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‘Ken Rex!’ Enough is Enough and a Violent Bully is Taken Down
Ken Rex, a true crime play by Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian, tells the story of a brutal bully who was shot and killed publicly in Skidmore, Missouri. No one was ever convicted of the crime, though at least thirty people witnessed Ken Rex McElroy’s death, including his teenage wife, Trena. Holden who takes on 36 personas (voice, stance, stature) masterfully portrays townspeople, the prosecutor, Ken Rex, and his wife, a daunting task helped by director Ed Stambollouian’s excellent staging.
The dynamic production is enhanced by the superb original live Americana score composed and performed by John Patrick Elliott (The Little Unsaid). Elliott’s musical and song performance inform Holden’s portrayals and stir tension and foreboding. Tim Creavin and Alex Crossland help with the performances. Combined with the lighting and video design by Joshua Pharo and Giles Thomas’s expert sound design, the production is an atmospheric thrill ride. Kenrex runs through June 27 at the Lucille Lortel Theater.
Ken Rex McElroy’s infamous cold case has been featured in documentaries and a TV movie. In fact it has produced a cottage industry of works about the subject and the case, which are definitively explored in the best-selling book by Harry N. MacLean, In Broad Daylight. The works have been spawned from the tragic results that took place in Nodaway County Missouri that cannot be put to rest because the townspeople and now their children and grandchildren do not want to resurrect the terror that McElroy perpetrated on the town for a decade. For them McElroy’s vigilante justice killing in 1981 stopped the hell and abuse of townsfolk by a miserable criminal who committed rape, theft, property damage, intimidation and attempted murder and assault. He was also a pedophile who married his way out of being convicted of statutory rape by distraught parents.
The play which is told from the perspective of the prosecutor David Baird begins with him at the top of the play. Holden’s reasonable Baird is being deposed by Parker (an individual we never meet in Holden’s panoply of characters) for a reason we find out at the conclusion. As he answers Parker’s questions, eventually we learn about the story of the rural town of Skidmore through Baird’s exchanges with the townspeople and descriptions. Holden enacts the individuals so that we become familiar with the situation and the key people involved.
Holden and Stambollouian truncate the real story and refine many details to redeem the time and highlight the important, representative events. For example McElroy had 17 children with three different wives which the playwrights don’t include. For dramatic purposes they focus on Trena (the last wife). He marries Trena so she or her parents won’t press charges against him for statutory rape when they discover she is pregnant. To shut up her disapproving parents and keep them in line, McElroy burns down their house and shoots their dog, we are told by Baird.
In chapter segments, Holden theatricalizes the events and unfolds by degrees McElroy’s expanding terrorism of the town so that he eventually establishes his own justice with no accountability. He will never end his abuse and hatred of the town citizens. If they try to bring him to account, he gets revenge via intimidation, harassment and arson. He makes it a point for others to realize no one, but no one causes him trouble. If they do, they will suffer.
Holden inhabits McElroy’s “ethos” suggesting his stature, hulking presence, deep voice and his posture to effect the man’s heaviness and an injury he suffered which twisted his body and put him in chronic pain. Holden’s success with female portrayals occurs because he adjusts his “being” so we know according to accents, postures, stance, speed, slowness or drawl whether it’s the no-nonsense Ida, or sweet, grocery store owner Lois, or is wife Trena, who turns into a female version of McElroy, full of meanness and amorality. The playwrights’ dialogue also cues us into the individuals.
Perhaps the most acute and truly devastating portrayal that Holden effects is the glad-handing, smiling, confident Richard McFadin, McElroy’s defense attorney. McFadin makes sure McElroy walks free on every indictment. He is taken to court over twenty times. The playwrights exemplify how McFadin gets McElroy off. We note how the happy-go-lucky lawyer uses technicalities and has no compunctions about his complicity in allowing criminal McElroy to dominate, control and run down the good will and patience of the townspeople who are afraid of him with good cause. McElroy intimidates his witnesses and even intimidates the juries so that no one dares to accuse or act to defend themselves against his brutality and criminal behavior. Additionally, because the isolated town has no police department and the police who were an hour away didn’t want to deal with McElroy’s intimidation, townsfolk never call them.
McElroy’s reign of terror only worsens because the townspeople’s attempts to put him behind bars fail, with McFadn to the rescue. The tensions between McElroy, Trena and the townspeople escalate, especially after McElroy marries Trena and she becomes his ally. She provokes her “hero” whom “she loves” to take circumstances beyond his typical thefts, arson, harassment and more when Lois suggests Trena take care of her pregnancy and find out how many months she “is along.” Lois is well meaning, but to Trena who reveals she is clueless about her body, and doesn’t think to go to a doctor, nor would McElroy want her to, the question is a bomb blast and deserves retaliation from McElroy who shows up at the store with a gun.
In a long series of events that result over Lois’s remark that Trena and McElroy make into Mt. Everest, McElroy with Trena as his mouthpiece get revenge, make trouble and end up evading arrest. Emboldened, they affirm that they “run the town.” They are lawless. Their lawyer, an officer of the court who aides and abets them, lets them run wild and disavows any blame for his own complicit and corrupt behavior making a mockery of justice. Furthermore, McEloy and Trena’s tactics of intimidation and arson make sure the law doesn’t work. Enough becomes enough. The townspeople take a page out of McElroy’s playbook and use it against him.
The production as seen from the perspective of someone from across the pond (Holden is English) is interesting. In addition to revealing the archetypal story of the “bully” and the “weakling,” it is revelatory about an America rooted unfortunately in vigilantism where violence seems to prevail. The playwrights’ depiction of McFadin as a smiling, congenial Roy Cohen type who weaponizes the law against those the criminal harms to establish unequal justice is particularly frustrating.
Holden’s performance of all the characters and the production make the townspeople’s silence understandable. In its simplicity, Ken Rex is a parable for our times. about a bully that must be stopped but no one person has the courage to stop him. However, when the town unites, McElroy doesn’t have a chance, not even against himself, because he ignores the best advice given to him, to face an armed crowd of individuals determined to obtain justice when the law has made a mockery of them and the court.
The town has remained silent to this day.
Ken Rex runs 2 hours 15 minutes at the Lucille Lortel Theater though June 27, 2026. kenrextheplay.com.
Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf Bring Out Truths for Our Time in an Ageless ‘Death of a Salesman’ (9 Tony nominations)
Considered Arthur Miller’s masterpiece of the average guy as a tragic figure, Death of a Salesman has been a hard sell for me as Miller’s greatest play. However, Joe Mantello’s searing direction that teases out incredible performances from Nathan Lane (Willy Loman), Laurie Metcalf (Linda Loman), Chrisopher Abbott (Biff) and Ben Ahlers (Happy), made me a convert. Presented on the cavernous stage of the Winter Garden Theatre in its sixth Broadway revival, the Loman family’s psychological travails between reality and hopeful dreams unfold their flawed humanity with pathos until August 9, 2026.
This magnificent revival in Mantello’s expansive vision conveys the characters as middle class archetypes of American citizens that are manufactured, used up and spit out by a devouring corporate culture, obsessed by success, money and status as definitions of power and greatness (“the American Dream”). Industrialization, production and “progress” are the means used to propagandize and process worker-citizens away from an appreciation of their soul worth and self identification as valuable to themselves and their families.
To underscore this overarching theme of the Lowmans snared by this cultural processing with the use of the American Dream to drain their hopes, keep them ensnared and perpetuate the elusive lies of easy prosperity inferred by Willy’s Uncle Ben-Jonathan Cake (you walk into a jungle and bring out diamonds), Mantello uses a stylized set design superbly realized by Chloe Lamford. Additionally, the sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman, haunting music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, and lighting design by Jack Knowles beautifully carry Mantello’s dark, foreboding insights which the superb ensemble enlivens in a production whose like won’t be seen again.
This production of Miller’s Salesman is perfectly synchronized to reflect citizens in our country, currently under siege from the very forces which isolate the Lomans from helping each other. Set adrift in misery, loneliness, distraction and despair, they have little recourse or salvation except delusions, hallucinations and denial. Even a form of success is never enough as suggested by Ahlers’ Happy, who references a prosperous boss who builds an estate but “doesn’t have the peace of mind to live in it.”
