds to start Will in his own business. Davenport is cheerful and openhanded, but eventually, the fund raising plot explodes when Will goes to the banks and is refused loans. Left and right doors shut in his face and the money that Lily Dale had in her savings has been mysteriously depleted, though Will appears to have given her everything she needs for the new house.
The mystery of this continues until the truth spurts out from guilty consciences and we discover almost everything that has been hidden. As in life, though, there are some secrets only those who kept them know the answers to. However, it is Carson who unwraps the package of assumptions, lies of omission, hidden secrets and deceptions with his cheerful, unassuming presence which ironically also carries with it a hidden and secret component.
Aidan Quinn in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
Carson (Jon Orsini) appears innocent and charming. But the intrigue and conflict increases when Carson reveals he knew Bill’s roommate, the young man from Atlanta who keeps calling the house and upsetting Will and Lily Dale. Carson identifies negative elements about the lying character of Bill’s roommate. Afterward, continued revelations come fast and furious from Will who discovered he was taking money from Bill. He finally reveals this to Lily Dale to chide her to stay away from the young man. The deceptions, the manipulated lures of Bill’s roommate who Lily Dale sees as a lifeline to her dead son continue, until finally the couple confront what in 1950 Houston, Texas was unmentionable, if unthinkable.
As one who helps Lily Dale eventually get to that confrontation, there is the former housekeeper who took care of Lily Dale when she was younger. The dignified, lovely, elderly, black Etta Doris (Pat Bowie) is ushered into the new home by their efficient housekeeper Clara (Harriet D. Foy). Etta Doris is a symbolic character, and she comes with an ironic reckoning. In her elderly, lame condition she feels an imperative to see Lily Dale. She walks a great length to their new home after the bus can only take her so far. Etta Doris comments on the loveliness of the home, and then expresses her condolences on the loss of Bill whom she remembered when he was a child. It is this connection from the past that has an impact on Lily Dale and it is Etta Doris’ unction of her faith and good will that brings to bear a greater truth on Lily Dale, though it is not immediately apparent.
(L to R): Pat Bowie, Kristine Nielsen, Stephen Payne in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta,’ by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson at the Signature Theatre (Monique Carboni)
In including Clara and Etta Doris as a reference to another class that was an integral part of the well being of Houston’s elite, Etta Doris is a loving and authentic individual who does not restrain herself from showing her care and concern for Lily Dale. That it is she that offers Lily Dale a remembered affection from the past is one of the vital breakthroughs in the play. With her quiet, vital being, Etta Doris brings that which strengthens Lily Dale to face the truths that Will confronts her with by the play’s end. In that confrontation, Lily Dale and Will must cling to each other and resolve to live with the hurt and pain of their own imperfections. And they must hope that their shared truth will continue to reconcile them to each other and make them stronger, more loving, connected individuals.
The Young Man From Atlanta thanks to its strong ensemble work and fine direction by Michael Wilson resonates as a play of great humanity and truth that is deserving of its Pulitzer. With Jeff Cowie’s scenic design, Van Broughton Ramsey’s costume design, David Lander’s lighting design and John Gromada’s sound design and original music, Wilson’s vision is realized.
The production will be at the Pershing Square Signature Center until 15 December. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘A Bright Room Called Day’ at The Public, Tony Kushner’s Haunting Spectres Thread Through Hitler’s Berlin, Reagan’s 1980s and Trumpism
Nikki M. James, Michael Esper in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day directed by Oskar Eustis, currently at The Public until 15 December (unless it receives another extension which it should), reflects upon humanity confronting evil that on a number of levels appears unstoppable and irrevocable. Throughout the main action and play within a play, Kushner makes clear that those who recognize evil’s force and preeminence, often are too afraid to lay down their lives to fight, though fighting is the action needed to stop wickedness in political, social and economic institutions not constrained by the rule of law.
Nikki M. James in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
The play uses at is jumping off point political and social issues undermining the Weimar Republic in Berlin. The setting encompasses events one year prior to the “Eve of Destruction,” when Hindenburg acceded to Hitler’s government take-over after which Hitler evicted parliamentary, constitutional democracy from the minds, hearts and souls of the German people. Kushner examines the parallels of that time with our culture during Reaganism and Trumpism.
The questions he raises are pointed. Some might argue that from the 1980s to now, the decline in our democratic processes and the public’s response appear similar to the public’s response to precursor events in Germany 1933. A Bright Room Called Day relates Berlin, Germany 1933 to 1985 Reaganism, devolving to the time of Trump. These three settings represent a turning point when the crisis of the period might have shifted in another direction if good citizens acted differently, affirming the adage, “evil flourishes when good men and women do nothing.” In this play Kushner examines the “What if?” Couldn’t citizens have halted the terrifying dissolution of democracy? Couldn’t they have liquidated Hitler’s fascist dictatorship before he even attempted to manifest his warped vision of the Third Reich’s reign for 1000 years?
Michael Urie, Nikki M. James in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
The community of individuals we meet at the outset of the play who pop in and out of Agnes Eggling’s (Nikki M. James) lovely apartment are members of the political, liberal left, a combination of artists and activists who are/were at one point communists, socialists, progressives and union activists, one of whom is a homosexual (played by the exquisite, always present Michael Urie). All of these will be consigned to Hitler’s enemies’ list if they remain in Berlin. If captured, they will be deported as state enemies and undesirables and murdered when Hitler constructs and augments his network of slave labor and extermination camps to implement his “Final Solution.”
Kushner’s work which was excoriated when it first premiered in the 1980s has been given an uplift with an additional character, and dialogue tweaking to reference the current siege of Trumpism on our democracy. Kushner posits that our times manifest “inklings” similar to those employed by fascists and Reagan’s corrupt conservatives who sent the nation on a downhill slide which Trump appears to be pitching over the edge into oblivion, unless we do something. By drawing comparisons, we are forced to reflect upon the upheaval in our democratic institutions as the political, economic and social divisiveness spurred by Trumpism augments.
Kushner interjects his own commentary as a playwright and interrupts the action during which he actively engages his audience as a silent character whose consciousness he manipulates. Through identification with the people and events in Germany, we, like they, become like the frog that is placed in a pot of cold water. As the heat is turned up to the boiling point, if the frog is alert, he can escape before boiling to death. But he must realize immediately what is happening, so he will not be too lamed to escape. By degrees the audience realizes that they are in a crucible like Kushner’s characters, under which a fiery truth blazes. To that truth Kushner posits, one must recognize it, or its heat and pressure will pitch one into a death-state of paralysis like Agnes’.
Crystal Lucas-Perry in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
The play’s new character is Xillah. Xillah represents Kushner’s perspectives as a citizen playwright who comments on his play and the policies of Reaganism and Trumpism. Playwright Xillah engages with Zillah his indefinable character whom he’s written into the 1980s. Zillah complains to Xillah about her function in the play. She importunes him for a viable role and purpose. She wishes to step beyond ranting about the emotional paralysis of character Agnes. Watching Agnes frustrates Zillah, for Agnes does little but quiver in fear at the ever-worsening events in Berlin. It is her fears which manifest nightmare presences (Die Älte-the Old One, in a wonderful portrayal by Estelle Parsons) who haunt her and drive her into soul paralysis which will lead to her death under Hitler’s regime.
Estelle Parsons in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
Xillah, a character in the play framing the Berlin events is portrayed with humorous vitality by Jonathan Hadary. His character criticizes the activities by the cults of Reagan and Trump. He sardonically characterizes Reagan’s presidency and Trump’s “monolithic” personage with abandon in a stream of hysterical epithets that are right-on. Both Xillah and Zillah (Crystal Lucas-Perry is Hadary’s counterpart in a feeling portrayal) comment on the dynamic of the Berlin characters which Xillah (as Kushner) has created. They watch as Agnes, Paulinka (the superb Grace Gummer) Baz ( Michael Urie) Husz (Michael Esper) Gotchling (Linda Emond) and comrades Rosa Malek (Nadine Malouf) and Emil Traum (Max Woertendyke) grow morose and desperate, experiencing the dissolution of the German Republic into fascism. They palpably encounter the manifested evil of the time in the form of Gottfried Swetts (Mark Margolis humorously intrigues in his portrayal). He is the Devil, whose darkness overtakes Germany as Hitler ushers himself into the government and eradicates any goodness that went before.
