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‘We’ll See’ the Latest Apple Family Play with Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders
We’ll See is the next Apple Family play by writer and director Richard Nelson. The intimate drama unfolds in real time on the eve of the midterms on November 3, 2026. This World Premiere adds to the Apple Family Plays, now a series of 13 plays by Nelson, part of his Rhinebeck Panorama, that embraces three different families who live in the historic Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck, N.Y. With all forgiven among family members the next installment feels like a reunion for those familiar with the Apple Family. This latest work in the series, which Nelson has written over the last 16 years, like the other plays, is a Public Theater presentation. Currently, it runs until November 29, 2026.
What does one do waiting for the results of perhaps the most crucial election for civil rights in a constitutionally democratic nation? Indeed, it’s a nation whose many citizens rally and march in “No Kings Protests” to stop the fascist, authoritarian felon in the White House from criminalizing every section of the government, via a complicit, treasonous, Republican House and Senate.
On election night does one turn on a live podcast, or check one’s phone to follow the results and sustain the horror of an easy win as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson assures? Does one join others at a local Democratic headquarters watching and hoping, with the thought that, regardless of outcome, they must continue to organize against the nation’s “divider-in-chief” who will continue to proclaim his mandate of tyranny because of “massive” support from his racist, uncivil supporters? Because of the possibility of another “red” win, even citizens of democratic nations globally fear for the US, because of the results of the 2024 election. Unfortunately, that election’s popular vote overwhelmingly favored the “leader” of hate, bigotry, undemocratic ideals and sexual perversion.
Or does one turn to like-minded family to affirm the principles of democratic decency and equality? Does one seek community and love over a family dinner celebrating hope for a national electoral overthrow of the criminal cabal of politicians. Such politicians support the looting, killing and vitiating of the 14th amendment. Shouldn’t such a family seek comfort from each other to escape from the barrage of “news” about an unfit, disqualified, insurrectionist leader whose voice makes them physically sick enough to vomit?
For the above reasons the Apple family chooses unity and each other’s company on this night of nights for uplifting conversation and conviviality with a few caveats. They will not discuss politics or rail against the voluminous list of traitorous constitutional violations of “he” and “they,” the despised party members. Also, the Apples’ will not honor any of them by name, especially “him.” Second, they will rally around inspirational topics. And, they will discuss their own lives and feelings about their current, personal situations. Additionally, they will not look at their phones, turn on the radio, or TV to check the election results.
During the first fifteen minutes of the play in the conversation about a migrant celebration of Thanksgiving, sisters Barbara (Maryann Plunkett) and Marian (Laila Robins) sing a historical song (“Emigrant’s Lament”), once sung by the Hutchinson family singers. From then on we know who they are and what they value. Throughout, we note the nuanced themes which Nelson cleverly works in with understatement. In fact the “given” for the Apple family gathering on this night is that they see their lives and the lives of citizens and migrants alike in imminent danger from the current government. Clearly, they oppose actions that “he” and his party have traitorously undertaken in a rejection of traditional American democratic ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. For them “he” is a clear and present danger.
Interestingly, Nelson also makes their views manifest through the pauses and what they agree not to talk about. Thus, we understand their profound sorrow about what “he” has done to the United States and what citizens like themselves have allowed “him” to do inadvertently. Because citizens have not effectively stopped or removed him for all time, that has placed them in their own personal, moral conflagration.
For after all, evil flourishes when “good” people do nothing. Therefore, if they presume to “see” themselves as good, then what are they? Who are they for allowing hateful criminals to “lead” the country, kidnap migrants off the streets to fulfill ICE agents’ quotas, and fill up bank accounts of detention centers’ owners? Barbara in particular refers to an incident that occurred in the park. Of course the Thanksgiving celebration for her ESL students must be quietly done without publicity because migrants will be there.
Thus, on this night will their one, voice one vote count for something? All of these ideas prevail throughout We’ll See, and some of the siblings, for example, the youngest, Jane (Sally Murphy), in quieter moments, ask questions about their own and by extension their family’s American identity as Marian refers to what “he” has made them become.