The symbol of what made America great, the car (automobile production and its attendant feeder industries, oil, gas, rubber, etc.), becomes that which Willy chooses as his place to die. Mantello features Willy’s car as ever-present and onstage throughout. The car is where Willy spent most of his life alone, traveling through New England with his dreams, and longing of returning home to see his sons, chiefly Biff who he lives his successes through until Biff has a breakdown. At the play’s beginning it also becomes his place of terror, of failure, of disorientation where he can no longer survive for any length of time on a road trip. Finally, he converts it to his way out of a tormenting hellish life he can’t bear, that promises more hope for his family in his death.
The play opens as Lane’s Willy, exhausted and broken down, returns from his aborted sales trip and drives the car onstage into the humongous, grey space that is the Loman’s stylized home. Unlike previous revivals, this place is nothing like an American home the bank would hold in a mortgage. It is similar to an empty factory or warehouse with rectangular, peeling tiled columns and no vibrant colors. It is dimly lit with a grid of dirty window panes on the backstage wall that barely let light in.
The space is symbolic and interpretive. Far stage left is the basement with Willy’s possible instrument of suicide, the gas water heater, and downstage left is the bit of soil where Lane’s Willy hopefully plants seeds he will never see grow. The characters remain onstage, moving around uncomfortable, factory-type, metal “furniture” to define areas they set up mostly away from each other. They sometimes become inconsequential dim shadows when they don’t speak and other family members do.
Spot lit when there are interactions is Mantello’s approach. But for their interactions darkness and isolation surround them. As spots come up on the initial scene between Willy and Linda when she asks why he came back home, Biff and Happy each lie on a bench on opposite sides of the stage in their ersatz beds and bedrooms, as their parents talk “downstairs.” The spots illuminate the life and interaction of Linda and Willy to a break point, then the darkness encroaches. The symbolism is affecting and effective, revealing the disjointedness of this family, their fears, their isolation, their solitary struggles, their inability to communicate with efficacy to bring about their listener’s understanding toward change.
Willy’s dire emotional and psychic state which impacts the family is also symbolized with the set when the characters move as if in timeless space, like Uncle Ben-Jonahan Cake who floats onstage and off, as his words float in and out of Willy’s mind. Initially, he uses Ben to inspire him, but also his words and values are a truncheon that Willy uses to bludgeon himself for his failed life. There are also the recriminating memories of guilt that devastate him and push him toward self-annihilation provoked by grown up Bernard (Michael Benjamin Washington) who asks what happened in Boston, the turning point after which Biff and Willy are separated from each other by a gulf of lies and pretenses to protect Linda and damn each other, .
Importantly, Mantello/Lamford and the creative team have created an environment of bleakness and gloom removing any sense of warmth or comfort that a homely kitchen set or living room would suggest. Indeed, Willy and his family move in this towering oppressive, dark space that crushes them but for their connection to each other, which is their real and lasting hope, if they could see it and give each other more kind words and love instead of recriminations. However, even when they argue, insult, indict or chide each other as the glorious Metcalf does in a moment-to-breathtaking-moment take down of Biff, then Happy, her scorching speeches, one about how they left Willy alone babbling in the restaurant, are better than the silent, darkness above, behind and around them.
Mantello/Lamford also use the car to travel through time into the past. For example, one of Willy’s comforting reminiscences is when Young Biff (Joaquin Consuelos) and Young Happy (Jake Termine) follow Willy’s instructions to simonize, shine and buff the car. It is the family’s prize possession that helps provide Willy’s means of support and allows them to go to Ebbets Field on a celebratory day. It represents Willy’s pride in Biff’s scholarship success as he stands on the roof of the car, the lighting in a golden bronze to family cheers on game day. Happy, happy recollection when Willy is their fine father, Biff has the world at his feet, and Linda looks on her brood “pleased as punch,” a successful mother and wife. Even their giving neighbor Charley (the fine K. Ttodd Freeman) comes out to tease them on this greatest of days for Biff and Willy.
Lane convinces us that Willy is who he claims he is, until he isn’t. Out of the remembrances into the gloom of grey reality he tells his sons, “the woods are burning,” and Linda tells the incredulous Happy and anger-suppressing Biff their dad is dying. With a raw fierceness and edgy emotional plea, Metcalf’s Linda tells Biff and Happy that they can’t just come to visit her, because she loves Willy. “He’s the dearest man in the world to me.” Metcalf’s Linda means it and because of her strength of character and force of will, we take a second look at Willy and see him through her eyes with poignance, and weep for this desolate family.
As the play progresses, Miller via Mantello reveals, the reminiscences are in fact hallucinations that Willy uses to torment himself when Biff visits. Willy’s hallucination in the restaurant after his sons desert him is guilt-laden. He relives Biff catching him with a woman and calling him a liar. Willy knows he let his son down, but he can’t admit it and will never forgive himself for it, turning psychically sick. After that incident in Boston Biff and Willy can’t have a heart to heart. Even toward the conclusion when Biff tells his father he will never be the man Willy wants him to be, Willy can’t hear him and misunderstands.
It’s a superb theatrical moment between Lane and Abbott, who passionately steps into the heartfelt, truthful Biff, releases his anger and turns to his father. Willy, still lost, conflating past and present, incapable of recognizing Biff’s truth proclaims,”He cried to me.” In the final most dangerous of Willy’s hallucinations, Cake’s Ben agrees with Willy that Biff will be magnificent with twenty-thousand to back him. Lane’s portrayal of Willy humanizes him and makes him identifiable.
As the second brother given short shrift by the family, Ahlers Happy repeats himself to get attention and uplift Linda. His, “I’m gonna get married, mom,” is as plaintive a cry as any grown manchild’s cry is, yearning for recognition and love but feeling he is incapable of receiving it. Ahlers’ Happy is endearing and charming in a standout portrayal, I haven’t seen before. Still carrying the American Dream to “make it” after seeing what happened to his brother and father, we note his denial like Linda’s, as the inevitable comes and brings her a terrible freedom.
Death of a Salesman runs 2 hours, 50 minutes with one intermission at the Winter Garden Theater through August 9, 2026. salesmanbroadway.com.
‘Titus Andronicus’ Patrick Page is Mesmerizing, Heartbreaking, Over-the-top
William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus comes with a warning label about the bloodshed and violence in this profound, incredibly acted Off-Broadway production at Pershing Square Signature Center. As I was watching the visceral, gut-wrenching performances of Patrick Page’s Titus Andronicus and Olivia Reis’ portrayal as Lavinia, Andronicus’ treacherously abused daughter, I thought of the brutal, unjustifiable bombing of women and children in Gaza, Israel. However, the difference of watching reports via screens from the safety of one’s sofa versus watching fictional live-action bloodshed onstage seems moot. One requires imagination to understand what is happening that media doesn’t show: the eviscerated bodies, the scattered arms and legs of blown up children. That horror compared to immersing oneself in stage acting with the well timed bursting of fake blood capsules during a fight or murder scene? Violence and murder are inhumane. Blood and gore in fictional drama loudly points to the heinous, triggering realities of war going on today.
Thus, the themes of William Shakespeare’s goriest tragedy are impactful. But one must understand that the result of Titus Andronicus‘ gore is tragic. Murder, treason, blood-lust, vengeance all turn the warriors’ swords against their own entrails. This is especially so when the ones maimed and brutalized are offspring the enemies leverage to emotionally annihilate their parents. There’s nothing like watching one’s future inheritance and legacy wiped out and being unable to find peace afterward. That is the ultimate tragedy in the magnificent Titus Andronicus produced by Red Bull Theater at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre. Titus Andronicus has been extended through May 3, 2026.
At the top of the play victorious, intrepid Roman general Titus Andronicus returns from the wars in triumph, but having paid a stiff price. During the battles he sacrificed three of his sons for Rome. However, he did succeed in bringing Rome the spoils of his win. Titus presents these captives to Rome: Tamora (Francesca Faridany) the Queen of Goths, her ambitious warrior/lover Aaron the Moor (McKinley Beelcher III), and her three sons played by Jesse Aaronson, Blair Baker, Adam Langdon. Their captivity in chains gives more light to shine Rome’s mighty, justified conquests.
