Category Archives: Off Broadway
‘The Half-God of Rainfall’ at NYTW, Review
Inua Ellam’s epic poem The Half-God of Rainfall, has been brought to life with theatrical grist at New York Theater Workshop. Currently running until 20th August, the reconfiguration of Greek, Yoruba archetypes and myths are merged against a modern backdrop of an Olympic basketball champion born of mixed raced parents, a simple Nigerian woman Modúpé (Jennifer Mogbock) and the Greek god of thunder Zeus (Michael Laurence).
Their fantastic progeny is the half-god Demi (Mister Fitzgerald). It is his exploits and the overthrowing of the patriarchy which the actors narrate, illustrate, move through and reimagine during the 90 minute spectacle of sight, sound and movement that is strongest and most exhilarating during the last 15 minutes of production.
Ellam’s poem is ambitious as is director Taibi Magar’s vision for The Half-God of Rainfall’s breadth and scope. Interestingly, the very nature of the foundational myths of the Western world vs. African folklore and tradition collide like tectonic plates during an earthquake. Thus, when god of thunder Sango (Jason Bowen) loses the competitive race against Michael Laurence’s Zeus and must yield his finest prize Jennifer Mogbock’s Modúpé, Zeus’ rape and the birth of their son Demi is symbolic of the traditions of war between conquerors and their conquered. Rape was and still is a subduing weapon of war, legitimized as acceptable spoils of conquest.
Without a father, raised by his mother, Demi is typically disadvantaged and rejected by his peers, despite his apparent supernatural gifts as a demigod. Eventually, as a Marvelesque hero of stature and statuesque build, Demi receives the fullness of his powers and becomes a basketball great on the Golden State Warriors team. There, he learns about other demigods whose talents suppressed in their natural lives shine in competition as his do.
However, his greatness eventually becomes known to his father Zeus, whose machismo and fiercely tyrannical spirit compels him to confront his son. Will Demi be able to schmooze his father and encourage him to receive his son with paternalistic pride? Or will another result occur where he overthrows the oppressor culture and vaunts his mother’s African traditions? Which identity will Demi embrace and will he be able to meld the two and tease out the best in both mythic and cultural traditions? These themes and conundrums are answered by the conclusion.
As the poem/dramatization progresses, the other deities contribute to chronicling the high points of Demi’s story. These gods include Zeus’ wife Hera (Kelley Curran), Elegba (Lizan Mitchell), and Osún (Patrice Johnson Chevannes). Peppered throughout with philosophical wisdom and historical reference points of Greek and Western colonial oppression, the dramatized poem emphasizes that the conquerors treat their subjects with opprobrium, alienation and objectification. Additionally, the deities reveal that like rape, cultural assimilation is a weapon of war. Diluting the cultural artifacts, language and human traits of a race are the ultimate form of conquest and annihilation.
Ellams’s poetry is both rhythmic and expositional. The actors hone a fine sense of the poetic beats in each segment bringing the meaning into focus. Their storytelling is elucidated by Riccardo Hernandez’ scenic design, Stacey Derosier’s lighting design, Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design and Tal Yarden’s projection design. The actors don Linda Cho’s costumes as a part of the action comfortably aligning themselves with their various roles as they move in and out of their characters seamlessly.
Beatrice Capote’s Orisha movement and choreography flows and indeed could have been incorporated much more, especially during the characters’ presentational narratives. Likewise, Orlando Pabotoy’s movement direction might have been integrated more to enhance the spoken-word which the actors direct to the audience as they tell Demi’s story.
Striking are the immersive elements, of creative design, for example the use of shimmering blue cloth which the actors use to effect undulating water. The beautiful projections suggest the majesty of the cosmos the gods inhabit. Other multi-hued projections reflect both the ethereal and the manifest world of the earth which Demi attempts to inhabit and conquer in his own right. Likewise, the falling rain is a palpable effect to ground us in this realistic yet stylized piece where the director elicits how phantasms are present in the reality we see, and think we know, but do not.
Overall, the actors effect emotional intensity especially at the conclusion. Because there are fewer scenes of interaction between the characters, one wonders if the first half of the production might have benefited with more movement and character dynamic rather than the actors’ direct addresses to the audience.
However, Magar brings the events to a satisfying conclusion as Mogbock’s Modúpé vindicates her own humanity and the cultural, historic, African traditions bringing release and redemption. The finish is as startling as the heartfelt events that prompt Mogbock’s Modúpé’s final, relentless actions.
The actors and creative team have generated a unique experience so that Ellams’ epic narrative leaps off the page and into one’s imagination with their fine stagecraft. For tickets and times go to the NYTW website https://www.nytw.org/show/the-half-god-of-rainfall/
‘Orpheus Descending,’ One of Tennessee Williams Most Incisive Works-a Searing Triumph
The hell of the South abides in Erica Schmidt’s revival of Orpheus Descending, currently running at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn until August 6th. Tennessee Williams’ poetically brazen work about the underbelly of America that reeks of discrimination, violence, bigotry and cruelty seems particularly regressive in the townspeople of the rural, small, southern, backwater of Two River County, the setting Williams draws for his play.
This production is raw in its ferocity, terrifying in its prescience. It reminds us of the extent to which racists and bigots go feeling self-righteous about their loathsome behaviors when the culture empowers them. The director shepherds the actors to give authentic portrayals that remind us that death lurks in the sadistic wicked who seek to devour those whom they may, especially when their targets have peace and happiness, and step over the line (what the bigots hypocritically think is the line).
At the top of the play, we immediately note that stupidity and hypocrisy exude from the pours of most of the homely white characters. Sheriff Talbot and the wealthy Cutrere family are the chief representatives and purveyors of white supremacist, conservative law and order, which is as natural and welcome as white on rice.
Williams’ brilliant but lesser known work is based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. However, Williams updates the allusion and spins it into metaphoric gold transposing the heroic characters into artists, visionaries and fugitives, who rise wildly above the droll deadness of their environs or are delivered from them, as is Lady (Maggie Siff) who is brought to life during her relationship with Val (Pico Alexander). During the course of Val’s and Lady’s dynamic relationship with each other, they seek to cleanse and overcome their past heartbreaks and regrets and move upward toward redemption, reclamation and new beginnings with each other’s help.
The banal atmosphere conveyed by Amy Rubin’s spare, angular, cage-like design of the Torrence dry goods store is an appropriate setting where most of the conflict and interplay among the characters takes place. Its ugly, hackneyed blandness, lack of vibrancy and straight-edged corners symbolize Lady Torrence’s desolate life with the hypocritical, vapid townspeople and her infirm, brutal, racist, hoary-looking husband Jabe Torrance (the irascible, excellent Michael Cullen).
The other two sections of the set, the confectionery (stage left) and the storage area behind the curtain (stage right), Rubin suggests with minimalism. The confectionery and the storage area symbolize the other aspects of Lady’s character that are not governed by Jabe and the destructive, deadening, Southern folkways. The confectionery eventually outfitted with lanterns symbolizes her hope for renewal and reclamation. The intimate, barely lit, storage area where Val sleeps symbolizes the fulfillment of her desire for love.
Center stage is the store and above it the Torrence bedroom, both subscribed by walls which pen Lady in. Along with Jabe, the store’s visitors suck her life-blood dry with the exception of Val and Vee (Anna Reeder), a Cassandra-like character. Above the store, Jabe lies in bed dying. Empty of kind words, Jabe communicates his bile and bitterness by pounding his cane on the floor from his sick bed. It is an ominous foreboding alarm that one imagines the master sends to his slave when he commands something from them immediately.
Into Two River county’s washed-out “neon,” “low-life” mediocrity comes the contrasting light and beauty of the guitar artist/entertainer, the stunning and untouchable Val Xavier. Pico Alexander makes the role his own, portraying Val with grace and alluring, angelic innocence befitting “Boy,” the nickname the assertive, feisty Lady gives him. Siff is sterling and likable as she grows vivacious as their bond develops. Siff’s scene where she reveals she is committed to loving Val, despite not wanting to admit needing him is just smashing.
Val illuminates the spaces he enters and shatters the peace of Dolly Hamma (Molly Kate Babos) and Beulah Binnings (Laura Heisler) when he drops by the Torrence store on Vee Talbott’s suggestion that Lady Torrence might give him a job. As he waits patiently for Jabe and Lady to arrive from the hospital after Jabe’s unsuccessful operation, Jabe’s cousins Dolly and Beulah “eye him” while they prepare a celebration for Jabe’s return.
Vee (the fine Ana Reeder), a spiritual visionary born with second sight, accompanies Val and introduces him to the other women hanging around, one of whom is Carol Cutrere (the superb Julia McDermott), a rebellious hellion whose outsized antics and screaming of the Chocktaw cry with Uncle Pleasant, the conjure man (Dathan B. Williams), make the other women apoplectic. Clearly, Carol is an outsider like Val and Lady, only saved by her last name.
As Vee relates the visions that form the basis of the painting she brings for Jabe to encourage his healing, we note she doesn’t fit in either. If she weren’t married to Sheriff Talbott (Brian Keane) her eccentric ways would banish her from the “polite society” gathered in the store, rounded off by gossip mongers, Sister Temple (Prudence Wright Holmes) and Eva Temple (Kate Skinner), who sneak up the wooden steps to check out Jabe’s bedroom before he and Lady return.
Schmidt stages these opening scenes of William’s claustrophobic setting and characters to maximum effect, clustering the women at the counter and bringing Carol and Uncle Pleasant downstage for their chant and evocation. Downstage is where Carol cavorts, delivers a few soliloquies, and wails her outrage and sorrow as an encomium at the play’s conclusion.