Maryann Plunkett’s Barbara, the eldest Apple sibling, hosts the dinner with Marian (Laila Robins) who lives with her. The dinner includes Jane and brother Richard (Jay O. Sanders) who leaves to pick up his actress girlfriend Yvonne Winters (Yvonne Woods). Through key junctures, Barbara, a 74-year-old English teacher encouraged to retire by the principal, a former student who didn’t align with her, leads the conversation. For example, she gives the opening and closing statements of the play. Not only does she recite poems which relate to the plays themes, she discusses various incidents in her classes with students.
As a result, all of the others chime in with a familiar camaraderie creating an intimate, slowly-paced, relaxed atmosphere. During the evening they share personal stories, tell lame jokes, tease one another, make wisecracks or compliments about each other, relate interesting philosophical anecdotes, discuss Rhinebeck history, and much more. Yvonne discusses the healing aspect of theater, relating a pointed incident with an autistic child.
Every now and then they discuss other family members not present, i.e. how Tim, Jane’s husband, changed his voting site (from Rhinebeck to Brooklyn where they also live), and how he is covering for another actor in a play. Incidentally, Jane brings up her dislike of Rhinebeck’s change of voting site from the wonderful, historic Town Hall to a retirement facility, a point that strikes a nerve because she and Richard work on a project about Rhinebeck’s history. Ironically, her dislike about the change segues to her real dislike, the Democrats, for not caring to change things that relate to her life. She infers their complicity with the majority party. And at some point she finally admits she didn’t vote. With understanding, Barbara chides her a few times that she should have. Perhaps, she would feel less depressed, more hopeful.
Obviously the four siblings and Yvonne care deeply about the American experiment and live their lives to uphold it, if the government does not. Clearly, listening to this group of artists, teachers and lawyers (Richard) one feels a part, encouraged by the atmospheric dinner (the food is real), the incredible ensemble work, the direction, and the creative team supporting Nelson’s vision. Jason Ardizzone-West’s minimal and domestic set, Susan Hilferty’s homely costume design complete the portrait of a family that represents thinking citizens. Though we may not have such a family, we long for their community and empathize with it. Seeing the play after the midterm results, Barbara’s parting words, “We’ll See,” directed to three audience members (the audience is on three sides in the Barbaralee theater), are an ongoing meme for the country’s uncertain future.
We’ll See runs 110 minutes with no intermission at the Public, extended until November 29, 2026 https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2627/well-see/
Elevator Repair Service’s ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce, a Review
Elevator Repair Service became renowned when they presented Gatz, a verbatim six hour production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby at the Public, as part of the Under the Radar Festival in 2006. Since their remarkable Gatz outing, they have followed up with other memorable presentations. It would appear they have outdone themselves with their prodigious effort in their New York City premiere of James Joyce’s opaque, complicated novel Ulysses. The near three-hour production directed by John Collins with co-direction and dramaturgy by Scott Shepherd, currently runs at The Public Theater until March 1, 2026.
At the top of the play Scott Shepherd introduces the play with smiling affability and grace. He directly addresses the audience, reminding them that “not much happens in Ulysses, apart from everything you can possibly imagine,” and that it happens in the span of a day beginning precisely at 8 a.m,, Thursday June 16, 1904 in Dublin, Ireland. Before Shepherd dons the character Buck Mulligan who appears at the beginning of the novel, he discusses that in the “spirit of confusion and controversy” (labels by critics), Joyce’s day in the life of three characters will be read with cuts in the text. Elevator Repair Service elected to remove Joyce’s text to redeem the time. The cuts are indicated by the cast “fast forwarding” over the narrative.
Collins and the creative team cleverly effect this “fast forwarding” with gyrating, shaking movement and action. Ben Williams’ design replicates the sound of a tape spinning forward. To anyone who may be following along with their own copy of the novel, the “fast forward” segments are humorous and telling. However, the cuts pare away some of the details and depths of character Joyce thought vital to include in his parallel of Dublin figures with the most important characters of the Odyssey: home returning hero Odysseus, long-suffering wife, Penelope, and warrior son, Telemachus.