During the Andronici family reunion which includes Titus, Titus’ Tribune sister Marcia (Enid Graham), his daughter Lavinia and his three living sons, played by Anthony Michal Martinez, Zack Lopez Roa and Anthony Michael Lopez, they perform burial rites. Additionally, a ritual of recompense is made of Goth blood for Andronici blood. Lucius (Anthony Michal Lopez) states, “Give us the proudest prisoner of the foe, that we may hew his limbs and sacrifice his flesh to these our fallen brothers.” It is an act to appease the deceased son’s spirits who were killed in the war with the Queen of the Goths, and to stop any “prodigies” from being visited upon the Andronicis.
If bloodletting is ever fair, the balance is that three were lost and the blood of one is the equivalent of three. This is a ritual always performed on the battlefield and to Tamora’s pleadings, Titus asks her to pardon him. His sons perform the ritual killing of Alarbus without rage, but as a tradition. One could argue this duty is more than fair, a viewpoint Titus holds, but Tamora does not.
In truth, Titus should have killed all those he captured, instead of just Tamora’s oldest, her firstborn son. Dismissive of Roman tradition, the Goth Queen sees this act as a gruesome provocation-killing her son in front of her. She is a Goth; she doesn’t “get” Roman traditions or values. She dispenses with the mercy Titus bestows on her, the Moor, and her sons by letting them live and roam free to do damage to Titus and his family. Titus’ mercy is a brutality from Tamora’s perspective. And Titus doesn’t remind her of the fact that she and the others live by his grace. In tragic blindness she refuses to acknowledge or see his act as just and a Roman tradition (I read the script’s stage directions about killing her son as ritual.). And Titus is completely blind to her ferocity and the possibility that she will get vengeance on him and his entire family when the opportunity arises. She has chosen not the way of life bestowed by Titus’s grace, but of vengeance, bloodshed and death. Tragically, blindly Titus lets down his guard and opens the door to Tamora’s hell with fate’s help.
In their blindness lies their downfall.
Most probably if Tamora had won, Titus and his sons would have been killed. We note in her future actions and those of Aaron, her lover, what she would have done. Humiliated, a captive in chains, a loser, she chooses to feel provoked by her eldest son’s sacrifice, not acknowledging the lives his blood saves. As they take her and the captives off, she rants, beats her breast and waits for a time of revenge saying, “I’ll find a day to massacre them all.”
Unfortunately, that day comes sooner than later. It is hastened by Titus’ choice not to be the Emperor of Rome, though the people want him, and though Lavinia’s betrothed Bassianus (Howard W. Overshown), Saturninus younger brother, supports him with his troops and followers. Why? Romans are not idiots. Saturninus, the late emperor’s eldest son is unlikable, silly, pompous and incompetent. They want Titus, but Saurninus, the child, protests, not caring about Rome, but caring about himself. In fact Titus would make the better leader proven by his track record of service, leadership competence and popularity. (The parallels with the US are staggering)
Titus makes his ultimate mistake not taking the emperor-ship, stating he is too old and that he wants to enjoy peace after forty years of wars. Titus persuades the people to accept Saturninus as the head of Rome. Under his rule, all hell breaks loose and chaos and violence are unleashed by this terrible decision. Mathew Amendt portrays Saturninus as an infantile, asinine, petulant fool easily duped by one who ends up with a ruling partner as unfit as he, but worse- the bloodthirsty Tamora. Not able to have Lavinia, though Titus suggests it to her, then relents when she says she is betrothed to Bassianus, Saturninus elevates the bloodthirsty Tamora to the throne as his queen. There, she is all about peace and unity. Titus doesn’t see her coming. Nor does he see coming her instrument of vengeance, the gleeful, sneaky Aaron who suggests rape, mutilation and torture for Lavinia to Tamora’s slothful sons. He also suggests a means of impunity so she will never confess the crimes nor bring about her own healing.
Jesse Berger’s staging works, though the tone of the tragedy shifts off its axis in Act II from sorrowful horror to an outrageous, sometimes weirdly comedic tone. In the last scene of Act I Page’s Titus experiences the full effects of Tamora’s trickery and the loss of two of his sons. When Page’s Andronicus beholds what the spirit of vengeance and hate have done to Lavinia, he is broken. With breathtaking, magnificent, touching grief, he cannot absorb what an anonymous “they” have done to his daughter. Reis’ pitiable cries at the heinous treatment during her violent struggle with the heartless Aaronson’s Chiron and Langdon’s Demetrius (both excellent) are symbolically representative. She is the archetype of women’s soul murder and it is clear why men use rape and mutilation as the defining weapon of war. In the scene Reis conveys what every woman in that position feels. Beyond words.
Page and Reis are incredible together. Page’s Titus slides into madness with laughter and screaming, the extreme emotions of a father unable to protect his daughter or help her. As the destroyed Lavinia, Reis’ cries in echoing response to stage father Page are shattering. One cannot help but weep for empathy at their loss of identity, beauty and valor.
Of course Act II is almost anticlimactic as we wait for the coming revenge on one who chooses vengeance and death rather than life and peace when she vows to “massacre them all.” In that, too, Tamora fails for Lucius lives to become emperor welcomed by both Romans and Goths alike with Tribune Marcia serving his mission of peace, ending the cycle of revenge. Belcher III’s is superb. As Aaron he speaks passionately to save the son birthed by Tamora who in humiliation gives up the Black child to be killed to hide her shame. The speech softens Aaron’s Iago-like wickedness as the engineer of Tamora’s revenge. His humanity extends to his innocent son, whom he forgives, as he wallows in despair and condemnation.
When Page’s Titus sits his guests down to dinner dressed in a chef’s hat and outfit grinning from ear to ear, he holds Tamora’s sons flesh pie. The laughter from the audience is a confusion of emotions: gladness that he is holding Tamora accountable with a just revenge; empathy that anyone would be driven to this. In fact laughter at serving up Tamora’s sons in a meat pie is all that is left of his sanity.
By this juncture Titus has released all his grief and sorrow. Life has become absurd. What’s left when nothing’s left? Page who worked on the script and did a masterful job sluicing it to crystal clarity reveals the descent of a noble individual who was better at fighting wars, than living in peace. His act of killing Lavinia is an act of mercy. If she could do it herself, she would. But the sons have chopped off her hands so she can’t reveal her abusers. Titus knows her yearning for death like he knows his own soul. He lovingly kills her ending her torment, which she will never get over in life, stripped of her identity and empowerment of words and actions, and cutting off any opportunity for her to heal.
Titus Andronicus runs a swift 2 hours through May 3, 2026 at the Pershing Square Signature Center.
redbulltheater.com.
‘Antigone (This Play I Read in High School)’ Review
Strong performances from the leads Celia Keenan-Bolger, Susannah Perkins and Tony Shalhoub lift up Anna Ziegler’s unbalanced, convoluted feminist revision of Sophocles’ masterpiece Antigone. An irony not to be overlooked is that Antigone is a tragedy about a profoundly heroic and powerful woman who overturns the rule of the patriarchy-her Uncle Creon’s leadership-and destroys it and its future by adhering to spiritual and moral laws rather than the state’s. Ziegler gives a nod to the inherent “feminism” in Antigone in her adaptation which must be lauded for her attempt. However, its execution and rearrangements fall far short of the original. Directed by Tyne Rafaeli, Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) runs at the Public Theater until April 5, 2026.
Zigler reconfigures Antigone through the lens of Keenan-Bolger’s unnamed “Chorus/Narrator.” The playwright uses modern, feminist issues to frame and review Antigone’s heroism by having the Chorus/Narrator create her own scenario of the play she knew from high school. In effect, she imagines the Antigone/Creon conflict in a winding plot that relates to the Chorus/Narrator’s womanhood and identity.