By the time Jabe and Lady arrive and Jabe retires upstairs, we have an understanding of the desolate elements and competing life forces that will drive the conflict forward. Additionally, Williams has the gossips share Lady’s terrible backstory that involves the KKK torching her father’s wine garden, and his gruesome death burning alive in the conflagration because not one firetruck or patron came to his aide.
All this was because he violated the towns’ mores and unwritten law serving wine to “ni$$ers. Implied by Jabe later in the play, the “Wop” had too much life in him and had to be cut down to size and made destitute. Interestingly, Lady’s determined father decided he’d rather burn alive trying to salvage his life’s work than accept poverty and brutality in a death-filled culture. For Lady, the acorn doesn’t fall far from the oak. She decides to take a stand against Jabe and his sadistic brutality than run away with Val.
Alexander’s Val and Siff’s Lady establish their relationship gradually with Siff aggressively taunting Val’s appeal to women, one of whom is McDermott’s live-wire Carol. As their comfort level with each other grows, the two bond over Val’s description of a bird that is so free it never corrupts itself by touching the ground and only does so when it dies. Lady expresses her desire for such freedom, and after their discussion is abruptly interrupted by Jabe’s pounding, we note a greater lightheartedness within Lady. Val’s presence is the freedom and wildness that she craves.
Indeed, we note her mood is uplifted every time Lady has a quiet conversation with Val. The actors have the privilege of organically inhabiting these memorable characters with ease to deliver some of the most figuratively elegant and coherently rich dialogue found in all of Williams’ works. One of their most powerful scenes concerns Val’s description of the corrupt world and his own corruption. He counters it by sharing how his “life’s companion,” his guitar and his music, cleanses his impurity and makes him whole again.
As Val settles in and she begins to rely on him, we realize that her inspiration and actions to reopen the confectionery (Schmidt use of the lanterns descending in the stylized space, stage left) run parallel to Val’s regenerative influence over her. He has ignited her hope and desire to be resurrected from the ashes of the burning, the town’s hatred and racism, and Jabe’s enslavement and ownership of her mental and emotional well being.
In his characterization of Jabe, Williams reveals the psychosis of the Southern Red Neck confederates turned white supremacists that lost the Civil War but persist in acting as if they won it, especially with regard to their racism and hatred of Blacks and “the other,” (immigrants). In Schmidt’s version, we see that Jabe’s attitudes and the attitudes of the other men presciently foreshadow the current MAGA Republicans’ penchant to be brutal and criminally sadistic because their “power” gives them the right, regardless of the truth of the circumstance or the legality. Certainly, Jabe has the power and white supremacist friends (Sheriff Talbot) to back up his actions with impunity.
Thus, as Lady has told Val, she “lives” with Jabe, a figure of death who makes sure to stomp down her happiness or agency every chance he gets. In fact each time Val and Lady seek each other’s company for verbal comfort, Jabe almost intuits that she is uplifted away from his presence and claws and pounds (with his cane) his way back into her mind and emotions with his demands. She always goes running to him, for in her soul, she feels she has no other options.
The turning point arrives when Jabe comes downstairs to exert himself over the cancer that is killing him and perpetrate some new malignity against her, which appears to be the only pleasure he has. His emotions are pinged to remembrance when he views the loveliness of the confectionery and the new life that has inspired it (Val). It is then he strikes at Lady provoking her past reason, a white supremacist sadist to the last.
There are no spoilers. What transpires is Williams’ reaffirmation of the modern day tragedy that resulted daily in the Jim Crow South when white supremacists asserted they won the Civil War with every Black person they lynched using law enforcement to cover for them. In the play Williams also infers how this happens in the inhuman, abusive prison system which prompts men to escape and uses the escape as the justification for their killing.
Schmidt and her team have created a production that is bold in revealing Williams’ trenchant themes about death, life, hatred, bigotry, racism and the utter wicked sadism and evil that would keep such a culture going even if the culprits, like Jabe, suffer and are eaten alive by their own hatred. In revealing Williams’ prescient themes that apply for us today, we note that a racist culture cannot be confronted when the power is held by the racists and bigots. Indeed, one must escape the purveyors of death and leave their sphere of influence, if there is no federal oversight or punishment for law breaking. If there isn’t accountability, the individuals, will do as they please, and like despots bend their underlings to their will as death dealers.
Kudos to the creative team which includes Jennifer Moeller’s costume design, David Weiner’s lighting design, Cookie Jordan’s hair and wig design and Justin Ellington’s original music and sound design.
The production concludes August 6th. Don’t miss it for its profound characterizations beautifully acted, acute ideas Schmidt suggests with her fine direction and the technical production values that bring Williams’ stark truths to bear on us today. For tickets and times go to their website https://www.tfana.org/visit/ticket-venue-policies
‘Days of Wine and Roses,’ Truthful, Poignant, a Stunning Triumph
Alcohol is different from other addictive drugs. It’s a part of our culture and integral to events around professional and social situations. It’s legal and easy to purchase. But for those who can’t “live” without it, alcohol is both a blessing and a curse. Days of Wine and Roses currently at Atlantic Theater Company until July 16th encapsulates the joy and emotional horror of the drinking disease. The production is a complicated, profound, assailable to the senses, cathartic must-see.
Adam Guettel’s music and lyrics spin out the anatomy of alcoholism in the dynamic of a couple’s relationship. The couple, portrayed by the exceptional Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, are forced to confront their psychological weaknesses manifested by their alcoholism. Guided by Craig Lucas’ book, Guettel relays the extremes of euphoric addiction and its impact on the emotions of the characters with his expressionistic score and lyrics that appear to be lighthearted and lyrical but mirror undercurrents of desperation and loneliness.
Lucas nails down Joe and Kirsten’s alcohol dependent relationship dynamic with precision and poignancy. He carries it through to the point when d’Arcy James’ Joe Clay comes to the end of himself. Out of love he waits and hopes for O’Hara’s Kirsten to want to recover from alcoholism. This uncertain state promises to usher in a long, hard wait for Kirsten to admit she is ill and needs help.
Directed by Michael Greif, Days of Wine and Roses is a journey of devolution and evolution that displays the characters’ emotions of exuberance, sorrow, unforgiveness, self-discovery, redemption, self-annihilation, humiliation and love. Above all, it reflects the tragedy and joy of human experience, either confronting one’s individual consciousness or running from it, until one finally acknowledges that they must change or kill themselves.
Based on the titular 1958 teleplay by JP Miller and the 1962 Warner Bros. film, the musical is produced by special arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures. Importantly, once again it brings together the successful Lucas and Guettel team who created The Light in the Piazza. Kelli O’Hara, who sang the lead in that Broadway production, encouraged this project.
Key to understanding this musical that is set in 1950 and lightly references the cultural mores of the time (sexism and paternalism) is that Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 step program (never named) identifies alcoholism as a disease and not just a “drinking problem.”
The production frames how Joe and Kristen’s love blossoms with their drinking. It acutely underscores that the disease elevates their mood and pleasure centers (“There I Go,” “Evanesce” “As the Water Loves the Stone”) with pernicious allurement. Indeed, it is the linchpin to how they initially become involved with each other and why Kristen refuses to stay with Joe and her daughter after he combats his illness by meeting with other alcoholics to stop his self-destructive patterns.
The characters’ dynamic is emphasized when they meet at a business party on a yacht in the East River. A nondrinker, Kristen eschews alcohol. On the other hand Joe persists in getting her to be his drinking buddy. She resists him and his advances because she doesn’t like the taste of alcohol nor his smarmy, belittling, fake PR patter and persona.
It is only when she upbraids him and he apologizes for “starting off on the wrong foot” that she relents and suggests they leave. Her honesty and authenticity charm Joe and allow his better self to emerge. Together at a quiet restaurant, they discover qualities in each other that they can appreciate and adore.
As they establish a friendship, Joe introduces her to a Brandy Alexander (she loves chocolate) and she discovers her subsequent enjoyment of the buzz it gives her. This drink and others draw her to Joe as they gradually become boozy partners, who “in their continual high,” eventually marry and have a daughter, despite her father’s (the excellent Byron Jennings) disapproval and distrust of Joe. She and Joe have made a commitment to each other. Determined, O’Hara’s Kirsten will not allow her father Arensen to sway her from establishing a family with her lover and partner in drinking.
As Kirsten, Kelli O’Hara creates a complex portrayal of a woman whose drinking subterfuge eventually splits open her soul weakness after seven years of marriage and taking care of their daughter Lila (Ella Dane Morgan). Covertly, she sneaks drinks as she completes household chores and plays with Lila. O’Hara’s “Are You Blue,” “Underdeath and “First Breath” (the latter sung with Morgan’s Lila) reveal the roiling undercurrents of unhappiness and her attempts to deal with depression as the absent Joe, who works in Houston, barely keeps himself functioning at a job that requires he drink to entertain clients.
Brian d’Arcy James’ vibrant, alcohol-alluring, loving Joe allows her to take the lead, while he cleverly introduces her to a new world of drinking, fun and happiness. He draws her to him and maintains their closeness and joy, but such adventures are always fueled by alcohol. Initially, like any disease that manifests slowly, they convince themselves they are in control and live together as a successful family.
However, all is upended the seventh year of their marriage. A spectacularly destructive circumstance set off by Kirsten’s alcohol blackout destroys what they have built together (conveyed fearfully thanks to Lizzie Clachan’s sets, Ben Stanton’s lighting and Kai Harada’s sound). As their family spirals downward, their only hope of rehabilitation lies under her father’s condemning watchfulness, when they plead for his help and he gives them food, shelter and work in his greenhouse business.