After Shepherd’s introduction, Ulysses moves from a sedentary reading with multiple actors into a fully staged and costumed production as it progresses through the day’s events principally following Stephen Dedalus (Chisopher-Rashee Sevenson), who represents Telemachus, Leopold Bloom (Vin Knight), as Odysseus, and Molly Bloom (Maggie Hoffman) as Penelope.
The events illuminate these characters, and the cast superbly theatricalizes the novel’s humor, whimsy and farce. Some scenes more successfully realize Joyce’s playfulness and wit better than others. For example when Bloom decides to go to another pub after seeing the sloppy, gluttonous patrons of the first bar, the cast revels in portraying the slovenly, grotesque Dubliners. slobbering over their food. Additionally, the scene where Bloom faces his deepest anxieties shows Knight’s Bloom giving birth to “eight male yellow and white children.” Director Collins hysterically stages Bloom’s “labor” with Knight in the birthing position, legs apart, as Shepherd “catches” eight baby dolls he then throws to the attending cast members.
As costumes and props are added to the staging, we understand Leopold Bloom’s persecution as an outsider and a Jew. Also, wee note Stephen Dedalus as the writer/poet outsider who eventually joins Bloom, a father figure, who Bloom takes home for a time until Dedalus leaves to wander the night alone. Chistopher-Rashee Stevenson portrays the young Dedalus, a teacher whose unworthy friends lead him to drink and misdirection. Dedalus grieves his recently deceased mother and toward the end of the play has a nightmare visitation by her frightening, judgmental ghost.
For those familiar with the novel, the cast becomes outsized in rendering the various Dubliners that Knight’s Bloom and Stevenson’s Dedalus encounter. The dramatization is ultimately entertaining. We identify with Bloom as an Everyman, an anti-hero, who tries to get through the day in peace, while dismissing the knowledge that his wife Molly cuckolds him. Though he hasn’t been intimate with her since their baby Rudy died, he is unsettled that she conducts an affair with Blazes Boylan in their marriage bed at home. Somehow, Bloom has discovered that Molly who is a singer will be meeting with Boylan at 4 p.m. that afternoon. On his journey through the day he avoids confronting Boylan as they carry on with their activities around Dublin.
The ironic anti-parallel to the Odyssey, on the one hand, is that Molly Bloom is far from a Penelope who physically remained loyal to Odysseus, where Molly has an affair. On the other hand, late at night as Bloom sleeps with his feet awkwardly next to her face, we understand that Molly still loves Bloom and is emotionally and intellectually loyal. In her stream of consciousness monologue, seductively delivered by Maggie Hoffman, Molly arouses herself with memories of her relationship with Bloom when they were first together. It was then that she transferred a seed-cake from her mouth to his, sensually expressing her love.
Collins’s staging of the scene is humorous and profound. It defines why Molly has been present in Bloom’s consciousness throughout his strange journey traversing the streets of Dublin until he eventually finds his way home to her bed later that evening.
For those unfamiliar with Joyce’s novel, they will find the events and people a muddled hodgepodge that clarifies then becomes opaque, like a light switch turning on and off. Characters swap places with each other as seven actors take on numerous parts in a sometimes confusing array. Only Bloom, Dedalus and Molly stand out, true to Joyce’s vision for Ulysses for they embody Joyce’s themes about life. Thus, Bloom and Dedalus move through the day with flashes of brilliance, revelation, connection, irony and dread. Their reactions interest us. And Molly Bloom in her ending monologue puts a capstone on the vitality and beauty of a women’s perspective, as she experiences the sensuality and power of love for Bloom through reminiscence.
The costume design by Enver Chakartash reflects the time period with a fanciful modernist flourish that gives humor and depth to the personalities of the characters. For example Blazes Boylan (Scott Shepard) who has the affair with Molly wears a straw hat, outrageous wig and light suit that aligns with his jaunty gait. The scenic design by DOTS is minimalist and functional as is Marika Kent’s lighting design and Mathew Deinhart’s projection design. Most outstanding is Ben Williams’ acute, specific sound design which brings the scenes to life and follows the text adding fun and delight.