Finding she is pregnant at an older age, the Chorus/Narrator must decide if she should keep the child or get an abortion, given who she thinks she is. However, this straightforward question comes after we witness her shadow her version of Antigone (exiled Oedipus and deceased Jocasta’s rebellious daughter) calling her up during events in the Chorus/Narrator’s life. In effect she uses Antigone to surge power into her own life over the years and help her resolve her problematic relationship with her mother, who she believes didn’t love her. The process of revisiting her own reclamation of the Antigone/Creon conflict enables her to validate her identity and her choices, and establish the power of her voice which she does by the play’s conclusion.
Through the Chorus/Narrator’s lens Antigone is a hip teenager with cropped hair (designers Robert Pickens, Katie Gell), wearing a black leather jacket, loosely fitting top and red plaid skirt courtesy of Ever Chakartash’s costume design. All of the characters are in modern dress, save Ismene, Antigone’s sister, who the narrator “sees” in a smock dress which she wears during her own self-imposed isolation, while Antigone makes defiant decisions. The set design (David Zinn) is minimalist mostly defined by props, for example, a lectern when Creon speaks to the crowd, a security screener at the palace entrance, a settee for Ismene’s room and more.
In the narrator’s first scenario the wild and recalcitrant, Antigone carouses in a bar and ends up with a pickup instead of going to her Uncle Creon’s coronation. She hears he’s become a hard-line politician and to keep control has established many strict laws to create order out of a chaotic Thebes. One of his laws is the banning of abortions which gives rise to illegal abortionists in the back of bodegas. Antigone eventually visits one of these after discovering her pregnancy from her love relationship with Haemon, Creon’s son, her fiance whom she has cheated on.
Key to the Chorus/Narrator’s conflict with herself is establishing her own life and identity, so scenarios especially between Creon and Antigone that she envisions help her. In the second act Antigone confronts Creon about having the illegal abortion. She tells him her body is her own and her choices are her own. They are acts of freedom. She will not be ruled by state laws or Creon’s laws, but by herself. The fact that she asserts this because she believes she can and should is a revolutionary act. The Chorus/Narrator’s view of Antigone is an independent, autonomous being beyond any laws, speaking truth to power, brave and unafraid. Her ultimate power is in ending a pregnancy, another life, if she chooses.
Creon has no power over Antigone in this context, over her reproductive rights. Thus the Chorus/Narrator imagines a dynamic scene where Antigone illustrates her act of freedom and of owning her own body to Creon. Perkins’ Antigone disrobes and points to various injuries and scars only she knows about. Naked, in full possession of herself in front of Shalhoub’s Creon, we believe in the power and determination of Perkins’ Antigone. Only she can objectify her own body, if she so chooses. Perkins makes a meal of this scene and we can identify with her argument keeping in mind how long it took for women to get to this point which was overturned federally in Dobbs after women experienced the freedom to choose via Roe v Wade for 49 years.
Apart from this high-point and Shalhoub’s Creon’s impassioned speech justifying why she must apologize publicly for getting the abortion, the characters don’t resonate. In Sophocles’ Antigone/Creon conflict we feel the enormity of the stakes and the depths of Antigone’s despair which prompts her decision to disobey Creon and not let her brother’s spirit wander for eternity. Unfortunately, Ziegler’s Chorus/Narrator’s inner conflict is not fully explored with grist or emotion. This prevents us from engaging with her as we look through the Chorus/Narrator lens darkly and have difficulty completely identifying with her version of Antigone.
It is an irony that Tony Shalhoub’s Creon, so expertly acted, elevates Creon. We note his character loves his son, niece and family. Unlike the more brutal tyrannical Creon of Sophocles’ original, Shalhoub’s Creon delivers the most reasoned and believable argument for his actions. Shalhoub actually humanizes Creon. Antigone’s choice to end her pregnancy, apart from her action of naked self-possession, becomes reduced from the heroic, noble Antigone in the original play to that of a willful revolutionary who does what she wants not because of any other reason, but to assert her will against the state, because she can. She refuses to apologize but her revolutionary act of facing death is not realized in Creon’s death penalty. She bleeds out from the bad abortion, the meaning of her act diminished.
Unfortunately, Ziegler’s framing structure reduces the characters’ stakes and prevents the audience from being drawn into the plight of Keean-Bolger’s Chorus/Narrator or Perkins’ Antigone to care about what happens to them. This occurs despite the acting chops both women acutely display. The structure is at fault, not their performances.
Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) runs 2 hours15 minutes through April 5 at the Public Theater https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2526/antigone-this-play-i-read-in-high-school/
‘Chinese Republicans’ a Sardonic Look at Chinese Women and the Glass Ceiling
A cross section of how Chinese American women have fared in the corporate world is the engaging subject of Alex Lin’s ironic, humorous and ultimately devastating play Chinese Republicans. Directed by Chay Yew, the well-honed production examines personal sacrifice, identity conflicts, and nuanced discrimination (gender, age, cultural). Currently, Chinese Republicans runs at the Roundabout, Laura Pels Theare, Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre until April 5, 2026.
The playwright spins a complex dynamic about Chinese American corporate working women. Yew expertly unfolds the complications among four women of different generations, including one immigrant, working to get her citizenship. During meetings designed to encourage affinity but which actually stir resentments and competitiveness, each of the characters reveals the struggle they face to break the glass ceiling, competing against their less qualified male counterparts. Though the story is unfortunately all too familiar, Lin spikes the interactions with an original, darkly funny approach that resonates with currency.
The production takes off by introducing us to four female suits who work at various upper level positions at Friedman Wallace, as they gather for their “affinity luncheon,” where they meet once a month at a Chinese restaurant. We note ambition, assertiveness and edginess which might as readily be exhibited by any male power-player succeeding in a tough environment. However, these women must obviously work much harder for their success because of internal biases against them culturally as women, and especially as Chinese women. Lin and Yew dance artfully around this gender debility by focusing on cultural elements and details. This strengthens the irony and themes while instructing the audience on elements about the Chinese culture they may not know.
First and most preeminent with experience and knowledge to instruct the younger suits is Phyllis (Jodi Long). She holds little back and uses her irony as a weapon. Ellen, (Jennifer Ikeda), Phyllis’ mentee, has sacrificed having children for her position and plans on becoming partner. Iris (Jully Lee), an immigrant who speaks four dialects, chides the others, especially Ellen on their bad Mandarin and losing touch with their Chinese identity. Lastly, Katie (Anna Zavelson) is the youngest and newest member of the group. Confident and positive about her recent promotion, Katie enthusiastically intones she is excited about their “making a difference.” Then she proclaims, “Come on Asian queens.”
From this luncheon onward, Lin and Yew prove the difficulty for each of the characters to be “Asian queens” in their workplace or their personal lives. Mostly the scenes take place at the restaurant as neutral ground with the exception of the game show farce when Iris ironically shreds Ellen, Phyllis and Katie’s ambitions with irony as part of a fever dream turned nightmare. The side scene after Katie does a turn around and evolves into an advocate for unionizing Friedman Wallace is funny, as she stands in front of the building pumping up a labor rat while the others watch her from the conference room at Friedman Wallace in shock and horror.
How and why Katie reverts to an anti-Republican unionizer from “gun-ho” Asian queen Republican in all its glory involves the corrupt male culture of Friedman Wallace, to discriminatory street violence against Phyllis, to Iris’ immigration hell, to sexual harassment and much more. However, we learn a few twists and turns about each of the characters that add to our admiration of these highly competent women who have endured and suffered nobly, knowing in their bones that not only are the odds stacked against them to ever be at the top, they have strived and sacrificed to what end? A sea of regrets?
The ensemble is uniformly superior. Each portrays their characters with authenticity and a no holds barred approach. As a result the concluding revelations land with poignancy and a powerful kick. The double irony of the evolving meaning of being a Republican is tragic, considering the current face and brand of the MAGA party. Lin neatly slips this information about being Republican into Katie’s development from corporate martinet to human being with a conscience. It’s a reminder to history buffs and salient information for others that political labels are meaningless.