Kushner’s characters argue about communism, socialism, democratic socialism and the state of affairs. Their discussions fuel their waning activism and encourage impassivity with a few exceptions, for example, Gotchling (Linda Emond), who is continually putting up posters which are torn down continually. We empathize with the Berliners as they react to the brutalities and street fighting, Hindenberg’s ending the government and the Reichstag fire which Hitler blamed on the communists to ban the party, arrest the leaders (his enemies), and consolidate his power base.
The characters react emotionally with disgust and outrage but their impulses to act are largely stymied by fear. They will not move beyond marches and protests that the Brown Shirts help to render bloody and ineffective. And when back room deals are made to put Hitler in power, they become powerless. Like many they appear to believe the propaganda rallies that show support for Hitler, though initially these are largely staged until the rallies gain in momentum and many join Hitler’s party.
The historical events are chronicled with vitality. The characters reveal poignant moments expressing the mood and tenor of the like-minded populace. Baz relates a story of a man’s suicide and his imagined wish to take one of the oranges, he, Baz, has purchased and give it to the dead man as a comfort. Of course, Baz never gives him the orange, but he imagines having done it, ironically comforting himself as the man is beyond being comforted. For Baz it is a horror seeing the dead man’s body pooling blood around it. Baz identifies the cause of the man’s suicide as the despair and immobility to stop the terrible events in Berlin. The suicide rocks Baz to the core. We align the man’s suicide with Baz’s suicide attempt which he stops himself from committing when instead, he has a sexual encounter. Baz’s choice is ironic and the impact of the suicide he witnessed in the streets is nullified by sexual distraction. As Baz, Urie delivers another incredible story later on which sets one reeling. Again, when Baz could take a stand, he chooses not to. Throughout, Urie’s performance is spot on amazing.
(L to R): Jonathan Hadary, Nikki M, James, Crystl Lucas-Perry in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
In the “intervening” frame play, Zillah attempts to persuade Xillah to write her with character powers that transcend time and space and go back to the past to warn Agnes of the danger of embracing fear and doing nothing. Zillah is upset that Agnes is so overcome, she is zombie-like. One of the humorous parallels is that Xillah, too, is at an impasse (like Agnes) only it is about the direction of this play and how to make it more vital so that it will have a resounding impact on the audience and get them to act. But he is filled with doubts about the function of plays. Also, he fears tampering with what he has already written. Indeed, he could make his play into a worse failure. His quandary is humorous.
Kushner, the frame (the present and 1980s) around which houses his Berlin character dynamic has Xillah remind Zillah of a number of important details, in addition to the chronological events of Hitler’s takeover. As Xillah parallels the then with the now, he affirms that friends living against the backdrop of Trumpism suggested he revisit The Bright Room Called Day because it is prescient and current. Xillah wrangles how best to show the similarities and complains that the characterization of Zillah doesn’t work. However, the character very much integrates the parallels. She criticizes inaction when a nation’s political/social structure disintegrates because the populace becomes overwhelmed and doesn’t act, becoming paralyzed as Agnes is paralyzed. The question remains: how does one move out of paralysis and take effective action which will change things for the better?
(L to R): Crystal Lucas-Perry, Jonathan Hadary in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
The threads of alignment that Kushner makes with Germany that mirror our present are thematically chilling. Xillah reminds Zillah that the Weimar Republic had a constitution like the U.S. but their constitution didn’t save them against Hitler who abolished it. With the constitution gone, Hitler and his underlings and judiciary created laws to further Hitler’s occult mythic vision (the Master Race). And with his own race laws, he legalized the genocide of millions. Of course, Kushner highlights the turning point when death and destruction could have been prevented during the events of 1932-33. But those who saw, like Agnes and her friends, chose to do nothing. Eventually, like the frog slow boiled in the pot, the only thing they can do is escape. If they, as Agnes did, stay, they will be killed or swallowed up like Paulinka to join Hitler’s Third Reich “support group” of murderous maniacal, psychotic, evil accomplices. A different type of death, certainly more horrific and self-recriminating.
Mark Margolis in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
Xillah muses about changing the play and warns Zillah that Agnes can’t hear her: she is dead as the past is dead. Zillah continues to beg Xillah. The dialogue that Kushner has written between them is humorous and reminiscent of the “Theater of the Absurd” genre and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, where the playwrights tweak dramatic conventions. This is done to expand audience consciousness. Such creative license demands being available to “thinking outside of the box.” It also leads to the audience having to follow a play’s absurdities which can be as confounding as the illogical, dire thrusts of fascism, Reaganism, Trumpism.
Linda Emond in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
The absurdist feeling becomes that one has been caught up watching oneself as a part of the larger picture which one deludes themselves into believing they can control. In fact the “author” of our lives is not one we’ve necessarily chosen or know. At least Zillah knows her progenitor and argues with him and finally convinces Xillah to lift space/time constraints so that Agnes hears and speaks to her.
This section gives rise to a number of themes in this work that is dense with brilliance. Before Zillah connects with Agnes, we note that Agnes’s spirit atrophies and dies because her fear incapacitates her. Even if Zillah could break through the time barrier and move from the 1980s to 1933, Agnes’s routine of embracing fear and inaction has warped and destroyed any life in her. Life is movement, action, vitality. Doing something, anything (even escaping) would be better than just withering away. The irony of the play is the melding of the frame play into the Berlin story by Kushner/Xillah. He finally allows Zillah to warn Agnes to leave because she is doomed. Though it is not mentioned, we understand that those who did leave Germany early on did manage to save themselves while millions were swept up in genocide and Hitler’s war machine.
(L to R): Michael Urie, Michael Esper in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
Agnes’ reply to Zillah is not what we expect. It is mind-numbing, a warning to Zillah and us about our own time. It has the effect of a final incredible bomb blast that whimpers and fades. The full-on irony is as Agnes exhorts her/us, we hear, but it doesn’t register, it doesn’t matter. Thematically, Kushner suggests that we are plagued by the same inabilities, insufficiencies and cowardice that Husz ranted about in an earlier magnificent scene. Time inevitably doesn’t matter as we are like Agnes. Paralyzed, immobilized by discussion doing little to save ourselves. We must act! But how? To do what? And so it goes.
Kushner’s play should be revisted and it is a credit to The Public and Oskar Eustis for bringing it back in this unsettling, frustrating iteration. The parallels with each time period, whether we deign to acknowledge them or not, are striking. The threads which indict us about our alienation and powerlessness are spectres which should prick us to the marrow of our bones.
Indeed, in our time as we watch the separation of powers (executive, legislative, judiciary) illegally devoured by the Trumpist Party with the DOJ stomping down its own institution (i.e. the Inspector General’s Report exonerating FBI officials whom the WH has slandered and insulted) and mischaracterizing the Mueller Report, such “above the law conduct” to loyally support the WH is frightening and dangerous. Additionally, in our time, we note how the Trumpist Party encourages law breaking of fired officials (lawyers and others) to defy congressional subpoenas tantamount to obstruction of justice. And currently, high ranking members of the Trumpist Party in the House of Representatives refuse to listen to non partisan congressional testimony which implicates the White House in potential bribery of a foreign leader, withholding appropriate congressional military aid in exchange for a political smear of the White House’s opponent. In other words, they refuse to uphold their constitutional oath of office and do their job, instead uplifting the “dear” leader’s loyalty pledge to support him in his criminality.
These are high crimes and misdemeanors to add to a long list of acts which we need whistleblowers to come out and speak about: Trumpist bribery of foreign leaders, quid pro quos, his acting above the law, his incurring human rights violations, overthrowing military law, and Trump’s blatant importuning of foreign nations and adversaries to help him overthrow our election processes with smear campaigns against his opponents, the indefensible practice he used to win the 2016 election.
Max Woertendyke, Nadine Malouf in ‘A Bright Room Called Day,’ by Tony Kushner,directed by Oskar Eustis at The Public (Joan Marcus)
Such lawless behavior in an executive that easily vitiates the separation of powers, and bullies, insults and retaliates against anyone who would attempt to point out his law violations recalls behaviors of fledgling dictatorships. Such dictatorships grow. They make laws into what are solely “good” for the dictator/autocrat as they obviate what is good for the rest of the body politic. And if one counters with opposition? That autocrat will bully, intimidate, censure, retaliate and eventually when no one stops them, kill or destroy any opponents using what it can get away with, first character assassination, then jail, then well placed convenient suicides (check the google article about Deustche Bank’s suicides) then murder.