The arc of their destruction is born out of their compulsions, one of which is their susceptibility to the pleasure of alcohol, the other, the belief they can ignore their desire to harm themselves and each other as addicts.
After months of sobriety, Joe breaks down, buys alcohol and offers it to Kirsten (“Evanesce” reprise), then goes completely “off the rails” (“435”) looking for a bottle he has hidden in the greenhouse. In anger at himself for his weakness and fury in not finding the bottle, he becomes rebellious. Turning against his judgmental father-in-law who has given them a chance, Joe destroys the greenhouse that Arnesen has made into a profitable business. When he finds the bottle, he drinks himself unconscious and lands on his back in the hospital on the brink of death.
Kirsten and Arnesen refuse to believe this is a disease that has no cure except through a way provided by a volunteer who is also an alcoholic, Jim Hungerford (David Jennings). Jim belongs to an association of alcoholics who understand that the only path away from the disease is through meetings, readings and the community of others who need each other’s help and camaraderie. Arensen dismisses Joe’s attempt at reconciliation and recovery. He bans Joe from his presence as an evil influence. The family are on their own in a dingy apartment as Joe allows himself to be helped by Jim while Kirsten refuses to admit she needs help and rejects Jim’s offers.
The apex of their relationship involved the ecstasy of alcohol. Kirsten appeals to Joe’s love and the remembrance of the fun they had (“Morton’s Salt Girl”) with a soft shoe in salt poured on the floor, created by Sergio Trujillo and Karla Puno Garcia. The song attempts to rekindle the magic when they enjoyed being drunk together. However, Joe’s eyes have been opened and Jim’s voice resides in his heart with the growing strength that he can conquer his illness. Sadly, Kirsten interprets this as rejection and a killing off of their love. She criticizes Joe for making her feel ashamed of herself and victimizing her with guilt and pain.
As Joe affirms his confidence that he can change to Jim in the powerful “Forgiveness” Joe and Lila cling to each other and KIrsten eventually stays with her father whose judgment, though problematic, is better than the humiliation and weakness she feels around Joe, who is passionate about healing and recovering. Now Joe’s love in sanctimony drives her away.
Days of Wine and Roses is poignant and current for our time, taking us beyond the beautiful period costumes by Dede Ayite and hair design by David Brian Brown. Kelli O’Hara is affecting and brilliant. Her operatic, rich and plaintiff voice in the concluding songs elicits our empathy. Her aloneness and sorrow at losing her partner to sobriety is intensely human and real. Her rejection of Joe’s help and love beyond the haze of alcohol is frightening.
Brian d’Arcy James is superb in reveling the nuances of determining his own confidence to overcome his addiction. Yet, he mines Joe’s attempt to balance the authenticity of being happy with his sober self with his love for Kirsten without their alcohol infusions. Together these amazing actors bring home the production leaving the audience with a confluence of feelings that will not be easily forgotten.
Kudos to the ensemble and the technical creatives and Greif’s direction and vision. With additional kudos to music director Kimberly Grigsby, Adam Guettel’s orchestrations and Jamie Lawrence’s additional orchestrations.
Days of Wine and Roses runs one hour and forty-five minutes with no intermission. For tickets and times go to the Atlantic Theater Company website https://atlantictheater.org/production/days-of-wine-and-roses/
‘The Comeuppance,’ a Pre-Reunion Reunion of Five Friends and Death, Theater Review
In The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Eric Ting, old friends meet for a pre-reunion reunion at the home of Ursula (the superb Britney Bradford), who has organized a party to celebrate before she sends off friends to their twentieth reunion. In an extension of its World Premiere at the Signature Theatre, the comedy with somber, stark elements was extended until July 9th by popular demand.
Jacobs-Jenkins’ (Appropriate, An Octoroon) themes are timely. The ensemble was spot-on authentic and natural. In his two hour play with no intermission millennials admit the consequences of living with unsound decisions made in the less scrupulous years of their youth. Sooner or later, there is a “comeuppance.” One cannot escape the inevitability of oneself and one’s mortality, as Death, who like a sylph inhabits each of the characters, periodically reminds us.
To effect this principle theme of death in life and the transience of all things, Jacobs-Jenkins places thirty-somethings in a backyard with drinks, weed and a loaded, shared past. They once were part of a high school friend group called M.E.R.G.E.: Multi Ethnic Reject Group. Jacobs-Jenkins allows them to go at each other (Emilio’s bitterness is apparent), as they bond over a perceived closeness, which may not have existed after all.
But first, Death introduces himself after slipping into the soul of the protagonist Emilio (Caleb Eberhardt), who has the most difficult time struggling to let the past remain in the past so he can create a better life for himself. As he does with all the characters, Death speaks through Emilio. He warns the audience he is always lurking in omnipotence, with a complete understanding of who human beings are, including the audience members, which he crudely, fearfully reminds us of, once more at the conclusion.
Since last they met, Emilio, Caitlin (Susannah Flood), Paco (Bobby Moreno) and Kristina (Shannon Tyo) have established careers, been to war, gotten married and had kids. Each in their own way has confronted loss, confusion, cultural chaos and most recently COVID-19. We learn that all have been under an emotional siege. Some are sustaining the sociopolitical chaos that Emilio points out better than others, as they either ignore it, reflect upon it, or allow their own lives and difficulties to blot it out of their consideration.
Interestingly, the generous Ursula, whose home, inherited after her grandmother’s death, has been offered up for the celebration, becomes the first to manifest the ravages of millennial time and aging. She has lost her sight in one eye, having contracted diabetes. She tells the others that she is not up to going to the reunion and they may stay as long as they like at her party.
As Emilio, Caitlin and Ursula wait for the others, Emilio’s irritability spills out in humor against Caitlin, whom he once dated in high school. She has married an older man who is a Trumper, which upsets Emilio. Their two children her husband has from a first marriage appear to be doing well: one is finishing college, the other is beginning a career. Thanks to the actors who present their characters with moment, as the characters cath up their lives, the segment never completely falls into tedium. The characters reacquaint as they step into familiarity with Ursula reminding them of M.E.R.G.E codes they used in high school.
During this segment Death manifests a presence in the monologues from Ursula and Caitlin. They heighten their soul revelations and reflect another aspect of their ethos that is not apparent on the surface.
When Kristina, a doctor with “so many kids” arrives bringing her cousin Paco, who once dated Caitlin and treated her badly, the hilarity increases. It is driven to its peak with the characters’ fronting as a means of getting their “land legs” with each other. By this point the drinks and weed have kicked in and Emilio confronts Paco. whom he clearly distrusts and despises. More revelations erupt and we note Paco’s and Kristina’s individual unhappiness. Once again, Death inhabits Kristina and Paco and expresses their soul’s interior.
Throughout the play Jacob-Jenkins contrasts the material realm and the illusory fitted by human delusion that these individuals have “all the time in creation” to live their lives against the immutable truth of life’s impermanence. Speaking with quietude and without passion, Death assures us he “has their number.” He matter-of-factly reminds us that entropy is king. Things fall apart; human bodies, human relationships, all we hold dear is smothered in half-truths and lies, for we die.
Then the limo arrives and with it well-worked confusion. Ursula goes off to the reunion that Emilio never attends. With the door locked against him and all his buddies gone, he sleeps on the porch, a hapless, solitary and alone soul who needs to “get himself together” emotionally, expiate the past and forgive himself for his failings.
When Ursula returns, we learn the extent of the lies of omission as Eberhardt’s Emilio allows the truth to flow and Ursula shares with him what she couldn’t reveal before. Then Death through Emilio takes his final “comeuppance.” While she “sleeps in her mind” he expresses that his target is Ursula in the immediate future. He discusses that how she will end up is exactly as her friend Caitlin fears. Despite Emilio’s offering to marry and take care of her, Ursula puts him off because she has someone. It turns out, it’s another poor decision for both of them.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has woven an interesting conceptual piece that is uneven especially in segments where there is too much ancillary discussion by characters. There is an overabundance of unnecessary detail that impede the forward momentum of the dynamic that occurs on the porch of their lives. In these sections, I dropped out. Perhaps wise editing would make the segments more vital and immediate.
Nevertheless, the actors are terrific. They make the most of the unevenness that drives the play toward the characters’ acknowledgement of duality: of experiencing life and watching and reflecting oneself living it in the knowledge that they are mortal.
The difficulty of this duality is dealing with the reality of Death. In the play it is animated through the characters for our benefit. However, in their lives, it is ever-present in the form of gun massacres, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, political subterfuge and sabotage in January 6th which attempted to signal in the “death” of our democracy. All of these, Death’s cultural possessions, have brought the characters’ millennial generation to the brink, Emilio acknowledges. That and their body’s frailty is their comeuppance, Ursula suggests.
Though each generation has had its cataclysms, it is the millennials “no way out” that Emilio especially confronts while the others seem to ignore it, save Ursula. Unfortunately, our culture doesn’t do death well and entertainment capitalizes on its particularly gruesome features in the proliferation of horror stories and films. Jacobs-Jenkins counters this aspect, making it a homely creation of back porches. And as he reminds us no one “gets out alive,” at least there is humor. We can laugh on our way out of life’s conundrums, miseries toward Death’s grasp.
Look for this play to be produced elsewhere. And check out their website for more information at https://signaturetheatre.org/
‘Primary Trust,’ the Hope of Friendship Through The Trauma of Being Alone
Small town life can be incredibly boring and static. However, for those who experienced unaccountable pain and trauma, the peace and quiet may be precisely what is needed to achieve a balanced state. In Eboni Booth’s sensitive, profound drama Primary Trust, currently at Roundabout Theatre Company until July 2nd, the playwright investigates humans in their ability to heal from trauma.