Chinese Republicans fires on all levels of theatricality and spectacle, adhering to Yew’s minimalist, unadorned vision for Lin’s play which focuses on character and themes. Wilson Chin (set design), Ania Yavich (costume design) and other creatives present an attractive backdrop which lends itself to disappearing so the actors are able to live onstage and emotionally, profoundly impact the audience.
https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2025-2026-season/chinese-republicans
‘The Baker’s Wife,’ Lovely, Poignant, Profound
It is easy to understand why the musical by Stephen Schwartz (music, lyrics) and Joseph Stein (book) after numerous reworkings and many performances since its premiere in 1976 has continued to gain a cult following. Despite never making it to Broadway, The Baker’s Wife has its growing fan club. This profound, beautiful and heartfelt production at Classic Stage Company directed by Gordon Greenberg will surely add to the fan club numbers after it closes its limited run on 21 December.
Based on the film, “La Femme du Boulanger” by Marcel Pagnol (1938), which adapted Jean Giono’s novella“Jean le Bleu,” The Baker’s Wife is set in a tiny Provençal village during the mid-1930s. The story follows the newly hired baker, Aimable (Scott Bakula), and his much younger wife, Geneviève (Oscar winner, Ariana De Bose). The townspeople who have been without a baker and fresh bread, croissants or pastries for months, hail the new couple with love when they finally arrive in rural Concorde. Ironically, bread and what it symbolically refers to is the only item upon which they readily agree.
If you have not been to France, you may not “get” the community’s orgasmic and funny ravings about Aimable’s fresh, luscious bread in the song “Bread.” A noteworthy fact is that French breads are free from preservatives, dyes, chemicals which the French ban, so you can taste the incredible difference. The importance of this superlative baker and his bread become the conceit upon which the musical tuns.
Schwartz’s gorgeously lyrical music and the parable-like simplicity of Stein’s book reaffirm the values of forgiveness, humility, community and graciousness as they relate to the story of Geneviève. She abandons her loving husband Aimable and runs away to have adventures with handsome, wild, young Dominique (Kevin William Paul), the Marquis’ chauffeur. When the devastated Aimable starts drinking and stops making bread, the townspeople agree they cannot allow Aimable to fall down on his job. The Marquis (Nathan Lee Graham), is more upset about losing Aimable’s bread than the car Domnique stole.
Casting off long held feuds and disagreements, they unite together and send out a search party to return Geneviève without judgment to Aimable, who has resolved to be alone. Meanwhile, Geneviève decides to leave Dominique who is hot-blooded but cold-hearted. In a serendipitous moment three of the villagers come upon Geneviève waiting to catch a bus to Marseilles. They gently encourage her to return to Concorde, affirming the town will not judge her.
She realizes she has nowhere to go and acknowledges her wrong-headed ways, acting like Pompom her cat who also ran off. Geneviève returns to Aimable for security, comfort and stability, and Pompom returns because she is hungry. Aimable feeds both, but scolds the cat for running after a stray tom cat in the moonlight. When he asks Pompom if she will run away again, DeBose quietly, meaningfully tells Bakula’s Aimable, she will not leave again. The understanding and connection returns metaphorically between them.
Director Gordon Greenberg’s dynamically staged and beautifully designed revival succeeds because of the exceptional Scott Bakula and perfect Ariana DeBose, who also dances balletically (choreography by Stephanie Klemons). DeBose’s singing is beyond gorgeous and Bakula’s Aimable resonates with pride and poignancy The superb ensemble evokes the community of the village which swirls its life around the central couple.
Greenberg’s acute, well-paced direction reveals an obvious appreciation and familiarity with The Baker’s Wife. Having directed two previous runs, one in New Jersey (2005), the other at The Menier Chocolate Factory in London (2024), Greenberg fashions this winning, immersive production with the cafe square spilling out into the CSC’s central space with the audience on three sides. The production offers the unique experience of cafe seating for audience members.
Jason Sherwood’s scenic design creates the atmosphere of the small village of Concorde with ivy draping the faux walls, suggesting the village’s quaint buildings. The baker’s boulanger on the ground floor at the back of the theater is in a two-story building with the second floor bedroom hidden by curtains with the ivy covered “Romeo and Juliet” balcony in front. The balcony features prominently as a device of romance, escape or union. From there DeBoise’s Geneviève stands dramatically while Kevin William Paul’s Dominique serenades her, pretending it is the baker’s talents he praises. From there DeBoise exquisitely sings “Meadowlark.”
Greenberg’s vision for the musical, the sterling leads and the excellent ensemble overcome the show’s flaws. The actors breathe life into the dated script and misogynistic jokes by integrating these as cultural aspects of the small French community of Concorde in the time before WW II. The community composed of idiosyncratic members show they can be disagreeable and divisive with each other. However, they come together when they attempt to find Geneviève and return her to Aimable to restore balance to their collective, with bread for their emotional and physical sustenance.
All of the wonderful work by ensemble members keep the musical pinging. Robert Cuccioli plays ironic husband Claude with Judy Kuhn as his wife Denise. They are the cafe owning, long married couple, who serve as the foils for the newly married Aimable and Geneviève. They provide humor with wise cracks about each other as the other townspeople chime in with their jokes and songs about annoying neighbors.
Like the other townspeople, who watch the events with the baker and his wife and learn about themselves, Claude and Denise realize the lust of their youth has morphed into love and great appreciation for each other in their middle age. Kuhn’s Denise opens and closes the production singing about the life and people of the village who gain a new perspective in the memorable signature song, “Chanson.”
The event with the baker and his wife stirs the townspeople to re-evaluate their former outlooks and biased attitudes. The women especially receive a boon from Geneviève’s actions. They toast to her while the men have gone on their search, leaving the women “without their instruction.” And for the first time Hortense (Sally Murphy), stands up to her dictatorial husband Barnaby (Manu Narayan) and leaves to visit a relative. She may never return. Clearly, the townspeople inch their way forward in getting along with each other, to “break bread” congenially as a result of an experience with “the baker and his wife,” that they will never forget.
The Baker’s Wife runs 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission at Classic Stage Company through Dec. 21st; classicstage.org.
Lesley Manville and Mark Strong are Mindblowing in ‘Oedipus’
Just imagine in our time, a leader with integrity and probity, who searches out the truth, no matter what the cost to himself and his family. In Robert Icke’s magnificent reworking of Sophocles’ Oedipus, currently at Studio 54 through February 8th, Mark Strong’s powerful, dynamically truthful Oedipus presents as such a man. Likewise, Lesley Manville’s lovely, winning Jocasta presents as his steely, supportive, adoring help-meet. Who wouldn’t embrace such a graceful couple as the finest representatives to govern a nation?
Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy, that defined the limits of the genre and imprinted on theatrical consciousness the idea that a tragic hero’s hubris causes his destruction, evokes timeless verities. In his updated version, Icke, who also directs, superbly aligns the characters and play’s elements with today’s political constructs. Icke retains the names of the ancient characters. This choice spurs our interest. How will he unravel Sophocles’ amazing Oedipus tragedy, especially the conclusion?
Cleverly, he presents Oedipus as a political campaigner of a fledgling movement that over a two-year period gains critical mass. The director reveals Oedipus’ backstory in a filmed speech to reporters on the eve of the election. The excellent video design is by Tal Yarden.
During his speech Oedipus goes off book and makes promises. Though his brother-in-law Creon (the fine John Carroll Lynch) tries to stop him, proudly Oedipus shows himself a man of his word. He galvanizes the crowd when he states he will expose the lies of his opponents. Not only will he reveal his birth certificate (an ironic reference to President Obama), he will investigate the mysterious death of Laius. The former leader from decades ago married Jocasta when she was a teenager. After Laius’ death, Oedipus meets and marries Jocasta despite their age difference. Over the years they raise three children: Antigone (Olivia Reis), Eteocles (Jordan Scowen) and Polyneices (James Wilbraham).
How has Oedipus become the people’s candidate? Without ties to the political system, he speaks a message of reform and justice. Indeed, he will override the corrupt, derelict power structure. Former leaders served their rich donors and let the other classes suffer. Oedipus runs on a mandate of equity and change.
After Oedipus’ speech, the curtain opens to reveal the campaign headquarters that staff gradually dismantles as the campaign phase ends. To signify the next phase the countdown clock, placed conspicuously in scenic designer Hildegard Bechtler’s headquarters, ticks away the seconds down to the announcement of the winner. As the clock ticks toward zero (an ironic symbol), the contents of the campaign war room are removed like the peeling of an onion to its core. As the destined announcement of the winner nears, gradually, the revelation of Oedipus’ true identity happens. Icke has synchronized both concurrently.