One may argue that Kushner’s alignment of the present U.S. “leadership” with Germany’s situation in 1932-33 is extreme and overblown. Really? And indeed, if the play “doesn’t work,” are the themes and presentments just too horrible to contemplate? Are we, like Agnes, too overcome, too PTSDed by the WH’s horrific acts to consider that we have already lost our constitution and democracy to an overweening, unlawful executive branch whose party refuses to adhere to constitutional checks and balances?
Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day raises so many parallels, similar threads and questions, that it should be seen. It should be seen not only for the superb performances, but for the humor, for the pith, the juicy pulp of the orange that is being offered as a comfort. And it should be seen as the bright bit of light in the sky before the darkness closes in and we can no longer see clearly fact from fiction. While there is that bit of light, we must discern conflicting alternative narratives from the propaganda that would occlude our minds, souls and hearts and propel us away from human decency and love for each other as citizens of a nation worthy of its ideals.
Kudos to David Rockwell (scenic design) Susan Hilferty and Sarita Fellows (co-costume design) John Torres (lighting design) BRay Poor (sound design) Lucy Mackinnon (projection design) Tom Watson (hair, wig, makeup design) Thomas Shall (fight director). A Bright Room Called Day runs with one intermission at The Public Theater until 15 of December. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘Soft Power,’ The Uplifting Play/Musical by David Henry Hwang is Nothing Short of Brilliant
Conrad Ricamora and The Company of ‘Soft Power’ with play and lyrics ,by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus)
David Henry Hwang’s awards and honors are too numerous to list here. Suffice to say he won the Tony Award, Drama Desk and Outer Circle Critics Award for M. Butterfly (1988). He is a prodigious author, playwright, librettist and screenwriter who was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. With Soft Power, directed by Leigh Silverman, Hwang has crafted a mesmerizing production. Soft Power is a genre hybrid, a musical-fantasy-farce within a satire-comedy with autobiographical overtones. Primarily, the musical within a play concerns Chinese/American custom disparities, U.S./China relations and events around the U.S. 2016 election and afterward. To my mind it is Hwang’s finest theatrical production to date.
I saw a number of his works including the original production of M. Butterfly (1988) and the revival (2017), productions at the Pershing Square Signature Center (Dance and the Railroad-2013, Golden Child-2013, Kung Fu-2014) and an Off Off Broadway production of Yellow Face in 2009. I saw Chinglish (2011) on Broadway twice.
For Soft Power, Hwang wrote the lyrics, with Jeanine Tesori composing the music and additional lyrics. With choreography by Sam Pinkleton and a large Asian cast, Leigh Silverman, a long time collaborator with Hwang, shepherded the creatives and ensemble with sensitivity. Her adroit mastery pushing the envelope to achieve the right balance of comedy, irony, satire, humor, musical-fantasy-farce and stark reality to elucidate Hwang’s varied themes is a prime achievement of this production.
Hwang’s themes in this play/musical are on steroids to his credit. One should see this production a number of times; it is replete with concepts to think about including these: the U.S. is considered a dangerous country and visitors from abroad are warned of the mass shootings and white nationalist terrorist attacks. Among other concepts Hwang confronts with irony in the musical-fantasy sequence are the proliferation of guns. There is a sardonically funny song the Veep sings with the ensemble, “Good Guy With a Gun.” Hwang highlights the increasing, bigoted, racist, xenophobic attacks on those who are not “white and right.” And he ironically underscores China’s move toward westernization with the U.S. creep into autocracy under an unnamed (Hwang will not dignify his name, again to his credit), lawless president and the culture his lawlessness promotes.
Conrad Ricamora, Kendyl Ito of ‘Soft Power’ with play and lyrics ,by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus)
Another important theme the entire play and the musical presents is what it is to be an American who lives in a democracy whose constitution guarantees the freedoms it does and most especially the right of every citizen to vote. In the musical-fantasy sequence and even in the play that frames the musical, Hwang’s protagonists go head to head arguing the benefits of freedom and democracy vs. China’s autocracy and selection of leaders. Throughout, the playwright zeroes in on what it is like to be a Chinese-American in a nation that had deep xenophobic roots and anti-immigrant sentiment that since the last election have surfaced and would continue to grow into a poisonous tree overshadowing constitutional freedoms, unless the equivalent of weed killer in the form of love dissolves it at the root!
The opening scene of the play is autobiographical. DHH is on the street with groceries in front of his home, right before he was stabbed in his neck and nearly died. Played by Francis Jue who is nuanced, innocent, astutely honest, funny and sings with gorgeous resonance and power, DHH questions whether he will be “able to live in the country anymore.” Then the scene quickly shifts. Hwang cleverly dislocates us in time and we follow along to the next scene unaware of what will happen to him and the import of his comment.
(L to R): Conrad Ricamora,Francis Jue of ‘Soft Power’ with play and lyrics ,by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus)
In the next scene DHH meets with Xūe Xíng (Conrad Ricamora is near perfect as the debonair, well-meaning, sophisticated, musical lead-Chinese style), head of the North American Division of Dragon Entertainment based in Shanghai. Xūe Xíng presents the “soft power” idea to commission DHH to write a musical based on a film with a hysterical title roughly translated, “Stick With Your Mistake.” Xūe Xíng tells the dubious DHH that because he is a renowned and successful Chinese American playwright, he would be the perfect candidate to write a musical that will open the Dragon Palace in Shanghai when it is finished. But when Xūe Xíng tells him what the film is about, DHH disagrees with the ending based on cultural American values. The film is about a couple who love other people and desire to split up; following Chinese mores, they remain together. We discover later that this film is “close” to Xūe Xíng’s heart, though the Chinese populace is changing and may find the ending “old-fashioned” as DHH suggests.
DHH must leave because he is off to see The King and I, then meet Hillary Clinton at a presidential candidate reception. He invites Xūe Xíng to go with him and the married Xūe Xíng brings his lover Zoe Samuels (Alyse Alan Louis). Louis also plays Hillary Clinton in the musical-fantasy sequences and is hysterical when she sings as Hillary the “Song of The Campaign Trail” and then in full throated, uplifted glory, the smashing “Democracy.” She is sensational.
Alyse Alan Louis and The Company of Soft Power with play and lyrics by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus)
In this scene between DHH and Xūe Xíng and then with Zoe, Hwang establishes many of the humorous tropes that will follow throughout the play. The playwright references differences between Chinese culture and American culture regarding politics and election of leaders. The dialogue reveals the differences in understanding and behavior. And there is the usual mangling of the Chinese language by Americans which is humorous, especially as DHH doesn’t know how to speak his Dad’s and mom’s birth language because he was born in the U.S.
For the Chinese, duty and obligation are paramount. For Americans following one’s heart is paramount. Chinese rarely show emotion; Americans as a group show emotions and allow their feelings to be expressed. Also, during this exchange we see the exemplification of China’s concept of “soft power“ in what Xūe Xíng hopes to accomplish with Chinese-American DHH. DHH will be perfect to write a smash hit for the Chinese in a cross cultural exchange. Humorously, Xūe Xíng references Lion King and Mama Mia, but since they will be seeing The King and I before meeting Hillary, Xūe Xíng hopes DHH will write that type of musical hit for China. Considering the elements of colonialism, DHH ironically points out the problems with the Rogers and Hammerstein II musical as something he would not want to write.
When Xūe Xíng suggests that China be in the position of the colonial power (the “I”), schooling the “King” (the U.S.), the implication is absolutely hysterical. Xūe Xíng’s sardonic riff about the U.S. barbaric Asian war policies abroad (with Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, China), and at home (the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese Internment during WWII), needing to be refined toward civility (as the teacher schools the King and the children in The King and I), is priceless. Also, the concept of China being the advanced and the U.S. being the inferior (it is happening as I write this thanks to the current U.S. president’s policies from Climate Change to tariffs) is not only funny it is incredibly ironic.