For some, getting beyond the pain of emotional loss requires a particular kind of remedy. Kenneth (William Jackson Harper), a resident of Rochester suburb, Cranberry, New York, has found the ability to withstand loss through his mind and will’s resilience to nurture itself with hope and friendship.
Kenneth addresses the audience directly relating a sweetness and shy vulnerability that is immensely likable. He introduces the town and his friend Bert to the audience with ease and authenticity. When there is a segue in thought and feeling, a bell rings as an accompaniment by musician Luke Wygodny who also plays the cello and other instruments before the play begins and during salient turning points.
Harper’s Kenneth takes his time to gather his thoughts as he confesses to us. His need to share his story resonates. Clearly, his story is momentous and universal. Praise goes to William Jackson Harper who engages us with his humanity. Additionally, Eboni Booth’s simple word craft in structuring likable, recognizable, human characters in this small town is amazing. With fine direction by Knud Adams, who shepherds Harper’s Kenneth and the supporting actors, we become captivated and empathize with Kenneth though we may have little in common with him.
Kenneth shares his experiences about “what happened” to him at a turning point in his life when he is thirty-eight years old. He gives us background and reviews his daily routine in Cranberry, New York focusing on the high point of his day after work, when he spends the evening at Wally’s, a typical tiki bar/restaurant. There, he joins his BFF Bert (Eric Berryman) and they drink Mai Tais and share jokes and stories. Their affection and warmth is genuine as they reminisce about past experiences in the joyful atmosphere of booze and camaraderie.
However, apart from their bonding daily at Wally’s and their race, the men are very different. Kenneth works at a bookstore and has been invaluable to his boss, Sam (the on-point Jay O. Sanders) doing bookkeeping, clerking and various chores. Bert on the other hand has an office job, a wife and children, whom he leaves to be with Kenneth in the evenings. It is around about this time that reality fuses with the ethereal, and logic is throw out the window. How the playwright, director and Harper’s portrayal of Kenneth massage us to accept this maverick dramatic element is a testament to their talent and genius.
Kenneth explains that his friend Bert is invisible, imaginary. In other words his BFF can only be seen by him (and of course us). Thus, we become intimates. In confiding to us, Kenneth trusts us to share his secret, in the hope we will not judge him and “turn off” because he’s “wacky.”
Sam is aware that Bert is Kenneth’s imaginary friend. When he tells Kenneth he is selling the store and relocating for health reasons, he makes it a point to reference Bert. He suggests when Kenneth looks for another job, he shouldn’t allow Bert to intrude on the interview. Nor should he share with prospective employers that Bert is his imaginary friend. The implication is that they will think Kenneth is deranged. That we accept Bert as imaginary and go along for the ride is creditable to the playwright, director and actors.
Sam’s news about closing his store is an earthquake. Kenneth discusses the impact on his life with Bert and a new Wally’s waitress Corrina (April Matthis). Though Sam’s move shakes Kenneth, it is an opportunity. He is forced to end the nullifying status quo must. Change occurs in Kenneth’s discussions with Bert and Corrina, who suggests the bank Primary Trust is looking to hire tellers. When Kenneth applies for a job and speaks with Clay who is the branch manager (Jay O. Sanders), all goes well. Humorously, Bert accompanies him to the interview and prompts Kenneth’s winning responses which seal the deal. Clay hires him and he becomes one of the best employees of the bank.
However, Kenneth must confront a transition moving in his soul. The stirrings begin when he and Corrina as friends move beyond Wally’s to a lovely French restaurant. In a humorous turn Jay O. Sanders is the French waiter who serves them. It is in this new expansive world with Corrina that possibilities open up for Kenneth. For the first time, Kenneth doesn’t meet Bert at Wally’s It is another earthquake that rocks him off the status quo of his insular life. There is no spoiler alert. You’ll just have to see this heartfelt production to discover what happens next.
William Jackson Harper is absolutely terrific in a role which is elegantly written for the quiet corners of our minds. The supporting cast are authentic and vital in filling out the life that Kenneth has made for himself to help him emerge out of his cocoon and begin to fly. The playwright’s courage to present an extraordinary friendship which serves Kenneth to bring him to a point of sustenance until he launches into success is beautifully, subtly conveyed. Thanks to the ensemble, who make the unbelievable real, Kenneth’s “small life” in its human drama is important to us.
Thus, when Kenneth explains his upbringing to Corrina toward the end of the play, his revelation stuns. The clues coalesce and we “get” who he is, understanding his brilliance, his tenacity and perseverance. It brings to mind the character of Jane Eyre (in the titular novel), whose dying friend tells her, “You are never alone. You have yourself. ” The playwright takes this notion further to suggest, when you feel you can’t trust yourself, primarily, you can always elicit an imaginary friend who is closer than a brother or sister, until it is time for them to leave. It is through this “primary trust” one survives through heartbreak, trauma, isolation and death.
Primary Trust‘s fantastic qualities enliven the themes and remind us of the importance of doing no harm as we negotiate aloneness in our own soul consciousness. Kenneth chose his friend wisely. He relates how this occurs to Corrina who listens, the active ingredient of his budding friendship with her.
Kudos to the set designer Marsha Ginsberg,Isabella Byrd’s lighting design, Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design, Qween Jean’s costume design, Niklya Mathis’ hair & wig design and Like Wygodny’s original music which to tonally balance the production. The mock up of the town square offered a metaphoric quaint suburb at a time before the technological explosion and cell phones when people listened to each other live and as Kenneth does created conversations with ethereal friends. The set design and music created the atmosphere so that we readily accept Kenneth’s and Bert’s friendship and its significance with wonder and surprise.
For tickets and times to see Primary Trust, go to their website https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2022-2023-season/primary-trust/performances
‘Wet Brain’ by John J. Caswell, Jr., a Review
A family in crisis with no way out except love and forgiveness, is the focal point of the play Wet Brain by John J. Caswell, Jr. Directed by Dustin Wills (award-winning director of Wolf Play) the drama is presented by Playwrights Horizons and MCC Theater until June 25. The production reveals the knotty human condition in all its raw, ugly, ironic and humorous digressions, as siblings attempt to confront their father’s alcoholic illness and cope with the intense stress each experiences related to the situation as they interact with each other.
Wet Brain is the vernacular for Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS). WKS occurs when alcoholism strips the body of necessary nutrients, vitamins and enzymes as the alcoholic depletes himself of food in exchange for his preferred “liquid diet.” The brain disorder is caused by chronic vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency found in those whose long-term, heavy drinking has ravaged their bodies and minds beyond repair, until death comes to “heal” them.
At the top of the play brother Ricky (the fine Arturo Luis Soria) returns home after a number of years to help sister Angelina (Ceci Fernandez) and brother Ron (Frankie J. Alvarez) find the proper way to care for their father Joe (Julio Monge). In this highly pressurized situation the siblings, who carp and criticize each other, must determine the best path for their father’s last months on the planet. This is a tall order. Joe is in and out of reality and takes heart from his “outer-space” fantasies.
He hallucinates? Because reality is so dire, Joe has found an escape route in his imagination. If he can only acculturate his children to his softer way of imagining, perhaps this will foster understanding. Maybe, but Joe is barely speaking and he belongs in an assisted living center with a memory care unit. However, Joe isn’t even on Social Security Disability and he allowed his medical insurance to lapse. Regardless, they can’t afford such a high end place. It is better if he stays at home and they have help come in.
Joe’s lack of balance makes him susceptible to falls. He walks with a severely disabled gait and ends up on the floor part of the time he is with them. He has a hard time keeping down food and vomits. His speech is garbled, though at times he is sentient and recognizes his children if he isn’t on a space fantasy. Among his other handicapping conditions, he soils himself at times and the cleanliness of his home and person is approaching nil. However, he manages to function in keeping himself close to his old friend vodka, which he stashes in Dasani bottles to “get over” on no one except himself.
Angie, who has been living with him can no longer cope with caring for him, keeping the house clean and studying for coursework to become a nurse. Thus, she calls Ricky who hasn’t seen her, his father and Ron for years. It is not a happy homecoming for Ricky or his siblings.
Of the three children, Ricky, who is gay, appears the most humane and empathetic, though Angie has been the stalwart, engaged member of the family, living with her father which she finally admits is beyond her. As the siblings resolve the situation, we understand the nuances of the dynamic that drove Ricky away from a home that was unaccepting and abusive because he is gay. Both Ron and Joe, who are close and worked together in their family business, found Ricky’s homosexuality loathsome. Nevertheless, Ricky has an MBA and has made something of himself. It is his presence that is the catalyst to finalize Joe’s care.
Casewell, Jr.’s drama with sardonic elements is approachable, if one enjoys insult comedy. The siblings shred each other, especially at the top of the play and reveal the horrific abuse they most probably experienced growing up, for they dish it out to each other. They communicate, not necessarily to be heard or understood, but talk at each other. Nor do they easily understand what each other has been going through. Instead, they are reactive and defensive and childish. Both Angie and Ron, themselves are psychologically, emotionally and physically damaged. Staying in the area where they grew up has not been a healthful choice.
How do the debilitated judgmental take care of each other and an acutely disabled father, living with the knowledge that their mother hanged herself because of her own mental illness? They lean on the one who had the perspicacity to leave the toxic environment and become moderately successful and accepting and loving of himself.
The most interesting section of the production occurs during Joe’s “outer-space sequence,” terrifically designed by Kate Noll (scenic design) with the help of Cha See’s lighting design, Nick Hussong’s projection design and Tei Blow and John Gasper’s sound design. The segment is highly symbolic and metaphoric.