Icke’s anointed idea to shape Oedipus as a newbie politician, whose actions and words are singularly unified in honesty, resonates. He represents the iconic head of state we all yearn for and believe in, forgetting leaders are flesh and blood. Of course Icke’s flawed tragic hero, like Sophocles’ ancient one, results in Oedipus’ prideful search for the truth of his origin story and Laius’ cause of death.
Oedipus’s determination is spurred by the cultist future-teller Teiresias (the superb Samuel Brewer). His authoritative and relentless drive to prove Teiresias wrong, despite warnings from Creon and Jocasta, shows persistence and courage, positive leadership qualities. On the other hand, Oedipus doesn’t realize his search has a dark side and his persistence is stubbornness prompted by a prideful ego. This stubbornness causes his destruction. His pride leaves no way out for him but punishment.
Because the truth is so horrid, Strong’s Oedipus can’t suffer himself to cover it up. In searching to validate his true self, he discovers the flawed human that Teiresias proclaims. Indeed, he is more flawed than most. He is lurid; a man who killed his father, married his mother, and had three children born out of love, lust and incest. He can never be the leader of the nation. He must hold himself accountable after he sees his debased true self. How Mark Strong effects Oedipus’ self-punishment is symbolic genius. Clues to Jocasta’s end are sneakily tucked in earlier.
Because of Icke’s acute shepherding of the actors, and the illustrious performances of Manville, Strong and Brewer, with the cast’s assistance, we feel the impact of this tragedy. The love relationship between Jocasta and Oedipus, drawn with two passionate scenes by Manville and Strong, especially the last scene, after they acknowledge who they are with one, long, silent look, devastates and convicts.
Those who know the story feel a confluence of emotions at the irony of mother and son lustily loving and pursuing their desire for each other off stage, while Oedipus delays speaking to his mother Merope (Anne Reid). Manville and Strong are extraordinary. Both actors convey the beauty, the wildness, the uniqueness and enjoyment of their characters’ love, that is unlike any other.
In the last scene when Strong and Manville untangle from their hot grip, clinging to each other then letting go, they acknowledge their characters’ unfathomable and great loss. Manville’s Jocasta crawls away to reconcile the enormity of what she has done. In her physical act of crawling then getting up, we note that fate and their choices have diminished their majestic grace. Their sexual likeness to animals, Oedipus ironically referenced earlier with family at the celebration dinner. Through the physical staging of the final sexual scene, Icke recalls Oedipus’ earlier comparison.
As a meta-theme of his version Icke reminds us of the importance of humility. The more humanity presents its “greatness,” the more it reveals its base nature.
All the more tragedy for Oedipus’ supporters and the unnamed country. Because fate catches up with him and conspires with him to cut off his acceptance of the position he rightfully won, the nation loses. All the more sorrow that the truth and his honest search is what Oedipus prizes, even more than his love for Manville’s Jocasta, the brilliant, equivalent match for Strong’s Oedipus.
Rather than live covertly hiding their actions, both Oedipus and Jocasta hold themselves accountable with a fatalistic strength and nobility. Initially, we learn of her strength as Jocassta tells Oedipus about her experience with the evil Laius (a reference to current political pedophiles and rapists). We see her strength in her self-punishment. Likewise, Oedipus’ strength compels him to face his deeds where cowards would cover up the truth, step into the position and govern autocratically censoring and/or killing their opponents who would “spill the beans.” Oedipus is not such a man. It is an irony that he is a moral leader, but is unfit to lead.
Icke’s masterwork and Manville and Strong’s performances will be remembered in this great production, filled with ironic dialogue about sight, vision, blindness and comments that allude to Oedipus and Jocasta’s incestuous relationship and downfall. Those familiar with the tragedy will get lines like Jocasta’s teasing Oedipus, “You’ll be the death of me,” and her telling people she has four children: “two at 20, one at 23, and one at 52.”
Though I prefer Icke’s ending in darkness with the loud cheers of the supporters, I “get” why Icke ends Oedipus in a flashback. In the very last scene the date is 2023, the beginning of the end. We watch the excited Oedipus and Jocasta choose the rented space (the stripped stage) for their campaign headquarters. The time and place mark their disastrous decision which spools out to their destruction two years later. I groaned with Jocasta’s ironic comment, “It feels like home.”
Her comment resonates like a bomb blast. If Oedipus had not had the vision of himself as the ideal, righteous leader with truth at his core, the place where they are “at home” never would have been selected. Oedipus, a humble mortal, never would have run for high office.
Oedipus runs 2 hours with no intermission at Studio 54 though February 8. oedipustheplay.com.
‘Ragtime’ is Magnificent and of Incredible Moment
Between the time Lear DeBessonet’s Ragtime graced New York City Center with its Gala Production in 2024, until now with the opening of DeBessonet’s revival at Lincoln Center, our country has gone through a sea change. The very core of its values which uphold equal justice, civil rights and due process are under siege. Because our democratic processes are being shaken by the current political administration, there isn’t a better time to revisit this musical about American dreamers. Ragtime currently runs at the Vivian Beaumont Theater until January 4.
DeBessonet has kept most of the same cast as in the City Center Production. The performers represent three families from different socioeconomic classes. In each instance, they face the dawning of the 20th century with hope to maintain or secure “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” in a country whose declaration asserted independence from its king. In affirming “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all ‘men’ are created equal,” America’s promises to itself are fulfilled by its citizens. Ragtime reveals who these citizens may be as they strive toward such promised freedoms.
Above all Ragtime is about America, the saga of a glorious and terrible America, striving to manifest its ideals and live up to them, despite overarching forces that would slow down and halt the process.
Based on E. L. Doctorow’s classic 1975 historical novel, and adapted for the stage by Terrence McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music), and Lynn Ahrens, (lyrics), Ragtime‘s immutable verities are heartfelt and real. As such, it’s a consummate American musical. DeBessonet’s production celebrates this, and superbly presents the beauty, tragedy and hope of what America means to us. In its concluding songs (Coalhouse’s “Make Them Hear You,” and the company’s “Ragtime/Wheels of a Dream”), the performers express a poignant yearning. Sadly, their choral pleading is a stunning and painful reminder of how far we have yet to go to thoroughly uphold our constitution.
The opening number “Ragtime,” introduces the setting, characters and suggested themes. Here, DeBessonet’s vision is in full bloom, from the lovely period costumes by Linda Cho, David Korins’ minimally stylized scenic design, DeBessonet’s staging, and Ellenore Scott’s choreography. As the company sings with thrilling power and grace, they gradually move forward to take center stage. They are one unit of glorious interwoven diversity and destiny. The audience’s applause in reaction to the soaring music and stunning visual and aural presentation, heightened by a bare stage, emotionally charged the performers. Thematically, the cast had an important mandate to share, a cathartic revelation of the sanctity of American values, now on the brink of destruction.
Watching the unfolding of events we cheer for characters like the talented Harlem pianist and composer of ragtime music, Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (the phenomenal Joshua Henry). And we identify with the ingenious, Jewish immigrant Tateh (the endearing Brandon Uranowitz). Tateh must succeed for the sake of his little daughter (Tabitha Lawing), despite their impoverished Latvian background. Likewise, we champion Mother (the superb Caissie Levy), who reveals her decency, kindness and skill, running the house, family and business. She must fill in the gap while her husband (Colin Donnell), goes on a lengthy expedition to the North Pole as a man of the privileged, upper class patriarchy.
The musical also reflects the other side of America’s blood-soaked history, best represented by characters along a continuum. Their misogyny, discrimination and greed often overwhelm, victimize and institutionalize innocents in the name of a just progress. These include tycoons like J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, and the garden variety racists that brutalize Coalhouse Jr. and his partner Sarah (the fine Nichelle Lewis), in the name of order and security. Finally, to inspire all, the musical includes wily entrepreneurs like Harry Houdini (Rodd Cyrus), social justice advocates like Emma Goldman (the wonderful Shaina Taub), and accepted reformers like Booker T. Washington (John Clay III). All these individuals make up the living fabric of America.