Francis Jue and The Company of Soft Power with play and lyrics by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus),
Hwang riffs on himself with humor as character DHH responds ironically about his plays-they are not quite in the same vein as Lion King, nor is his idea of a smash musical being “Sticking With Your Mistake.” But it is at this juncture we understand the underlying premise of China’s initiative to curry favor with globalists by “leveraging their cultural assets and spending large sums of money” to create initiatives in the arts, etc. This is how to influence, how to find an acceptable way into other countries’ minds and hearts. When DHH suggests that such a film may not be what the younger Chinese want, interested in modernizing toward America, Xūe Xíng suggests that America may become more like China. Hwang’s portentous meaning cannot be understated.
The scene shifts again and DHH’s America is falling apart; Hillary lost. DHH argues with Xūe Xíng about the efficacy of everyone having the right to vote and electing the most qualified candidate in the popular vote and losing in the electoral college which Xūe Xíng finds appalling and illogical. It is a humorously frustrating exchange. The scene shifts; DHH is alone in front of his home in Brooklyn. Xūe Xíng has rubbed his point in about the election in the U.S. DHH questions how he can remain in a country that “voted for a guy that doesn’t believe we belong here,” and remain in a country to be nothing more than “supporting characters in someone else’s story.”
It is then Hwang brings us full circle out from the flashback into the opening scene of the play. As he ruminates about being a second class citizen as a Chinese American in the U.S., something happens that confirms his estimation, but it is beyond expectation. Reality slams into him and us. DHH as David Henry Hwang is stabbed by some white guy. Luckily, he yells in UNACCENTED ENGLISH, “WTF!” and the attacker runs away. As DHH applies pressure to the wound as per the Boy Scout instructions he learned as a kid, he walks toward the hospital and just before losing consciousness and fainting, he hears violins. And the musical-fantasy-satire emerges with chorus, dancing, orchestra and more as DHH hovers between life and death in what is a also a metaphoric rendering of his identity as a Chinese American.
Act One of the musical begins as DHH’s dream. The previous action repeats but with intensified be-spectacled musical numbers sung by Asian actors in white face. In another sardonic twist we are back in time at the beginning of Xūe Xíng’s story revealed from his perspective about his time in the U.S. After he says goodbye to his daughter (Kendyl Ito), who warns him about going to the dangerous country (“Dutiful”), he lands at Kennedy airport (“Welcome to America”), in what Hwang describes as a “deeply militarized, religious fundamentalist, violent society.” Hwang’s focus on Xūe Xíng’s perspective reveals what it is like for a foreign traveler nearly getting defrauded. However, Xūe Xíng, the hero, humorously turns the situation around by hiring a body guard Bobby Bob (the funny Austin Ku), who is always in the shadows to protect him. After all, this is a positive musical.
The Company of Soft Power with play and lyrics ,by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography bySam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus)
In this segment, DHH again converses with Xūe Xíng about the play he might write, and they go to meet Hillary (“I’m With Her,” ). In Hwang’s roiling unconsciousness he dreams Xūe Xíng and Hillary bond together as Xūe attempts to teach her his name (“It Just Takes Time”). They satirize the reverse of the relationship in “The King and I” with Hillary in the barbaric country position and Xūe Xíng as the “I.” The scene is sardonic, considering the idealized players; Alyse Alan Louis is an exuberant Hillary (she looks like Chelsea), and Conrad Ricamora is the civil, gentlemanly, Asian leading man. The satire and irony here are profound as they dance a waltz referencing, The King and I.
As the election results are tabulated, the song “Election Night” is sung by the Chief Justice (the very funny Jon Hoche), and the ensemble. They sing a LOL description of the American election process and the dire Electoral College. But at the announcement that the “guy who hates China” won, white nationalists storm the building and in the process DHH is stabbed. In a dramatic duet (“I Am”), beautifully sung by DHH (Ju) and Xūe Xíng (Ricamora). DHH realizes he has been a fake, neither Chinese, nor American in a full blown identity crisis. With Xūe Xíng’s encouragement, he affirms he is one whole not separate and distinct cultures. That viewpoint is one of love. Holding the bleeding DHH, Xūe Xíng counsels himself to the Chinese way of not showing feeling or emotion. As he faints, DHH states “Democracy has broken my heart.” The angry white nationalist mob marches with tiki torches, guns and bats. Xūe Xíng poignantly questions, “What is this America? Why do I cry for America?” as Act I chillingly ends with an emotional and heart-wrenching flourish.
Alyse Alan Louis, Conrad Ricamora in Soft Power with play and lyrics ,by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Joan Marcus)
Soft Power as a musical is maverick. It is revolutionary theater breaking genre molds. It diverges in the arc of development which swings like a pendulum including flashback, framing of the main story of DHH’s stabbing and his interactions and impact on Xūe Xíng and vice-versa. The action in the musical loops back revealing the story focusing more on Xūe Xíng’s perspective and the quasi love story between him and Hillary which could be read as symbolic of two countries brought together by love. Of course in DHH’s dream to recovery, there is the realistic component, but the musical is fantastic truth; in it DHH has supplanted Zoe with Hillary.
Additionally, in another amazing twist of the plot and in full on irony in a theater of the absurdist style, Act Two begins with a commentary interlude as a panel sits to discuss the impact of Soft Power fifty years later. Hwang’s panel comments on DHH’s stabbing as a “secondary character” and they argue about the form of the musical being developed in China by Xūe Xíng as “spoken and sung drama.” One expert states there are no American artists, only native craftspeople.
(L to R): REHEARSAL: Conrad Ricamora, Francis Ju, Soft Power with play and lyrics ,by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Leigh Silverman, choreography by Sam Pinkleton (Jenny Anderson)
In this brief scene, we as audience members have been shifted via sci-fi to the future. We get to view the play in a retrospective as Hwang comments on himself ironically. The experts (one who specializes in second-world nations-that is what America has become), argues with an American expert, Adjunct Professor of American Folklore at Columbia University about the genre. The Professor argues that some of the New York entertainments were sophisticated: “One of the most popular was entirely about cats.” Clearly, Hwang gets to dish on Broadway’s tourist fare which rankles New Yorkers, especially during the holidays. The Chinese refer to these American shows by “a second-world nation” as “regional folk art,” which the Chinese as a first world nation elevated. The ironies are telling.
Sadly, their discussion of why DHH was stabbed is Hwang’s factual indictment of white supremacy which his experts fifty years later also refer to as a “random act of violence.” Hwang’s theme of the U.S. as a dangerous country for a traveler is brought to bear for all Americans, especially the politician who would refuse to bring the gun legislation that has been passed in the House to the floor of the Senate.
In reality, David Henry Wang was stabbed before the 2016 election. The violent undercurrents in this nation have been there in each century. America as fantasy-land of the golden dream has many caveats, one of them gun violence, the other xenophobia. These two have been merged into companions by the current president, whose rhetoric has exacerbated the violence. Hwang uses the musical to unleash the satire about the election, guns, etc., because when all has been said, satire hits the target most memorably and is unforgettable.
The musical resumes and ends with Hillary overcoming her losing blues and upholding “Democracy,” perhaps the finest song in the show. DHH awakens and the ensemble joins him in singing the reprise of “Democracy,” which is beyond uplifting for not only Americans but for those remaining democracies in the world. Finally, DHH encapsulates what the citizens of this nation believe, “good fortune will follow, if we somehow survive in America.”
Kudos to all creatives involved :Clint Ramos (scenic design), Anita Yavich (costume design), Mark Barton (lighting design), Kai Harada (sound design), Bart Fasbender (sound effects design), Bryce Cutler (video design), Tom Watson (hair, wig and makeup design), Lillis Meeh (special effects), Danny Troob (orchestrations), with John Clancy (dance music arrangement/additional orchestrations), Larry Hochman (additional orchestrations), Antoine Silverman (music contractor), Chris Fenwick (music supervisor/music director).
Currently playing at the Public Theater until 17th November, Soft Power is sold out after a number of extensions. Someone may donate their tickets to the Public, so check the theater in the remaining days. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until Soft Power goes to Broadway which it must. The show is astonishing. David Henry Hwang has exceeded even himself and it would be a shame if more people didn’t see it, especially this next year before the 2020 elections. In its hope, its simplicity and complexity, its truth, its charity, it is what we need right now and for as long as we are able to maintain our democratic republic.