During the scene, the siblings, Joe and their mother Mona interact and have a “heart-to-heart.” Mona, who returns as a ghost or another configuration of Joe’s space-time warp, initially hangs in the middle of her brood, and husband. All are able to communicate with each other clearly and soundly. In this sequence, the actors seemed most comfortable in the skins of their characters. They listened to each other with authenticity. The section is so striking in its coherence, the other sections of the play which relay the background exposition seem insignificant by comparison. The fantastic scenes of Joe’s imagination hold more theatricality and drama, thanks to the creative team and direction, then the scenes between the siblings. Importantly Joe’s fantastic reverie is the turning point, after which the characters become more human.
At the conclusion, when Ricky leaves, we note that the house is in order and a caretaker, Crystal (Florencia Lozano also plays Mona), stays with Joe to watch over him. In his imagination, Mona has returned to him for in the final scene, the caretaker moves close to Joe, almost as if they are about to kiss. Indeed, the development moves from the chaos at the top of the play, where we don’t very much like these siblings, to a peaceful resolution. During the play’s development, all have become more loving and accepting, stirred by the experiences with their father and each other. To bring about a resolution for him, they focused on one goal: to have their father cared for in his own home. The ending is uncertain, yet satisfying and filled with hope.
Dustin Wills’ shepherding of his creatives makes the theatrical and technical aspects of the production shine. The designs are coherent standouts that adhere with Will’s vision, from the complexity of the house and its props, to the sometimes sinister trees dwarfing the home, especially when Cha See eerily lights them. The revolving platform upon which the house is built shifts seamlessly and reflects the changes in the relationships among the siblings and their father.
The grinding sounds, the strange twists of darkness and sharp contrasts with light suggest the alternating states of consciousness in Joe’s mind and in the comprehension of the siblings. The irony is that with Joe, it is easy to understand that his condition has impacted his state of consciousness and his apprehension of reality. More subtle is how the siblings are also impacted by Joe’s perspective, most of all Ron, who is closest to him.
Wills’ direction brings Caswell, Jr.’s play to life as the actors nuance their characters. This is one to see if dysfunctional families and interesting characterizations are on your radar. What lifts the character dynamics from the boring repetition of victimization, blame and ranting and makes them interesting is how Wills and Caswell, Jr. integrate Joe’s hallucinations into a reality that is a soothing “what if” at the play’s high point. That it symbolizes a modicum of love and forgiveness is important. If the interrelationships declined, the play would have devolved into unsatisfying melodrama.
For tickets and times to Wet Brain which has no intermission, go to their website https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/wet-brain/
‘The Fears,’ Meditation vs. Inner Chaos, a Review
Where do you go when psychiatric therapy, group therapy, self-medication (alcohol, food, weed, etc.), prescribed medications, and other mainstream therapies don’t help you out of severe depression from psychic trauma and PTSD? You try the Buddhist center in New York City. In The Fears written by Emma Sheanshang, directed by Dan Algrant, currently running on the Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center, we are ironically entertained and drawn in to the emotional, traumatized, yet hysterical responses of seven individuals. Each attempts to reconcile their angst and anxiety together in five Buddhist meditative sessions over the course of five weeks.
The Buddhist practice led by Maia (Maddie Corman) follows the striking of the singing bowl, meditation in silence. Then individual members “touch in” and share their miseries, joys, or angers from the previous week. Part of the irony and humor of these sessions is in becoming acquainted with the individual stakeholders Rosa (Natalie Woolams-Torres), Katie (Jess Gabor), Fiz (Mehran Khaghani), Mark (Carl Hendrick Louis), and Suzanne (Robyn Peterson). Each unique individual is introduced to new member Thea (Kerry Bishé ), who has not received an email about the rules of the sessions and is flying blind. We, along with Thea, learn the quirky rules set up to guide the meditation and group dynamic as it unravels to a turning point during each session.
First, there are no apologies necessary for anything one does. Second, no discussion of the past is encouraged. Each of the members must stay “in the room” and in the moment to ground themselves with the here and now of their feelings. Third, no group member can ask questions of other members. Additionally, the group leader guides any member having problems with suggestions, for example to plant a tree (this never occurs), or in one instance, the inner child method–the adult version of the group member speaks to her inner child version– as the rest of the group’s inner children watch and learn.
For example, Rosa (Natalie Woolams-Torres) is subject to panic attacks and doesn’t do marital discord (conflicts between group members). Anything sets her off and raises her inner pressure. When she spirals upward in a fear, as she flails about her husband’s obliviousness to her panic attack at a christening, the controlled, calm Maia humorously brings her down by reminding her to “breathe,” and “stay in the room.” When these exhortations don’t work, she finally has Big Rosa address her inner child (Little Rosa), via a pillow who stands in for Little Rosa. Maia expertly guides her with questions, as the group members look on approvingly, while Big Rosa tells Little Rosa she’s safe, can go to another room, go for a walk, or go anywhere. Thea has gotten a eyeful as have we, except Thea doesn’t find it as humorous as the audience does.
The various members “touch in” after Rosa comes down from her attack. Katie “took a shower.” It’s apparently a big step for her because the others cheer her improvement. Fiz discusses that his sister dared to invite him to her wedding. Group members know he has issues with his parents. His father raped him as a tween, and when he told his mother, she refused to believe it and had him put in juvenile detention. His wounds are still raw, though he has been “healing.” Nevertheless, when Suzanne suggests that his sister’s invitation is a positive move, he blows up and asks if Suzanne is insane, a touchy question because all of them are off the charts from their traumas.
Also a sex abuse survivor, Suzanne attempts to defend herself. The interchange escalates humorously. Peterson’s Suzanne and Khaghani’s Fiz are invested in their emotions, and it’s crucial that the actors sustain the right balance of tone, sincerity and timing. or the scene could be deadly and fall flat. However, with apt direction and superb acting, the result is hilarity with no small thanks to Algrant, who knows how to make this hybrid dramedy pop. Additionally, the dialogue is choice with one-liners built in so that the actors (Khaghani is a comedian), cleverly measure the dead-on delivery.
The heated exchange between Fiz and Suzanne prompts Maia to intervene and call “weather on the ones.” Gauging the “emotional atmosphere” each is feeling, the group members weigh in with “misunderstood,” “fear,” “anger,” etc., and the brewing storm subsides as they stay “in the room in real time,” and don’t nurture hurts from the past.
Sheanshang raises the emotional stakes higher when Thea tries to describe how Alexander the Great is responsible for a traumatic attack that happened to her. Initially, no one gets it and there’s confusion, until later in the play she describes the incident that terrorized her. The playwright’s clever script is both poignant and funny. She has pared down the lines yet has given enough backstory with the individuals to supply an inherent humor as they briefly describe the traumatic event which they are suppressed from discussing when the session gets underway, but not before.
The playwright thematically reminds us that humanity is boiling over with trauma and oftentimes, takes itself too seriously. However, the trauma cannot be suppressed because it is devastating; finding humor and having a gallows laugh about it is paramount. Interestingly, watching the group members surf the waves of their watery emotions, and explode despite Maia’s attempts to keep the ship on an even kee,l reveals the irony in attempting to control the chaos with “Buddhist” practice, which is a 20th century, Western appropriation of an Eastern religion, which requires an entirely different mind-set.
The religion has existed for thousands of years and its “practice,” through the Western lens and mind has been twerked. The practitioners ignore that it has been superimposed over Western, cultural psychoses and promulgated by various gurus (one of whom we later discover was a sex predator himself). Sheanshag twits the sessions and exposes the West’s arrogance and privilege in its appropriation. Her dialogue and Algrant’s direction land the play with the right tonal balance, which makes for a profound, yet comedic production. Incisively, it reveals the desperation of each of the characters, especially Maia, to find some modicum of peace, that the culture and society do not readily offer.
The actors are superb, and as they erupt with emotion, Dan Algrant has them work seamlessly in tandem with impeccable timing for maximum humor. Sheanshang has crafted the characters with such specificity, and uniqueness, we understand how they have become practiced to trust in Maia’s cues and guidance so that they follow it like herded cows. The only one who doesn’t get it is the outlier-newcomer Thea, who “didn’t get the email,” and thus, is introduced to the “rules” in real time as we are. This element keeps us engaged and provides vitality and surprise about what will happen next.
As group leader, Maia’s response to various members as she guides them, is a non-response of “Mmmmm,” which becomes loaded with meaning after we follow various characters’ issues. As the play progresses in humor and sobriety, we discover that each of the group members have experienced sexual abuse which has traumatized them, so that they rely on each other for comfort and the camaraderie of understanding. However, they aren’t allowed to discuss the specifics of the abuse because it happened in the past, and they must remain in the present. Because of the active dynamic going on in the sessions, we don’t miss learning about their past. It is enough to understand that their wounds spill into the presen,t regardless of how hard they try to “Mmmmm.”
How each of the group members relates to the others remains funny and toward the end of the play becomes volatile. The techniques that Maia uses are successful only in so far that group members believe them to be. However, Thea reveals a few secrets and asks questions which throw a monkey wrench into their “smooth” sessions. And when Katie, who the others believe has joined a satanic cult, leaves after an emotional outburst, it sets the rest of the group members at each others throats. Even Maia who has the “air” of a female yogi, loses control of them and herself in a chaotic epiphany. After her outburst, she is forced to confront herself with the groups’ encouragement, as she reveal a truth she has suppressed to delude herself “nothing happened.”