At its most revelatory, Ragtime exposes elements of our present as the continuation of entrenched issues never resolved from our past. Despite our great strides in nuclear fission and quantum computing, retrograde darkness still lurks in the nation’s beating heart, in its violence, in its human rights inequities. Clear-eyed, incisive, DeBessonet’s spare choices about spectacle and design, and her focus on great acting and singing by the leads and ensemble, ground this masterwork.
Ragtime begins with an interesting unexplained entrance: a winsome and beautiful Black male child in period dress frolics across a bare stage. At the conclusion the circle comes to a close and he appears again. We discover who he is and what he symbolizes in a stark, crystallizing moment of elucidation. After the opening number (“Ragtime”), Mother’s adventure as head of her household begins when Father leaves (“Goodbye My Love”). Her helpers include her outspoken, prescient, son Edgar (Nick Barrington), her younger brother (Ben Levi Ross), and her opinionated, crotchety father (Tom Nelis).
However, the peace and serenity of their lives become interrupted when Mother discovers an abandoned baby in her garden. After much deliberation, Mother takes in the infant and traumatized mother, Sarah. Clearly, this startling act of redemption never would have occurred if Father was present. As an assertion of Mother’s right to make her own decisions, her grace becomes a turning point in the lives of the baby’s father, Coalhouse, and his love, Sarah. Apparently, Coalhhouse left Sarah to travel for his career, not knowing she was pregnant. He was pursing his dream of being a singer/composer of the new ragtime music.
By he time Coalhouse searches for Sarah to eventually find and woo her back to him, we note the tribulations of Tateh, who tries to survive using his artistic skills (like Harry Houdini). And we note the moguls of a corrupted capitalism, i.e. Ford, Morgan (“Success”), who Emma Goldman accuses of exploitation. They keep the workers and society oppressed and poor.
Using his charm and daily persistence (“he Courtship,” “New Music,”), Coalhouse wins Sarah back. In a dramatic, dynamic moment, Henry’s Coalhouse sings with emotion, “Sarah, come down to me.” When Lewis’ Sarah descends, their fulfillment together is paradise. The stunning scene like the ones that follow, i.e. “New Music,” and especially Henry and Lewis’ “Wheels of a Dream,” where Coalhouse and Sarah sing to their son about America, are hopeful and heartbreaking. Again, the audience stopped the show with applause and cheers as they periodically did throughout the production.
On the wave of Coalhouse and Sarah’s togetherness and love reunited, we forget the underbelly of a dark America that looms around the corner. It does appears during Father’s reunion with Mother after his lengthy voyage.
Unhappily, Father returns to a household in chaos with Sarah, Coalhouse and the baby under his roof. He can’t imagine what “got into” his wife and makes demeaning remarks about the baby. His conservative, un-Christian-like attitude upsets Mother. She defends her position and replies with demure, feminine instruction. Interestingly, her comment indicates she will not heel to him like the good lap dog she was before he left. As with the other leads, Levy’s performance is unforgettable in its specificity, nuance and authenticity.
Clearly, the characters have made inroads with each other bringing socioeconomic classes together during events when activists like Emma Goldman and Booker T. Washington make their mark and reaffirm equality. As a representative of the wave of immigrants coming to America from other teeming shores, Uranowitz’s Tateh steals our hearts and pings our consciences, thanks to his human, loving portrayal. Despite his bitterness in having to brace against the poverty he came to escape, he tries to overcome his circumstances and with ingenuity and pluck continually perseveres. Uranowitz’s Tateh particularly makes us consider the current government’s cruel, unconstitutional response toward migrants and immigrants today.
Act II answers the conflicts presented in Act I, leaving us with a troubling expose of our country’s heart of darkness. Yet, the musical uplifts bright halos of hope with the return of the adorable Black male child. We discover who he is and understand his mythic symbolism. Also, we learn the fate of the characters, some justly deserved. And the audience leaves remembering the cries of “Bravo” that resounded in their ears for this mind-blowing production.
Ragtime
With music direction by James Moore Ragtime runs 2 hours 45 minutes with one intermission through Jan. 4 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater lct.org.
‘The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire,’ Anne Washburn’s Challenging, Original Play
Known for its maverick, innovative productions, the Vineyard Theatre seems the perfect venue for Anne Washburn’s world premiere, The Burning Cauldron of Firey Fire. Poetic, mysterious and engaging, Washburn places characters together who represent individuals in a Northern California commune. When we meet these individuals, they have carved out their own living space in their own definition of “off the grid.” Comprised of adults and children, their intention is to escape the indecent cultural brutality of a corrupt American society, where solid values have been drained of meaning.
Coming in at 2 hours, 5 minutes with one 15 minute intermission, the actors are spot-on and the puppetry engages. However, the play sometimes confuses with director Steve Cosson’s opaque dramatization of Washburn’s use of metaphor, poetry and song. More clearly presented in the script’s stage directions, the production doesn’t always theatricalize Washburn’s intent. Certainly, the themes would resonate, if the director had made more nuanced, specific choices.
The plot about characters who confront death in their commune in Northern California unfolds with the stylized, minimal set design by Andrew Boyce, heavily dependent on props to convey a barn, a kitchen and more. The intriguing lighting design by Amith Chandrashaker suggests the beauty of the surrounding hills and mountains of the north country where the commune makes its home.
The ensemble of eight adult actors takes on the roles of 10 adults and 8 children. Because the structure is free-flowing with no specific clarification of setting (time), it takes a while to distinguish between the adults and children, who interchange roles as some children play the parts of adults. The scenes which focus on the children (for example at the pigpen) more easily indicate the age difference.
The conflict begins after the members of the commune burn a fellow member’s body on a funeral pyre to honor him. Through their discussion, we divine that Peter, who joined their commune nine months before, has committed suicide, but hasn’t left a note. Rather than to contact the police and involve the “state,” they justify to themselves that Peter wouldn’t have wanted outside involvement. Certainly, they don’t want the police investigating their commune, relationships and living arrangements which Washburn reveals as part of the mysterious circumstances of this unbounded, “bondage-free,” spiritual community.
Nevertheless, Peter’s death has created questions which they must confront as tensions about his death mount. Should they reburn his body which requires the heat of a crematorium to reduce it to ashes? After the memorial fire, they decide to bury him in an unmarked grave, which must be at a depth so that animals cannot dig up his carcass. Additionally, if they keep any of Peter’s belongings, which ones and why? If someone contacts them, for example Peter’s mother, what story do they tell her in a unity of agreement? Finally, how do they deal with the children who are upset at Peter’s disappearance?
We question why they feel compelled to lie about Peter’s disappearance, rather than tell the truth to the authorities or Peter’s mom, even if they can receive her calls on an old rotary phone. Thomas, infuriated after he speaks to Peter’s mom who does call, tells her Peter left with no forwarding address. After he hangs up, Thomas (Bruce McKenzie) self-righteously goes on a rant that he will tear down the phone lines.
When Mari (Marianne Rendon) suggests they need the phone for emergency services, he counters. “Can anyone give me a compelling argument for a situation in which this object is likely to protect us from death because let me remind you that if that is its responsibility we have a recent example of it failing at just that.”
Indeed, the tension between commune members Thomas, Mari, Simon (Jeff Biehl), Gracie (Cricket Brown) and Diana (Donnetta Lavinia Grays) becomes acute with the threat of outside interference destabilizing their peaceful, bucolic arrangements. Washburn, through various discussions, brings a slow burn of anxiety that displaces the unity of the members as they work to hide the truth. What begins at the top of the play as they burn the body in a memorial ceremony that allows Thomas and the group to take philosophical flights of fancy, augments their stress as they avoid looking at hard circumstances.
Fantasy and reality clash also In the well-wrought scene where the actors portray the children moving the piglet they believe is Peter when it reacts to Peter’s belongings, specifically, a poem it chews on. Convinced Peter has been reincarnated and is with them, they take the piglet staunching their upset at Peter’s death by reclaiming and renaming the piglet as the rescued Peter. Rather than to have explained what happened, the commune members allow the children to believe another convenient lie.