‘Cyrano’ Starring The Inestimable Peter Dinklage in a Musical Turn
Scott Stangland, Peter Dinklage and Christopher Gurr in Cyrano, a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)
The New Group’s presentation of Cyrano in a musical adaptation by Erica Schmidt of the iconic Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand soars with the entrance of Peter Dinklage as Cyrano. Stationed in the darkened audience, bellowing out witty insults to the actor, Montgomery played by Scott Stangland, he surprises. It is the first of a series of enlightenings by the astounding actor who keeps us enthralled to the conclusion. As Dinklage spirits himself into the light, he signifies he is the driving force of the play’s action. His casting as Cyrano is spot-on. For Cyrano is a genius with poetry and epithets. He is a charismatic, charming and ferocious swordsman, clever in besting all foes in every situation. Indeed, in his genius, he is similar to Tyrion Lannister, the brilliant, good-hearted warrior in the smashing series Game of Thrones for which Dinklage garnered four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe.
Intuiting divine intelligence and rapier wit, Dinklage’s Cyrano shines. He is riveting and I say this not having watched Game of Thrones avidly, as many of the others in the audience most probably had done, mourning its conclusion this year. That said, the role of Cyrano de Bergerac, even in a version without music, Dinklage most certainly would have triumphed in, with or without the humongous nose attachment. In this version he looks attractively normal. However, when reference is made to his nose, he responds with a subtle gesture invoking his height. We understand he is twitting himself and in this instance, demeaning the disdainful and villainous De Guiche (the superb Ritchie Coster).
(L to R): Peter Dinklage and Josh A. Dawson in Cyrano, a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)
Dinklage is an actor’s actor so he brings thoughtfulness and grist to each and every character he undertakes. The gesture invoking his height is enough; the obviously fake prosthetic nose is unnecessary.
Jumping to an immediate conclusion it would appear to be a shame that a good deal of the poetic beauty, humor and grace of Rostand’s Cyrano speeches (which Dinklage would have delivered with thrilling verve, power and panache), have vanished. They have been supplanted by soulful melodies that sound similar with a few exceptions. The music changes the mood and tenor of Cyrano de Bergerac into Cyrano which Rostand fans may find difficult getting used to. No matter, there is enough to provide interest in this version which is filled with symbolism and irony, even to the point where Cyrano shades most everyone except his friend Le Bret. Schmidt alludes to this at the outset when Cyrano speaks in the darkened audience.
This version has a somberness not necessarily found in other versions of Cyrano de Bergerac. The character’s heartbreak is also more manifest as is Roxanne’s sorrow at the conclusion. Even the music picks up the darker tones, so a revision of understanding is necessary for this version. Cyrano, Christian and Roxanne are more tragic victims whose choices are made rashly and come to haunt them after they are made.
Blake Jenner and Peter Dinklage in Cyrano, a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)
Nevertheless, this Cyrano is inspired by the older play via its plot twists and masking of identities. The arc of development is also similar and the addition of musical numbers elucidate the characterizations and love themes. For example the opening number sung by Jasmine Cephas Jones’ Roxanne “Someone to Say” is particularly lovely and tuneful. The melody’s themes of love are reprised by Christian (Blake Jenner), who wants what Roxanne wants. After he meets Cyrano who befriends him as per Roxanne’s wishes, their union is guaranteed; Cyrano is a man of his word and a man of action who can get things done. Thus, they plot to woo Roxanne with his looks and Cyrano’s intellect and passionate heart for her…masked by his poetic words.
In their exchange, Cyrano will make Christian “eloquent, and Christian will make Cyrano “handsome.” For the love of Roxanne, two men will make up a whole, adorable and perfect man. Hence, we are reminded of another of the play’s themes: no one man has everything a woman wants or needs. And if he looks that perfect, percentages are he isn’t and something is up!
Blake Jenner, Peter Dinklage and Jasmine Cephas Jones in Cyrano, a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)
The music is by Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner and the lyrics are by Matt Berninger and Carin Besser. Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner are members of the Grammy Award-winning band The National and Matt Berninger is the group’s singer/songwriter. Their score is ambitious and for those who enjoy their music, Cyrano will resound and the machinations of love, intrigue, humor and irony, with Dinklage as Cyrano and Jones as Roxanne (in Hamilton she played the mistress who lures Hamilton into a blackmail scheme), will just be icing on the delicious cake.
This quasi “modernized,” Cyrano iteration shows the arc of the plot development, moving the story of Cyrano, Roxanne and Christian along the shores of romantic tragedy with love realized too late at the foot of death and sorrow. The themes of exceptionalism, the contrast of the beauty of the soul vs. the superficiality and vapidity of prizing outer appearance, ride high in Schmidt’s rendering. And irony underscores the relationships between Roxanne and Christian, and Cyrano and everyone else. As Dinklage’s Cyrano slips in and out of the shadows, he stirs the action while all along hiding his true feelings, like a lovable and poignant grand puppet master pulling everyone’s strings.
With scenic design by Christine Jones and Amy Rubin, we are transported to locations that enhance the eventful through-line: the theater, the pastry shop, Roxanne’s wisteria-laden balcony (beautifully rendered), the battlefield (with accompanying thunderous fire and flashes of distant cannonade), and finally the nunnery. Each are suggested with a simplicity of design. Also, they are enhanced with acutely appropriate and well-thought out props and effects (snow, leaves, etc.), accompanied by sound effects (Dan Moses Schreier).
Peter Dinklage, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Blake Jenner in Cyrano, a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)
The back wall, with hundreds of words is a nice thematic touch as are other elements of spectacle, superbly coordinated to emphasize emotional feeling. For example, during the pastry shop scene, the actors perform balletic movements as they work with flour and dough, mixing, then shaping their rolls and pastries. This is fine choreography by Jeff and Rick Kuperman, as Cyrano sings the haunting “Need for Nothing.” The combined effect among the bakers, and Cyrano and his friend Le Bret (the fine Josh A. Dawson), ratchets up the mood and further draws us to empathize with Cyrano’s situation with Roxanne. Indeed, we consider and admire that his elevated, spiritual character does not need material things. Again, what this production beautifully manifests in its design elements reflects Cyrano’s ethos as anti-materialistic, filled with faith and hope in the power of words and the unseen spiritual realm.
For those unfamiliar with the dynamics of plot and characterization of Cyrano de Bergerac, they will appreciate the twists of fate and the evolution of Christian’s character. They will also enjoy the emotional strength and magnanimity of Cyrano, as he helps a rival succeed in love, and restrains his own feelings. It is an act of pure goodness and sacrifice that Roxanne only realizes at the conclusion when she understands that in grieving Christian, it was Cyrano’s soul she loves.
(L to R): Josh A. Dawson, Ritchie Coster, Grace McLean, Peter Dinklage, Blake Jenner and Jasmine Cephas Jones in Cyrano, a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)
The ending of this version of Cyrano is heavy-handed. As such it removes the life-blood of feeling that could be experienced when Cyrano dies. Roxanne’s crying out with too late tears becomes maudlin and melodramatic.
In the original version and a few later iterations I’ve seen, Cyrano de Bergerac is in bed and dying of a hidden head wound. Conquering the pain and his fading strength, he cheerfully tries to rally hope with Roxanne by his bedside. She has realized his love for her and expresses her love to him. Cyrano sees in the distance his old and most ancient of enemies that he’s fought all his life. He draws his sword once more to fight and flails at the reprobates all of us encounter and must overcome in life: “falsehood,” “prejudice” and “compromise.” When his sword drops from his grip as he dies, Roxanne covers his face with kisses.
This ending of Cyrano haplessly fighting these wicked spirits resonates for us especially today. Is it a missed opportunity NOT to conclude with the ancient evils Cyrano battled throughout his life and to his end, evils timeless and modern: “falsehood, prejudice, compromise”? To my mind, yes.
Despite the conclusion I enjoyed this intriguing and effort-filled musical of Cyrano for its performances, the choreography and movement (the battle scenes are unusual and excellent), and the risks taken by the writer/director and the Dessners, Matt Berninger and Carin Besser to form a new approach toward a timeless play.
Finally, kudos to the creatives who made Cyrano come thrillingly alive: Christine Jones and Amy Rubin (scenic design) Tom Broecker (costume design), Jeff Croiter (lighting design), Dan Moses Schreier (sound design), Tommy Kurzman (hair, wig and make-up design), Ted Arthur (music direction), Kristy Norter (music coordinator), Mary-Mitchell Campbell (music supervision and arrangements). Bravo to all!