The success of Sheanshang’s work is in its twists and moment-to-moment “presence” which the actors keep alive and bubbling. All of them have been beautifully shepherded into a believable ensemble of traumatics, which can be set off at any time. And, they are. The secrets revealed by Thea, Maia and Katie cause the group to go off the rails, until Maia is encouraged to hold a session which brings them and the audience back down to earth for a fitting conclusion. The necessity of restoring calm succeeds. As her depth of feeling reaches out and encourages healing, the audience members join in as well. The conclusion is poignant and the theme that every person faces their own PTSD events in their lives becomes clear. Ironically, as much as each of us would like to “get better,” and “be healed,” in an ironic comment, Thea says, “You’re on earth. There’s no cure for that.”
The quote from Samuel Beckett is the play’s principle theme. Knowing that human beings can’t escape having been shaped by horrors in their past, they are grateful for moments of shared peace which bring them outside of their emotional chaos. And in that peace they may find renewed purpose, as they acknowledge it is enough to bring power to reconcile such events with the help of others.
Kudos Jo Winiarski’s scenic design, David Robinson’s costume design (Maia’s and Goth Katie are particularly interesting), Jane Shaw’s sound design, Jeff Croiter’s lighting design, and Jimmy Goode’s wig, hair and make-up design (especially for Maia and Katie). The Fears presented by Steven Soderbergh (Academy Award winner for the film Traffic), is performed without an intermission. For tickets go to their website: https://thefearsplay.com/
‘How to Defend Yourself’ at New York Theatre Workshop
In this decade of sexual extremes on a continuum from paranoia, political correctness, libertine licentiousness, the billion dollar pornography industry and casual permissiveness, one in four women is violated, sexually assaulted or physically/emotionally abused. As a strategic defense #metoo has been appropriately employed culturally, but it also has been wrongfully magnified as a double-edged sword of vengeance. In Liliana Padilla’s play How to Defend Yourself, currently at New York Theatre Workshop, following a successful 2020 run at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre, Padilla confronts important issues about personal safety both emotional and physical. Incisively co-directed by the exceptional Rachel Chavkin, Liliana Padilla and Steph Paul, the hybrid comedy drama explores consent and the litigated definitions of rape and harassment, which shift based upon geographical location, accuser and victim.
With the setting as a torpid and tumultuous college campus, when individuals are beginning to define their goals, dreams and intentions, sexuality and choices remain fluid. A decision to be with someone can lead to devastation, especially around stimulants, alcohol and drugs at a testosterone-fueled frat party, where young women are pressured to compromise themselves. At the top of the play we are introduced to women in a self-defense class started by college junior Brandi (Talia Ryder). The confident, black belt, with social media videos of herself disarming a bully with a gun, is a self-appointed, self-defense instructor. Brandi decides to teach students the ways to protect themselves, after sorority sister Susannah is raped and hospitalized. The assault happened at a frat party.
Much of the enjoyment of Padilla’s play is becoming acquainted with the buoyant women and two young men in the class. They reveal their humorous attitudes as they attempt to navigate a culture whose roiling currents are being defined from moment to moment, often dislocating both men and women. All genders of that age group may be easily overcome by intimate circumstances, which they assume they have control over but don’t.
Brandi, whose self-assurance, determination to do good and organized, talented, physical skills, not only looks dancer-fit, but is also lovely. Admired and accepted by her peers, she is a member of a hot sorority and has the cache to hold self-defense sessions. These attract a few neophytes who are there to learn self-defense. Some are there for other reasons.
Brandi runs her sessions circumspectly with precision. She expects her peers to evolve toward her confidence level, so they understand that “anything can be used as a weapon,” and primarily, “their own bodies are weapons.” Kara (Sarah Marie Rodriguez), joins her BFF for moral support and fun, but she lacks Brandi’s skill set. Kara assists Brandi with chatter and chalkboard drawings in the college gym space (finely designed by You-Shin Chen), where Brandi holds classes.
Two students, who drift in anxious to get started, arrive before Brandi. We learn that freshman Diana is obsessed about defending herself against guns. Her BFF Mojdeh follows fast in her orbit. Humorous and sociable Diana ((Gabriela Ortega at the top of her game), and Mojdeh (Ariana Mahallati), are primarily there to get closer to Brandi, who is a Zeta Chi, the sorority they would like to rush. It escapes them that the group think atmosphere of sororities and fraternities are precisely the communities that can be toxic and abusive. However, Mojdeh craves being identified as “cool.” She seeks the hot, popular individuals to ride their coattails and achieve acceptance. For her, this is the fastest way to self-love. On the other hand, Diana appears to be self-content, and is humorous in how she fetishizes guns to the point where by the the end of the play, she indulges her passion.
The last young woman to join Brandi’s sessions is Nikki (Amaya Braganza). Her entrance provokes laughter because she appears super shy, hesitant and awkward. Throughout, she is mysterious and reticent, until the conversation opens up, and she admits she gave a “blow job” to a guy in a gasoline station. When Brandi and Kara attempt to kindly excuse her humiliating, crass behavior as a mistake, she states that she was fine with it, and it was her idea. Whether she is lying or fronting is difficult to surmise. Hiding behind “it’s OK,” is oftentimes the default response because it is too messy to get into, who is responsible, who is to blame and what forced sex means.
Kara indirectly insults Nikki by stating that she also has made such “mistakes.” Nikki is nonplussed, revealing the differences in attitudes between the two young women. Clearly, the circumstances around sexual behavior are extremely complex and not easily understood. Subsequently, Padilla’s characters veer off topic into personal discussions about what forms of touching make them uncomfortable, and what physical boundaries work.
The play reveals that the idea of self-defense encompasses more than just a physical way of being. Young men and women are at sea with regard to “growing up” with a sexual identity that is forced upon them by the culture and their friends. Oftentimes, as Jayson Lee’s Eggo suggests, they are clueless about what is the right or wrong way to conduct themselves, have relationships and fall in love. Sexuality isn’t necessarily the main ingredient that holds people together.
To add substance to the mix, Padilla includes the male perspective, having Brandi invite two fraternity brothers, Andy (Sebastian Delascasas) and Eggo (Jayson Lee). They are “down” with #metoo and are supportive of Susannah during her recuperation and rehabilitation from the stress of her assault. To add to the complexity, their fraternity brother has been criminally charged which has put the entire fraternity on “high alert.” To distinguish themselves from the “sexual abuser types” roaming their campus, Andy and Eggo hysterically ply their sanctimonious “we support women” front, the moment they enter the room and introduce themselves. Years in prison hovers over the head of their fraternity brother, and they are “running scared” that any of their behaviors might be interpreted as predatory. Their loud, moralistic approach toward women is “over-the-top,” and we expect they will marching in the next women’s protest to encourage female empowerment.
Padilla’s themes are not lost on us. Sexualized images and behaviors, part of the landscape of American culture in the entertainment industry and fashion industry, were shattered by #metoo. The nascent revolution that sprang up after the Harvey Weinstein debacle shuttered a billion dollar company and gave pseudo power to women for a time, only in the parts of the country which are not Republican and are “woke.” In other areas, the men act as they please, and the women go along with it, especially if they are proving they are not “socialist lefties.”
In the play, the characters are diverse: three persons of color, a Mexican-American, an Iranian-American and two whites. They are stuck with having to deal with “woke” culture, especially after the campus assault. Importantly, there is a discussion in the middle of the play about what consent means. Additionally, the question about having to always check with a partner about boundaries is raised. Kara blows up the discussion with her suggestion that there is nothing wrong with wanting S and M sex. To avoid the confusing topic, which adds another complex component about individual sexual behavior, Brandi calls her out for being inappropriate.
Clearly, Kara has issues with alcohol and wanting to be hurt. This hints at her subterranean troubles that are never revealed. We note such problems, when she doesn’t join in the physical sessions because she got “wasted” the previous evening. On the other hand, she isn’t embarrassed about sharing her enjoyment of rough sex. Apparently, she also enjoys the shock value of telling others about herself, though it is counterproductive to her BFF’s purpose in holding the class. From this turning point onward, the situations in the self-defense class run off the rails.
The most interesting segments of the production are the self-defense moves that Brandi teaches (well choreographed by Steph Paul, movement director), and the physical fight routines they accomplish together (at the guidance of Rocio Mendez). Late in the play there is a fight that breaks out between Diana and Kara that is well staged. The fight exemplifies that ego, charm and pride are competitive forces that stir up internal problems within the young women. These spill out in violence. Between Diana and Kara, there exists an intuitive impulse to dislike each other. That disgust eventually dissipates after Diana smashes the provocative Kara in the face, ironically proving that Kara does seek physical abuse.
The staging for the defense practice scenes works seamlessly and is powerful and exciting to watch. The movements are pitched to music, which pumps up the characters and reveals they are gaining confidence about themselves. Additionally, when Brandi suggests they pair off to practice techniques, for example, how to break an attacker’s wrist grip, the results are simultaneously wrought and the overlapping dialogue and action make for fascinating comparisons.
There are surprising turns throughout. Diana and Mojdeh discover things about each other that set their relationship on a different path so that they can’t be close anymore. Kara and Brandi have a disagreement about Susannah, and Andy reveals a secret to Eggo that he has been harboring since the attack on Susannah. This upsets them and dislocates their sense of well being even more. When Andy asks what he should do, Eggo is at a loss. We understand there are no easy answers with regard to human sexuality and situations worsen as a result of “not knowing what to do.” Finally, after a number of sessions where Brandi’s “students” have progressed, and she feels she has made inroads into helping them feel safer, Nikki upends her assumptions and disturbs everyone with an event that she describes.