This particularly well-wrought, centrally staged scene of the children in the pigsty works to explicate the behavior of the commune members. They don’t confront Peter’s death and don’t allow the children to either. The actors captivate as they become the children who relate to the invisible mom Lula and her piglets with excitement, concern and hope. It is one of the highpoints of the production because in its dramatization, we understand the faults of the commune. Also, we understand by extension a key theme of the play. Rather than confronting the worst parts of their own inhumanity, people close themselves off, escape and make up their own fictional worlds.
Washburn reveals the contradictions of this commune who parse out their ideals and justify their actions “living away from society.” Yet they cannot commit to this approach completely because of the extremism required to disconnect from civilization. As it is, they have a car, they do mail runs and sometimes shop at grocery stores. At best their living arrangement is as they agree to define it and as Washburn implies, half-formed and by degrees runs along a continuum of pretension and posturing.
The issues about Peter’s death come to a climax when Will (Tom Pecinka), Peter’s brother, shows up to investigate what happened to Peter. Washburn ratchets up the suspense, fantastical elements and ironies. Through Will we discover that Peter was an estranged, trust-fund baby who will inherit a lot of money from his grandmother who is now dying. Ironically, we note that Mari who claims she had an affair with Peter and dumped him (the reason why he “left”), is willing to have sex with Will. They close out a scene with a passionate kiss. Certainly, Will has been derailed from suspecting this group of anything sinister.
Also, Will is thrown off their lies when he watches a fairy-tale-like playlet, supposedly created by Peter and the children that is designed to lull the watcher with fanciful entertainment.
In the fairy tale a cruel king (the comical and spot-on Donnetta Lavinia Grays), prevents his princess daughter (Cricket Brown) from marrying her true love (Bartley Booz), also named Peter. The bad king thwarts Peter from winning challenges to gain the princess’ love. Included in the scenarios are puppets by Monkey Boys Productions, special effects (Steve Cuiffo consulting), the burning cauldron of fiery flames with playful fire fishes proving the flames can’t be all that bad, and a beautiful, malevolent, dangerous-looking dragon who threatens.
Once again creatives (Boyce, Chandrashaker and Emily Rebholz’s costumes) and the actors make the scene work. The clever, make-shift, DIY cauldron, puppets and dragon allow us to suspend our judgment and willingly believe because of the comical aspect and inherent messages underneath the fairy-tale plot. Especially in the last scene when Peter (the poignant Tom Pecinka), cries out in pain then makes his final decision, we feel the impact of the terrible, the beautiful, the mighty. Thomas used these words to characterize Peter’s death and their memorial funeral pyre to him at the play’s outset. At the conclusion the play comes full circle.
Washburn leaves the audience feeling the uncertainties of what they witnessed with a group of individuals eager to make their own meaning, regardless of whether it reflects reality or the truth. The questions abound, and confusion never quite settles into clarity. We must divine the meaning of what we’ve witnessed.
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire runs 2 hours 5 minutes with one 15-minute intermission at Vineyard Theatre until December 7 in its first extension. https://vineyardtheatre.org/showsevents/
‘Anemone’ @NYFF Brings Daniel Day-Lewis’ Sensational Return
Supporting his son Ronan Day-Lewis’ direction in a collaborative writing effort, Daniel Day-Lewis comes out of his 8-year retirement to present a bravura performance in Anemone. The film, his son’s directing debut, screened as a World Premier in the Spotlight section of the 63rd NYFF.
Ronan Day-Lewis’ feature resonates with power. First, the eye-popping natural landscapes captured by Ben Fordesman’s cinematography stun with their heightened visual imagery. Secondly, the striking, archetypal symbols illuminate redemptive themes. Day-Lewis uses them to suggest sacrifice, faith and love conquer the nihilistic evils visited upon Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis) and ultimately his entire family.
Finally, the emotionally powerful, acute performances, especially by Daniel Day-Lewis’ Ray and Sean Bean’s Jem, help to create riveting and memorable cinema.
The title of the film derives from the anemone flower’s symbolic, varied meanings. For example, one iteration relates to Greek mythology in the story of Aphrodite, whose mourning tears, shed after her lover Adonis’ death and loss, fell on the ground and blossomed into anemones. Also referenced as “windflowers,” anemone petals open in spring and are scattered on the wind. Possibly representing purity, innocence, honesty and new beginnings, the film’s white anemones grow abundantly in the woodland setting where reclusive Ray makes his home in a Northern England forest.
In a rustic, simplistic hermit-like retreat Ray lives in self-isolation, alienated from his family. Then one day, his brother Jem, prompted by his wife Nessa (Samantha Morton), mysteriously arrives. The director focuses on the action of his arrival withholding identities. Gradually through the dialogue and the rough interactions, heavy with paced, long silences, we discover answers to the mysteries of the estranged family. Furthermore, we learn the characters’ tragic underpinnings caused by searing events from the past. Finally we understand their motivations and close bonds despite the estrangement. By the conclusion family restoration and reconciliation begins.
Unspooling the backstory slowly, the director requires the audience’s patience. Selectively, he releases Ray’s emotional outbursts. These reveal his decades long internal conflict with himself, for not standing up to the perpetrators of his victimization. Neither Jem nor Nessa (Samantha Morton), Ray’s former girlfriend who Jem married after Ray abandoned her and their son, know his secrets. However, the slow revelations of abuse spill out of Ray, as Jem lives with him and endures his ill treatment and rage.
Each brief teasing out of pain-laced information that Jay spews impacts Jem. Because Jem receives strength and understanding from his faith, he puts up with Ray. Indeed, the various segments of Jay’s story seem structured as turning points. Each moves us deeper into Jay’s soul and Jem’s acceptance. Cleverly, by listening to his brother and encouraging him to speak, Jem breaks down Ray’s resistance.
Ray and Jem’s emotional releases trigger and manipulate each other. Once set off, the revelations full of anguish and subtext fall in slow motion like dominoes. Then, climactic sequences augment to an explosive series of events. One, a treacherous wind and hail storm, represents the subterranean rage and turmoil which all of the characters must expurgate before they can heal and come together.
Jay particularly suffered and needs healing. Throughout his life the patriarchal institutions he trusted betrayed and abused him. From his home life (his father), to the church (a cleric), and the military (his immediate superiors), emotional blows attack his soul and psyche. Also, the military makes an example of him. Not only was the abuse unjustified and misunderstood, the perpetrators covered it up and forced his silence. The cruel, forced complicity makes his life a misery in a perpetuating cycle of guilt and shame.
As a result, because Jay’s self-loathing pushes him deeper within his pain, he can’t discuss what happened with his family or anyone else. Of course, he refuses to get help in therapy. Instead, he escapes into nature for solace and peace. The society’s corruptions and his family’s still embracing the institutions that abused him stoke his anger and enmity.
Neglecting his brother Jem, Nessa and his son Brian, who is grown and needs him, Jay perpetrates a psychological violence on them. None of them understand Jay’s abandonment. Sadly, Ray’s absence and rejection shape Brian’s life. Embittered and violent, he endangers himself and others.
How Day-Lewis achieves Ray’s epiphany through Jem’s love occurs in an indirect line of storytelling, through Ray’s monologues and the edgy dialogue between Jem and Ray. By alternating scenes of Nessa and Brian in the city with the brothers in the forest, we realize that time is of the essence. Jem must convince Ray to return to their home to make amends with his son Brian as soon as possible because of a looming threat.
Ultimately, the slow movement in the beginning dialogue could have been speeded up with a trimming of the silences. However, Day-Lewis purposes the quiet between the brothers for a reason whether critics or audience members “get it” or not. The silences reveal an other-worldly, telepathic bond between the brothers. Likewise, on another level Ray’s son Brian connects with his father spiritually, though they are miles away. The director underscores this through Nessa who understands both father and son need each other. Nessa encourages Jem to bring Ray home to Brian. Day-Lewis also uses symbolic visual imagery to suggest the spiritual bond between father and son.
In Anemone, the themes run deep, as the filmmakers explore how love covers a multitude of hurts and wrongdoings. Anemone releases in wider expansion on October 10th in select theaters. For its 63rd New York Film Festival announcement go to https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/films/anemone/
CAROLE DI TOSTI 