A developmental production of Cyrano was presented by Goodspeed Musicals in August 2018. This version in its New York premiere runs with one intermission at the Daryl Roth Theatre (101 East 15th St.) until 22 December. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘The Michaels’ by Richard Nelson at The Public Theater, The Extraordinary Ordinary
Rita Wolf, Maryann Plunkett, Haviland Morris, Jay O. Sanders, in ‘The Michaels,’ written/directed by Richard Nelson at The Public Theater, (Joan Marcus)
The Michaels written and directed by Richard Nelson Tony Award-winning playwright (Best Book of a musical for The Dead) is in its world premiere at The Public. The play is part of the Rhinebeck Panaroma cycle of eight plays which include The Apple Family Plays and The Gabriels.
The Michaels takes place in Rhinebeck, New York on the Michaels’ farm in the kitchen of Rose Michaels (Brenda Wehle) a celebrated choreographer who is facing the trial of her life with an acute illness. Present are David, Rose’s former husband, a producer and arts manager (the continually on point, always listening, fiercely authentic Jay O. Sanders) Sally, David’s wife and a former dancer with Rose’s company. Sally is finely portrayed by Rita Wolf. Joining them are Irenie Walker (Haviland Morris) a former dancer with Rose’s company and Kate Harris, a retired high school history teacher. As Kate Maryann Plunkett is superb and equally on point in her moment-to-moment performance. The next generation of the Michaels family includes Lucy Michaels (Charlotte Bydwell) dancer/choreographer who is Rose’s and David’s daughter and May Smith, (Matilda Sakamoto) Rose’s niece who also is a dancer.
(L to R): Haviland Morris, Brenda Wehle, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, in ‘The Michaels,’ written/directed by Richard Nelson at The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
The Michaels is a “slice of life” drama where the development occurs within the characters as they gather for a reunion of sorts together in mindfulness of Rose’s upcoming exhibition and retrospective. They enjoy reminiscing about the past dancing. And they discuss experiences and highlight issues of currency and more. The interactions are laid back and flow like wisps on the wind that are there and gone. Their comments reveal Richard Nelson’s mastery of “everyday” dialogue. With this he manifests the importance of the little things, of appreciating what appears to be the insignificant detail that surrounds our lives, but which indeed, makes up the substance of the days and hours that we live. By emphasizing the apparently unimportant, these elements become the most crucial materials that saturate our beings in wonder.
The drama is layered with various textures. Although on one level, there isn’t much overt action, we note with the passage of time, the “how” of when friends and family are together. In the coherence there is a dynamism. During the process of gathering themselves, Rose physically reveals the nature of her condition: she is exhausted and must rest. In the first segment she goes upstairs to rest and we glide through this without much thought listening to the conversations generation about various subjects related to family, etc.
(L to R): Matilda Sakamoto, Charlotte Bydwell, Haviland Morris in ‘The Michaels’ written/directed by, Richard Nelson, The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
Nelson builds this situation as the play unfolds, first with lighthearted easiness then with heavier tones. Rose’s illness becomes more and more central to this evening which in fact is a turning point in all of these characters’ lives. But it is the first night they are all together to celebrate Rose’s contributions and celebration of the dance in a coming exhibit. And gradually we realize that the gathering is a reckoning that time is fleeting and their lives are moving in wheel and woe toward a rise and close on the next part of the journey.
As the conversation touches upon the dance world (primarily in New York) where everyone knows everyone else, and subjects come up about the country, politics and more, eventually Lucy and May are inspired to show the dances they are working on. They have a quasi rehearsal in the kitchen which is more of a presentation and we wonder if there is room to dance in the tight space. There is and we are amazed at their grace, their movements, their physicality and comprehension of every inch of the area they make theirs to rehearse in.
(L to R): Maryann Plunkett, Brenda Wehle, Jay O. Sanders, Charlotte Bydwell, in ‘The Michaels,’ written/directed by Richard Nelson, The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
Interestingly, their dance becomes symbolic as Rose watches their progress. Another generation is rising as the previous generation of dancers is passing. We appreciate Lucy’s and May’s energy and vibrance which is a counterbalance to the stasis of the conversation which isn’t a climactic series of revelations, but of small personal observations, opinions, shared memories and moments.
As Rose’s daughter and her niece dance, Rose, may be overcome by the realization of what once was that will never be again. She falters in her strength, exhausted from the illness. She must leave the gathering once again to rest and Kate goes with her a caretaker of sorts. This is a recognition for Lucy who goes for a walk with May to deal with this incident and perhaps consider the increasing changes that will continue to occur in her mother’s condition..
In this segment where Rose is in excruciating pain and must go up for her pills assisted by Kate, a chain reaction like a surge of current ripples through the group. Expressions of what will happen spill out. It’s an irony. Mortality has a way of sneaking into the conversation when friends with a history together sit with drinks and food. Rose’s pain attack delivers a hushed response from friends and family. The characters’ sub rosa emotional ebb and flow breaks the surface and we intimate how they may be thinking what life will be like without Rose. But as David characterizes it succinctly, Rose’s condition “is what it is.” Kate will continue to help Rose deal with all practical matters. And when Kate returns to continue the dinner preparation, she mentions that Rose and she did discuss Rose moving in with her into town, leaving the farm, at some point in the future.
These are telling moments toward which all of the other “unimportant” details actually move. And we understand that this is a network of individuals who have circled each other and had their being around Rose who has been an artistic leader and the fountain from which they have been drinking and receiving their nourishment. Indeed, it is a credit to Rose and her congeniality and generosity that her former husband and she have remained friends and that David and Sally are welcome there, integral to this dinner at her farm.
As Kate finishes preparations, they converse and the others help set up the table and begin to eat, there is a familiarity that is stunning and exceptional. All of us have been in this place; we bond with the actors’ characterizations and their acceptance of “what is is, and what’s next is next.”
(L to R): Brenda Wehle, Charlotte Bydwell in ‘The Michaels,’ written/directed by Richard Nelson, The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
In revealing what is mundane and ordinary, the precious actions and conversations of these unique individuals are lifted to a “once-in-a-lifetime” event. They are there, in this space around the table eating and communing. It is a holy event. And because the ensemble brilliantly appear to be so “matter-of-fact” about it, we understand that for them such an event will never return again.
Kudos to the scenic designer Jason Ardizzone-West whose functional, well-thought out spacial arrangements and utilitarian props and set pieces i.e. stove, etc., appeared authentic. Likewise, co-costume designers Susan Hilferty and Mark Koss conveyed the mood and tenor of this family unit of relatives and friends in their dress. Jennifer Tipton (lighting designer) Scott Lehrer (sound designer) rounded out the creative team. The dances based on Original Choreography by Dan Wagoner were superb and kudos to Sara Rudner for her dance coaching.
The Michaels runs with no intermission until 24 November at The Public Theater. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘The Independents’ by Christopher Ward, Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt in Collegial Conflict
(foreground) Natasa Babic, (right) André Herzegovitch in ‘The Independents,’ written/directed by Christopher Ward at Theater Center (Russ Rowland)
Edgar Degas, French artist (1834-1917) who has been called an Impressionist but disavowed the term during his lifetime, is most known for his paintings of his ballerinas and dancers. His sculpture of “The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years” has become an iconic work whose miniature replicas parents purchase for daughters pursuing ballet. Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was a maverick, forward-thinking and successful American painter who lived most of her life in Paris, France where she became friendly with Edgar Degas. The Independents currently at the Theater Center chronicles their extraordinary relationship and reveals fascinating information about the two artists who were geniuses in their own right.
Christopher Ward, director and writer conceives of these two individuals based on extensive research after being inspired by a 2014 Degas-Cassatt exhibit at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Ward was compelled to write about their relationship which seems counter-intuitive until one revisits their biographies and understands what bonded them together. Ward’s characterizations and delineation of their interactions are grounded in fact and imagined by the truth and mores of the time which limited women’s options and designated they be wives and mothers, spinsters or prostitutes. However, Mary Cassatt’s uniqueness, intelligence and artistic abilities are most probably what triggered Degas’ interest in becoming friendly with her after he saw her work. Ward’s understanding of these two individuals makes for a profound historical view of great artists, their influence on each other and the time in which they lived, Belle Epoch, Paris.