The thematic conclusion moves through flashbacks in the characters’ stages of adolescence. The directors show the individuals at three parties during their teen years, which move backward in time to a birthday party when they were in elementary school. The parties reveal the wildness from the drinking and sexual exploration when they were in high school. In the last party they end up in the sweet innocence of their elementary school days. The contrast of how they seek sexual experience that emerged from a time of innocence is stark and mind blowing.
For the rapid set changes You-Shin Chen, Stacey Derosier lighting designer, Izumi Inaba costume design and Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design create a frenetic party atmosphere. And the lovely tableau at the end reveals that the progression of their identities has sprung from love, security, family and well being. One might think that these create an assured line of defense to thwart any attack that might ever happen.
However, Padillia posits that security is never guaranteed. Though we may use our bodies as weapons, or learn self-defense, random and not so random acts of violence happen in a culture that uplifts violence. Diana feels forced to arm herself with a licensed gun as an answer to that violence. Tragically, the subtext of her statement about guns plays out daily in our society, revealing the play’s devastating currency. Its themes about our physical and psychic vulnerability in an arbitrary and violent world resonate with power.
Co-directors Rachel Chavkin, Liliana Padilla & Steph Paul are responsible for the strengths of the production, especially its staging and thematic depth. Their vision about the questions the play raises leaves us with even more questions and no clear answers. The actors are uniformly excellent and the physicality and staging of the various defense sessions make one want to get up and join the cast to try out all the moves.
How to Defend Yourself is a humorous, weighty production, whose trenchant themes give us pause, thanks to the vision and talent of its creatives. For tickets and times go to their website https://www.nytw.org/show/how-to-defend-yourself/tickets/
‘Crumbs From the Table of Joy’ Keen Company’s Revival of Lynn Nottage is a Must-See
From the excellent selection of music that fills the auditorium before Crumbs From the Table of Joy begins, to Ernestine Crump’s (Shanel Bailey) summation of the future after the roiling events with her family subsides, the Keen Company’s fine revival of Nottage’s play endears us. The playwright’s simplicity focuses on the hardships and relationship dynamics of a single father and two teenage daughters, migrating from the Jim Crow South to a Brooklyn recovering from the vagaries of WW II. Directed by Colette Robert, the heartfelt, lyrical production runs with one intermission at Theatre Row until April 1. It is a must-see for its superb performances and incisive, sensitive and coherent direction.
Ernestine is our guide through the year-long experiences negotiating her mom’s death and the family trials without their beloved mother to seamlessly make their lives easier. Their mom is intensely missed by all, especially Godfrey Crump (Jason Bowen) who yearns for companionship and tries to suppress his grief by joining up with Father Divine’s Peace Mission fellowship. Ernestine’s poetic recollections of the grieving time and the year of transformation, reveal a witty, talented raconteur. Wise beyond her years, she makes the audience her confidante to reveal the frightening, unfamiliar city and “romantic Parisian apartment” which sister Ermina (Malika Samuel) calls ugly. Occasionally, she calls up in her imagination scenes as she’d like her life to be, which the actors show with humorous results. Then the unfortunate reality encroaches, and what she wishes dissolves to what is.
The family are fishes out of water in an alien environment that never seems welcoming. The Brooklyn schools put Ermina in a lower grade. The students ridicule their country braids and home made dresses sewn with love. Generally they are treated with disdain and indifference. Surrounded by Jewish neighbors who remain aloof in their whiteness, they dp become friendly with upstairs neighbors who ask them to be their Shabbos goys.
They envy the elderly Levys, who seem joyful and full of laughter as they listen to radio and watch their TV programs. On the other hand Godfrey denies Ernestine and Ermina any entertainments on Sundays. Godfrey is an adherent of Father Divine’s principles which require sobriety and living abstemiously with few pleasures except Father Divine’s holy word. Thus, Ernestine’s misery is acute. but she overcomes her upset through humor and irony. Nottage bonds us to her heroine because of her alertly sage descriptions and authenticity, which never devolves into self pity. To support her dad and sister whom she loves, she keeps her own counsel and studies hard to finish high school. A senior she becomes engrossed with making her graduation dress by hand, working her seamstress skills. Hers will be the celebration of the first family member to receive a diploma.
While Ernestine applies herself in school, Ermina, who is 15-years old, fights her way into the social set and eventually becomes interested in boys. To establish that she won’t take sass from anyone, Ermina has her first successful fight and brings home the spoils of war in her pockets: a handful of greasy relaxed hair and a piece of grey cashmere sweater.
For his part their dad weeps, works nights at his job at the bakery, and loyally follows Father Divine. He counts on the minister to help him heal from the agonizing loss of his wife. Ernestine tells us that Father Divine has so enamored Godfrey that to be closer to him, he moved them to New York where he mistakenly thinks Father Divine lives because of a return address on the newsletter he receives as a subscriber. Their dad believes Divine’s “wisdom” is from God and he adheres to Divine’s principles to live cleanly, without alcohol or dancing or drugs, and be as devoted as a monk with celibacy as a badge of honor. Ernestine quips that this behavior is embraced by Godfrey, who never went to church or tipped his hat to a lady before they moved to Brooklyn. As for the other behaviors she doesn’t mention, we assume he did them all before their mother died.
Their home life revolves around Father Divine as their father attempts to become more spiritual and understand as much as possible under Divine’s tutelage which he seeks as he writes letters to him asking God’s advice to traverse this rough time in a bigoted environment of white people. That it was worse in the South doesn’t quite register and Nottage doesn’t make it a point. What she does indicate is that Godfrey doesn’t note the differences. For her part Ernestine appreciates that she is able to sit between two white girls touching shoulders in a movie theater, where this is not possible in a Jim Crow South which we infer from her excitement and enthusiasm. Also, she and Ermina like their nice neighbors upstairs who give them quarters for turning on the lights and the TV which they sometimes get to watch. However, to Godfrey, “white people” are a universal stereotype to be avoided and mumbled about.
Ironically, Ernestine points out his hypocrisy about selective criticism. He accepts Father Divine’s choice of a white wife to be another perfection of Godliness. Ernestine, who distrusts Father Divine, points out the difference between the God-like, elite Divine’s privilege to have a white wife, yet criticize white people to his Black followers. Meanwhile, her dad is just a poor Black man who sucks up a few crumbs from under the table of his life, which appears a drudgery especially with no woman at his side.
Enter Lily Ann Green (Sharina Martin) their mom’s deceased sister, who blows in unannounced, with values contrary to Father Divine/Godfrey and behaviors which upset Godfrey and put him on edge. Ernestine is thrilled she is there, even though Lily crashes with them, is completely self-absorbed and pushes her communistic beliefs wherever she goes,which is why she can’t hold a job. Interestingly, Nottage floats the two disparate philosophies which were to bring salvation to the Black society in America in the 1950s as sold and marketed by both: religion and the communist party.
Both preachers and communist leaders embraced the African American cause and, at their most egregious, exploited it for their own use. When Ernestine uses communist ideas in an essay that she hears Lily spout (this was during Senator Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare) her teacher is in an uproar. Likewise, Lily Ann ends up compromising Godfrey’s situation at work. Ernestine is forced to apologize as is Godfrey, who argues with Lily about not pushing communism vociferously to his daughters and others. He believes she is only making trouble. Though Lily Ann is interested in Godfrey and makes a play for him, he rejects her because he doesn’t agree with her politics and she dislikes Father Divine.
When the circumstances between them explode, Godfrey takes off a few from the family in frustration. During this respite, he meets Gerte Schulte (Natalia Payne) who emigrated from Germany after the war. Like Godfrey she is desperate for companionship and looking for someone to take care of her. Godfrey opens his heart and shares his circumstances. When he discusses Father Divine, she is receptive and together they seem to meld because of Gerte’s flexibility and charm. She is the antithesis of Lily Ann’s loose lifestyle, political determinism and stubbornness in having the upper hand with men.
Where Lily Ann is a catalyst and mentor for Ernestine and Ermina, Gerte becomes the catalyst to change their lives and split them apart. Nottage leaps her play’s action quickly forward when Godfrey brings Gerte home to introduce her to his daughters and Lily Ann. With her seductive, sweet charms, Gerte ingratiates herself into Godfrey’s life, moving herself from girlfriend to wife in a matter of a few days. The siblings are shocked as is Lily Ann. Godfrey expects all of them to live together and accept Gerte as his new wife. The results are not only humorous, they are necessary for Ernestine’s and Godfrey’s growth, as well as Lily Ann’s movement away from the dream of settling down with her sister’s husband.
As Ernestine Crump, Shanel Bailey is a phenomenon. Her narration is on-point, sensitive, nuanced and heartbreaking, especially at the end when she discusses what happens to each of the family members. Mindful of the narrative’s lovely poetic phrases, Bailey travels forward in character portraying Ernestine’s feelings in active dialogue with her dad, Lily Ann and Gerte, then seamlessly transfers to narrating her ironic perspective of them with grace. Bailey is winning and the production which hinges on her broad acting talents is strengthened with her brilliance of authenticity.
Though all of the ensemble shines, held together through Robert’s fine direction, another standout is Natalia Payne’s Gerte. Her accent is near perfect as a a German swanning through English. Payne makes Gerte likeable in her color blindness and utter humanity, as she forges a path for herself after the war. Though Nottage doesn’t fill in much of her backstory, we see she is a charming operator with resilience and an ability to read and understand situations, a survivalist. She and Godfrey end up with each other as a mutual benefit and by the end of the play, they move toward the intimacy and companionship they seek and need.
Malika Samuel’s Ermina is a breath of joyful fresh air. Her role is an addendum. It is a shame that she doesn’t have more dialogue for her funny, bright personality is winsome and the relationship Samuel and Bailey effect together rings with authenticity.