As the play opens Mary Cassatt, portrayed with reserved control, grace and subtle, ironic humor by Natasa Babic arranges to meet Edgar Degas in her studio. Degas’ reaction is unpredictable; he leaves. Mary sighs disappointed, but is nonplussed. Then Degas returns to further comment. Already, Ward has encapsulated the particularity of their natures which he unspools with surprises throughout the play.
Natasa Babic, André Herzegovitch in ‘The Independents,’ written/directed by Christopher Ward at Theater Center (Russ Rowland)
Degas, portrayed with an arrogant disdain by André Herzegovitch, softens and becomes more good humored as their relationship progresses. Eventually, he reveals that he respects Cassatt’s achievements as a woman painter, a rare breed. He also recognizes the strength, autonomy and fearlessness required to pursue a career in painting that eschews a family and husband in order to become great. In short he admires her industry and work ethic which is like his. They both sacrificed marriage and a family for the sake of their work to constantly innovate and evolve. In this they are like “two peas in a pod,” and indeed, Degas tells her he respects her more than he does the painters in his group of “Independents.”
For her part Mary Cassatt, as the playwright depicts, holds her own with the venerated, successful Degas. She calls him down in response to his churlish comments some of which fall just short of demeaning insults, a criticism he denies. She admires his work and secretly yearns for even a crumb of support from him when he looks over her work. Interestingly, Cassatt doesn’t fawn over Degas though she might very well have done so. But Ward reveals her to be a powerful woman, a feminist in her time. Her personal well-spring of confidence serves her as she goes head-to-head with Degas whose presumptuous demeanor, though based on true brilliance, is often hard to take.
Indeed, both artists were headstrong and complex individuals. Christopher Ward superbly unveils the dynamic of their unique friendship and mentorship, and he indicates that Cassatt even gave Degas ideas. The director acutely shepherds the actors who portray Degas and Cassatt authentically, as they move forward with their work sometimes with excitement but always with irony, suspicion, aloofness and reserved warmth.
The play is largely a character study about two renowned artists who circle each other in competition and veneration like atoms that need each other to form something new, but never get too close for fear of colliding and destroying themselves. Ward’s characterizations are fascinating in showing who they are and how they inspired and competed with each other. With their dialogue he succinctly captures the undercurrents-conflicts, strains, admiration, humor and collegial acceptance. The interchanges between Degas and Cassatt, adroitly acted by Babic and Herzegovitch engage throughout.
Various events highlight their relationship and Ward builds the arc of development around these. The most vital one occurs when Degas upon finding the Salon has rejected Cassatt’s last two works is thrilled and invites her to exhibit with his “Independents” (a group of artists who have broken away from the salon) that some refer to as ‘Impressionists,” a title Degas despises. Cassatt is excited, but manages to restrain her overwhelming joy in receiving the great honor. She keeps her stance with measured, balanced grace. Degas is intrigued.
Natasa Babic, (right) Andre Herzegovitch in ‘The Independents,’ written/directed by Christopher Ward at Theater Center (Russ Rowland)
During an intimate conversation about herself, Babic’s Cassatt reveals that she has had suitors, but refused to become engaged because her work was paramount. She could not allow a man to interfere with what she wished to accomplish. However, she leaves a door open for Edgar Degas when she indirectly proposes that he might be the right man to marry because they have painting in common and he would understand her driving passion for her work. Degas’ response is ironic. Indeed, it sets the tone for their future relationship. Their shared sensibilities kept their friendship intact for almost forty years, despite arguments and strains. But they obviously enjoyed sharing artistic experimentation and freedoms and had secrets between them which have gone into the ethers. Neither were letter writers, or they destroyed all their correspondence. Ultimately, their bond retains mysteries for us today.
Another event Ward expands is based upon a discovery and revelation by art historians and experts at the National Gallery over 130 years later. Cassatt is painting a work which is not finished. When Degas looks at it, while Cassatt is otherwise engaged, Degas corrects the perspective adding a corner to the painting that wasn’t there before. At first Cassatt becomes infuriated at Degas’ effrontery adding something to her work and implying she is an “inferior.” Then she realizes that it is an improvement and she apologizes and the enhancement remains. In the process of exploring Degas’ addition to Cassatt’s work, the curators and experts at the National Gallery established the Degas-Cassatt exhibition in 2014. See Art news!
Ward’s inclusion of such a scene in the play reveals volumes. Both Cassatt and Degas obviously supervised each other’s work critically and benefited from each other’s influence. This is one more important moment of many in this play. Such dynamic events illuminate both artists and their dependence on each other. As far as history has revealed, Mary Cassatt appears to be Degas only female artistic friend.
The set design is simplistic and appropriate. Paintings that Cassatt finished appear on easels and the walls of her studio. Interludes for costume changes work with music filling in the gaps. I particularly like the Erik Satie additions which I found haunting and expressive of how these two individuals were friends but kept a portion of themselves secret so that they were ultimately not completely accessible to each other. The costumes are exquisite and appropriate for that time. Additionally, Cassatt’s dresses mirror dresses worn by herself as a subject of Degas’ work. Cassatt modeled for him on a number of occasions, sometimes not appreciating how Degas rendered her.
Rather than go on with more detail, I will not spoil it. You must see this production especially if you love Degas and Cassatt. Your eyes will be opened and you will be amazed as I was at the portrayals beautifully effected by Ward’s writing and directing and the actors’ intriguing and nuanced work. But the show is in a limited run and closes 10th November. So make arrangements immediately! You will be glad you did.
The Independents runs at the Theater Center (210 W 50th St. at Broadway) with a very brief intermission. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ by Ntozake Shange in revival at the Public Theater
The company of ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ by Ntozake Shange, directed by Leah C. Gardiner, choreographed by Camille A. Brown (Joan Marcus)
You cannot watch for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf without your muscles vibrating in joy to the rhythms of the music of Ntozake Shange’s poetry. And when it is set to the dance with musicians pealing out the songs of multicultural generations with her choreopoem delivered enthusiastically in the personal languages of black women from various backgrounds using their unique words, gestures and dance movements, it is simply grand.
for colored girls... directed by Leah C. Gardner with choreography by Camille A. Brown is now in revival at the Public Theater. Originally, the work premiered on Broadway in 1976 and received a Tony nomination. Notably, it is the second play by a black woman to reach Broadway, preceded by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun in 1959. Shange updated the original choreopoem in 2010. She included additional material, the poem “positive,” and added references to The Iraq War and PTSD.
‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ by Ntozake Shange, directed by Leah C. Gardiner, choreographed by Camille A. Brown (Joan Marcus)
This iteration in its maverick coolness is a celebration not only of black women. It is for women everywhere. The work recalls us to a time when women reveled in the identity and unity of being female. It was a time in the feminist wave when they rejoiced being in a community of sisters from around the nation and the world. It was a time to become visible, be heard, speak truth to power, overcome, conquer. Considering the crisis and chaos the current WH administration attempts to breed in our culture in concert with a senate majority leader supportive of the white patriarchy who revel in misogyny, embrace white nationalism and leverage religion as a political tool, it is time to revisit the themes and messages of for colored girls… and view them through the lens of womenhood, including those who are most in bondage, white women.
Shange’s choreopoem as in other productions includes music and dance with some poems sung. It is performed by seven women each sporting a dress of a different color which combine to make up colors of the rainbow. As an ironic note, remember that all colors combine to create the color white representing what is sanctified and holy, if you will. Indeed, this “is enuf.”
(L to R): Jayme Lawson and Adrienne C. Moore and the company of ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ written by Ntozake Shange and directed by Leah C. Gardiner, with choreography by Camille A. Brown, running at The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
The woman/actors depicted in Shange’s majestic choreopoem are as follows: brown (Celia Chevalier), yellow Adrienne C. Moore) blue (Sasha Allen) red Jayme Lawson) purple (Alexandria Wailes) orange (Danaya Esperanza) and green (Okwui Okpok Wasili). Together and individually, they dance to express their identities throughout the work and also listen and partake in the community by sharing their wisdom and experience. At the outset of the production, each moves to center stage where via monologue, they contribute their personal message of womanhood.