Nottage’s mouthpiece for her ideas, Lily Ann, is the most difficult of the characters to like because underneath her rhetoric, she is the most evasive. Though we attempt to infer the subtext of her character, Nottage doesn’t give us much to go on past what she stands for and says she believes in. However, her actions speak louder than her words and when Ernestine attempts to find the Harlem location of the communist party, the address that Lily Ann gives her doesn’t ring true. As Lily Ann, Sharina Martin is tough, manipulative, seductive and open-hearted with the sisters. She also layers Lily Ann’s personality so that we are wary that she is fronting and not delivering the truth to the family as she should be.
Jason Bowen’s Godfrey is spot-on believable and inhabits the role of the father desperate for answers in a world whose corrupt values make no sense except to be an incalculable frustration. His faith in Father Divine is believable to the point where we want Divine to be real. If he is duping Godfrey, who is vulnerable and heartbroken, it is a bitter and enraging Black on Black exploitation, skirting criminality. Because we empathize with Bowen’s Godfrey, we want the best for him. As Ernestine does we question his weak desperation falling for Gerte and marrying her so quickly. However, both are so needy. In the last scene Ernestine notes that Godfrey’s celibacy ends when Gerte and he make up after fighting. Bowen and Natalia Payne convey a roller coaster of emotions in their last scene together.
Kudos to the Keen Company’s creative team who bring together Colette Robert’s vision of the other 1950s America and how to prosper in spite of it. Creatives include Brendan Gonzales Boston’s spare, functional period scenic design, Johanna Pan’s costume design, Anshuman Bhatia’s lighting design, Broken Chord’s sound design and Nikiya Mathis’ wig design.
Crumbs from the Table of Joy continues until April 1 at Theatre Row. For tickets go to their website: https://www.keencompany.org/crumbsfromthetableofjoy
‘Elyria,’ by Deepa Purohit, a Gujarati Diaspora in Ohio, Review
The gorgeously vibrant sarees and salwar kameez take center stage as the characters spin and move exotically to traditional garba music. This is a festival celebration by Gujarati diasporans and other Indians who have found their way to Elyria, Ohio by 1982, the setting of the the titular play by Deepa Purohit. Currently in its World Premere at the Atlantic Theater Company’s Off Broadway Linda Gross Theater until March 19th, Elyria is incisively directed by Awoye Timpo and runs with one intermission. .
At its most powerful, Elyria captures the cultural nuances and shifting values gradually shaping the diasporans as they migrate from Kenya to London to Elyria. Through stylization and minimal, almost expressionistic set design, the play’s central tenet, how the past shakes itself into the present, unfolds in the imaginations of the characters, as they visualize their past interactions in flashbacks, which inform and drive their present behaviors.
Elyria never descends completely into a melodrama of a threesome gone awry. This is because of the director’s elusive suggestion of the principals’ younger versions of themselves, portrayed by Mahima Saigal, Avanthika Srinivasan and Sanskar Agarwal, in flashbacks symbolically staged with accompanying music. The wistful compositions by Neel Murgai convey timber and moment. They are especially effective in the first act and in the flashbacks. For it is the nuance and surrealism of the past which lift Elyria beyond the mundane. As a result the evocative scenes present a dream-state atmosphere, like a series of meditations through which we intuit that Dhatta (Gulshan Mia) and Vasanta (Nilanjana Bose) make peace with themselves and each other by the play’s end.
Into the celebration of dance and happy festivities, Vasanta emerges on the dance floor to confront Dhatta and briefly move with her as they share awkward, stilted greetings. We anticipate from their encounter that they have known each other in another time and place, as it turns out when they were growing up together in Kenya. Though the contrast between the two women is not apparent initially, after they have additional encounters, we learn that Dhatta comes from an upper class strata of Gujarati society and Vasanta comes from a family with little means. As the play gradually unfolds, we learn that traditional cultural folkways bleed into the relationships and interactions of the characters, defining their social positions, identities and behaviors.
Without slamming rhetorical intrusions into the love triangle which developed elsewhere and ended after Dhatta married Charu (Bhavesh Patel) the playwright gradually reveals the surreptitious bonds among the characters, using Vasanta as the catalyst. Though she promised she wouldn’t, Vasanta follows Dhatta and Charu all the way to Elyria to confront them about Rohan (Mohit Gautam) who is the child of Vasanta and Charu’s love relationship. Dhatta has told Rohan that she is not his birth mother, but she is his mother forever. Rohan tells his college friend Hassanali (Omar Shafiuzzaman) that he plans to locate his birth parents after he and Hassanali graduate from college. Hassanali, a self-proclaimed computer genius, promises that he will help Rohan locate them on the “Interweb.”
Two ironies immediately present themselves. Rohan and Hassanali will be searching globally on the nascent and clunky forerunner of the internet whose communication protocols were not yet standardized (the internet was born in 1983). Ironically, Rohan’s birth parents are in his backyard and he could know them if someone would just “spill the beans.” However, revealing the secret is a monumental endeavor for the one carrying it, a happening more far flung then landing a spaceship on Neptune.
But even mountains move and an upset Vasanta finds the means financially with her hairdresser skills to make it to Elyria, supporting charming, con man husband Shiv (Sanjit De Silva) to proclaim her truth and see her grown-up child. Thus, the forward momentum of Purohit’s delicate unfolding plot complication unravels and destroys Dhatta’s world.
The secret is not revealed to Rohan during the play. Rohan believes that he was adopted by both Charu and Dhatta. It is his misfortune that he never receives the information that Charu is his real father with his mother’s childhood friend Vasanta as his birth mother. Dhatta is responsible for sharing the information that she promised Vasanta she would share. She doesn’t because she can’t; she is afraid. She knows that Charu loved Vasanta more, but until she begins to reconcile her past younger self with her older self’s experience, she can’t confront her husband about that love or the child it produced. The play is the revelation of the truth about Rohan and how it has impacted the characters and their love of themselves. Until they confront the truth, the guilt and self-loathing they’ve experienced keeping secrets from each other fester inside their souls and psyches.
At the heart of the complications, emotional problems and self-revulsion that each of the characters feel, are Indian cultural folkways. These (arranged marriages, economic status, paternalism) have oppressed both Vasanta and Dhatta and have damned Charu to a life of remote isolation from his son and his wife, as he perfunctorily performs his role as a father and husband. Indeed, Dhatta has devoted all of her love to Rohan and has unconsciously closed out Charu. He accuses her of foiling their marriage and giving all her attention to Rohan in a dynamic scene where Dhatta finally is able to tell him she knows about Vasanta. Admitting that she has raised up his son from a woman he still loves clears the air. On the other hand the truth heaps recriminations on Charu for clearly Dhatta is the better person, despite his accusations that accepting Rohan and raising him as her own son has negatively impacted their marriage.
Eventually, we discover their past and the traditions that bound them and still bind them making Charu culpable in what has happened. Years before Elyria and his marriage to Dhatta, Charu and Vasanta were lovers. However, their future marriage was doomed by her parent’s financial status and inability to pay the high dowry price required. Thus, Charu must marry someone financially well-off, in an economically viable arranged marriage of which his parents and Dhatta’s parents approve. Vasanta keeps secret her pregnancy and when Rohan is born, she delivers her son to Dhatta, keeping the baby with at least one birth parent, that is, if Dhatta agrees to the secrecy, which Vasanta eventually wants to be divulged to everyone.
Of course human beings don’t keep their promises, as we learn from the brief conversations between Bose’s Vasanta and Mia’s Dhatta. Dhatta never tells Charu she knows about his love for Vasanta. In the complication of generously swallowing dishonor and raising her husband’s former lover’s child, the secret lays dormant and calcifies her marriage and relationship with Charu. Interestingly, they aren’t able to have another child. To what extent this is because of the burden of secrets that Dhatta carries is unclear. However, when Vasanta’s stalks Dhatta and Charu to Elyria, she, too, breaks the promise that she would never pursue them or interfere in their marriage. Spending the time and money to hunt them down, then dragging along her unsuspecting, career failed husband Shiv to Elyria, we recognize how high the stakes are for her to reconcile with her son and former lover.
Both women must receive satisfaction; one to remain in darkness, the other to expose Rohan to the light. The result is devastaing and wonderful. The upheaval at the top of the play which sets in motion a dynamic that could have unfolded in a more forceful way is not the intent of Purohit’s subtle, delicate work, which meanders and flows until a final truth emerges on the brink of revelation. Who will be the first to bravely speak it out?
There are many themes in Elyria. One is an indictment of the mores whose strictures create problems for families, binding individual in fear. Charu is a traditional, conservative man who refuses to marry Vasanta though he loves her. He chooses to stay with his parent’s ways, hurting himself and all involved. Adhering to these folkways threatens to derail Rohan’s circumstances in the future because Charu wants Rohan to marry a woman of economic means, matching if not exceeding his own lifestyle as a surgeon. In one scene Charu attempts to steer Rohan toward beginning to get serious about meeting a girl he will marry. However, in his interactions with Hassanali, we discover Rohan is attracted to men. Unless the family is truthful and frees itself from such bondages, more trouble, pain and sorrow will follow them.
Kudos to Elyria‘s creative team which includes Parijat Desai (choreography) Jason Ardizzone-West (sets) Sarita Fellows (costumes) Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lighting) Amatus Karim-Ali (sound) Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (projections) Nikiya Mathis (hair design) Neel Murgai (compositions). Praise to the ensemble, who are vibrant and on-point, and the director whose vision brings Purohit’s work to life and endears us to her characters’ movement toward reconciliation.
For tickets go to the Atlantic Theater Company website https://atlantictheater.org/
CAROLE DI TOSTI 