As the various women play “tag, you’re it,” the first to begin, the woman in brown, steps into herself and with her own dialect, rhythms, gestures and carriage tells a story from her youth about her love fantasy Touissant. She first read about Touissant in the “forbidden” adult section of the library. Touissant was the black general who fought for France and ended up starting his own revolution reinforcing the Haitian slaves who ignited an insurrection against their bondage. Touissant continued their work and inspired a revolution against oppression which ended in a free Haiti.
The woman in brown’s love is metaphoric and symbolic. Touissant represents freedom from enforced bondage. In seeking him as her fantasy lover, the woman embraces the freedom to be herself in a culture that attempts to nullify her voice and identity. When she shares that she meets up with a boy named Touissant Jones, she realizes that one is similar to the other in not “taking any guff” from white people. She decides in her quest for escape from white supremacy’s mores (she had planned to to go Haiti) she will continue with the real Touissant Jones and become the freedom that Touissant metaphorically represents. She will make her own place regardless of whether “they” recognize her or not, for she has empowered herself to know who she is.
The company of ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ by Ntozake shange, directed by Leah C. Gardiner, choreographed by Camille A. Brown (Joan Marcus)
Each of the women relate their personal stories in choreopoems. Some are humorous. For example, the woman in yellow shares giving up her virginity in a buick on the night of her graduation. When queried about it by the woman in blue, she tells her, “It was wonderful!” Each of the women chime in about where they “lost it.” The effect is funny and the sharing brings the group together in community. Moving in a different direction, the woman in blue riffs on her experiences running off at sixteen to dance with Willie Colon in the Bronx where she feels sublime dancing the mambo, bomba and merengue all night. But when Colon doesn’t show, she goes to a bar where she learns the beauty and subtly of musicians playing the blues. Her time center stage ends with a song/poem to the power of music and life. Sasha Allen’s voice is incredible.
Shasha Allen (center) and the company of ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ written by Ntozake Shange and directed by Leah C. Gardiner, with choreography by Camille A. Brown, running at The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
The woman in red gives a lament about throwing herself into the pursuit of a lover then ending the affair, a place all the women have been as they “dance to keep from” cryin’ and dyin.'” Then there is a transition; the light signals the emotional shift which deepens into the harder subjects beginning with rape. But is it rape when you know your rapist who is a friend or close family member? Each of the women relate their wisdom and finish each other’s thoughts for all have experienced the “latent rapist’s bravado.” These are “men who know us…that we will submit and relinquish all rights in the presence of a man…especially if he has been considered a friend…”
This section is particularly powerful in light of the #metoo movement. The women in the beauty of Shange’s verse and the rhythms of their movements share how the “nature of rape has changed.” You “meet your rapist in coffeehouses sitting with friends.” We can “even have them over for dinner and get raped in our own houses by invitation, a friend.”
The company of ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,’ by Ntozake shange, directed by Leah C. Gardiner, choreographed by Camille A. Brown (Joan Marcus)
Sadly, these lines are even more salient today as we hear the statistics: one in three women are raped in their lifetimes and more than a few are raped more times by different men. One thinks of the power dynamic of the Harvey Weinsteins, the Matt Lauers, the Bill O’Reillys, the Roger Aileses, and all those invisible bosses or friends who laud their “latent rapist bravado” towering over subservient females while boasting about their conquests in gyms and lockers rooms, while showering together. Women reduced, vilified, hated, objectified, say little for fear of more abuse or loss of a job and career. Or they are PTSD frozen by the audacity that someone took what wasn’t theirs to take. The #metoo movement is a first step. When the “latent rapists” are in jail and the men and women they would trample over with their violence are in positions of power, this justice will indicate the culture is climbing to the mountaintop.
Celia Chevalier (foreground) in for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, written by Ntozake Shange and directed by Leah C. Gardiner, with choreography by Camille A. Brown, running at The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
Whether latent or verbally harass raped or physically abused, rape is violence. There is nothing sexual about it. In the infantile man’s mind, his penis is a weapon to slay and conquer women. Nothing adult or masculine! A man’s sexuality and masculinity are expressed in tenderness, truth and soul giving as the various women point out in their comments about men and relationships. But who is mentoring these traits of grace? Certainly not the president, or Jeffrey Epstein or Bret Kavanaugh or the Republicans and others in positions of power in business, politics and elsewhere who have sexual abuse on their resumes, hidden by AMI’s “Catch and Kill” program. (Read Ronan Farrow’s titular book on this subject.)
From rape, the rainbow of women present choreopoems about abortion, domestic violence, abandonment, devastating relationships and seeking identity through sex and love. And in the sharing of their trials, hurts and losses, especially the loss of self-hood, there is a benefit. Healing comes with love and empowerment to resurrect a new self inspired by the community of women who understand and uplift.
One of the more powerful, humorous and profound presentations references how women give their self-hood and identity to men and or the culture/patriarchy. The audience responded with laughter at what the woman in green meant metaphorically and symbolically with the refrain, “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff…now why dont you put me back & let me hang out in my own self?” Okwui Okpokwasili as the woman in green is riotous in her portrayal and stance as a woman who has realized that she has been giving all of herself away to one or many who don’t really understand or want her being.
“i want my own things/ how i lived them/ & give me my memories/how I waz when I waz there/ you can’t have ’em or do nothin’ wit em/stealin’ my shit from me/dont make it yrs/makes it stolen”
Okwui Okpokwasili (foreground) in for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, written by Ntozake Shange and directed by Leah C. Gardiner, with choreography by Camille A. Brown, running at The Public Theater (Joan Marcus)
Okpokwasili’s presentation resonated deeply not only with women but with men. Stealing is an analogy with the robbery of self and what one deems most valuable. In this instance, it also includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being that has been robbed by the culture and those brainwashed into theft. Just Wow!
The most poignant choreopoem concerns soul sickness and fear in men that converts to abuse and torment. The woman in red shares the dramatic events that encompass her children’s deaths at the hands of a former partner. The pain and torment from these experiences are related to the community of women who give a laying on of hands to bring on healing. And by the end of this section and the conclusion of the production, each of the women separately then in unity chant as a chorus whose vibrations go out into the audience, “I found god in myself & I loved her/ I loved her fiercely.” At this point the women though they may have considered suicide because of what they have experienced, in the companionship of sistahs have brought themselves and each other to the end of their own rainbows, “fiercely.”
This production is momentous. Shange’s poetry shimmers on the page. The creative team makes the director’s vision equally shine with brilliance. Kudos to Myung Hee Cho (scenic design) Toni-Leslie James (costume design) Jiiyoun Chang (lighting design) Megumi Katayama (sound design) Martha Redbone (original music) Deah Love Harriott (music director) Kristy Norter (music coordinator) Onudeah Nicolarakis (director of American Sign Language).
A caveat, however, is that some of the lyricism and the poetic language is lost in the exuberance of the performers’ actions, some more so than others. Specifically, the words, the expressions in all their glory are not always clear. Sometimes, these were garbled or faded as if on the wind. That is a fabulous conception, however, it doesn’t serve the themes that can resonate and should resonate with the audience, especially the men as they learn about women, a subject they often profess to know little about. Men above all need to know the “what” of women’s experiences.
Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda’s work is rapped quickly, exuberantly. However, each word is treated with “kid gloves,” to add a simile, like a diamond, or precious ruby. Each word is articulated, pronounced clearly, enunciated. Why aren’t Shange’s words treated like such jewels? Every word is vital to our understanding.
I wasn’t the only one frustrated by the performers rushing over the poetry to make the production come in at a certain time. In my section of the audience, humorous segments were missed. Sitting in the round the audience opposite us laughed. The same occurred when we laughed, the audience on the opposite side were silent. Great, if that is a symbolic/thematic notion. I understand, but don’t agree if that is the intentional direction.
Shange’s poetic phrases and word choices are heady. The performers are there to tell a story, to act and be heard and understood. What Shange is saying we must understand. All of it! Okwui Okpokwasili’s “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff…” was hysterical and deep, and the audience around me laughed and enjoyed that choreopoem because she slowed down, enunciated, paused, articulated; the same occurred with Adrienne C. Moore. And Alexandria Wailes’ signing was excellent and powerful. But some of the other women at times didn’t completely come through to us. That disappointed me because I loved the production’s energy and profound themes. Despite that caveat, it is smashing!
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf runs with no intermission at the Public Theater until 8th December. For tickets and times CLICK HERE.
,
CAROLE DI TOSTI 