By the conclusion the audience is spent following the challenge of recognizing Joyce’s Dublin and the three unusual intellectuals and artists who he chooses to explore. Elevator Repair Service has elucidated the novel beyond what one might endeavor to understand reading it on one’s own. Importantly, they’ve made Ulysses an experience to marvel at and question.
Ulysses runs 2 hours 45 minutes with one intermission at the Public Theater through March 1, 2026. https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2526/ulysses
‘The Ally,’ Terrific Performances of a Trenchant Play at the Public
The Ally, written by Itamar Moses (The Band’s Visit), and directed by Lila Neugebauer (The Waverly Gallery), currently runs in a World Premiere at the Public Theater until March 24th. Moses’ two act play that is largely polemical raises important and controversial questions in its two hours and thirty-five minutes. It is thought-provoking, historically informative and profound, and has great currency in light of the Netanyahu government’s war against Hamas. Though the play was written before the October 7th attack, the issues couldn’t be more on-point.
The Ally is short on dramatic tension, and long on terrific performances. The exceptional actors passionately argue about Black and Brown people struggling to achieve human rights in countries (Israel, the United States, etc.), which have their foundations in oppressive, white, patriarchal colonialism. Though the prejudices and discrimination have been called out and strides have been made, often the countries obfuscate justice, and in defensive mode, redirect their institutions, practices and social constructs away from equanimity, foregoing humanity, compassion and empathy to abuse those they subjugate.
To present the arguments and make a case with little resolution, Neugebauer’s vision offers a spare stage and few props to evoke the setting in a professor’s home and office on a University campus which represents a bastion of learning, where allegedly every viewpoint may be expressed without censure, to promote enlightened civil discourse and benefit the social good of the community. Moses’ protagonist on the field of intellectual battle is liberal Jewish professor Asaf (the excellent Josh Radnor).
Asaf’s Korean-American wife Gwen (Joy Osmanski), has been hired to give a positive spin on land the University is developing that was formerly used for housing in a lower middle class, Black area. The land has been appropriated, though the University has assured that it will provide housing units to compensate for the dwellings that have been demolished. How the situation evolved, we discover later, is fraught with rumors about underhanded tactics the University used to create circumstances beneficial to University expansion, while dismissing the interests of the Black community.
The main conflict begins when Asaf’s former student Baron (Elijah Jones), who is Black, feels encouraged asking Asaf to sign a social justice manifesto that involves his cousin Deronte, who was killed by police unjustly for a theft Deronte didn’t commit. After agreeing to sign once he looks over the twenty-page manifesto, Asaf realizes that the documented is personally sensitive to him in what it demands.
First, it aligns the history of violence against Black Americans to the violence against oppressed Black and Brown people who have been colonized globally and suffer under inhuman conditions. Additionally, the manifesto targets a controversial subject for Asaf, an American, who doesn’t identify culturally with Israel, though he was born there. The manifesto demands that sanctions be placed on Israel for its nihilistic treatment of Palestinians, resulting in an apartheid state. In clear terms it pronounces that a “failure to do so will leave the United States complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Though he is Jewish, essentially, Asaf is an atheist. But he thoughtfully considers what he is signing, and questions the words “apartheid” and “genocide” as extreme, unrelated positions, though he feels that Baron’s cause is just. Helping support Baron holds no contentions for him, initially. The apparent police brutality in killing Deronte is one more example of murderous racism and the blue wall of silence that fronts against such horrific injustice in a country with a long history of slavery and oppression of Black and Brown peoples.
Gwen tells Asaf’ that his signing the manifesto will undergird her position as a university administrator pushing for expansive development of university housing into the Black community. If he refuses to support Baron it will appear that he cannot align with fighting injustice and it most probably will add to the negative spin already brewing about the expansion project which the Black community is resisting.
It is after Asaf signs the manifesto that problems arise which disastrously make him the “man in the middle” among activist organizations with conflicting agendas which demand that he support and be an “ally” with their specific causes and positions. The situation embroils him deeper in conflict with his conscience and beliefs and forces him to deeply question allegiances he would forge with others on campus, impacting his reputation.
Two organizations confront him after he signs Baron’s manifesto. Jewish representative (Madeline Weinstein), and Palestinian representative (Michael Khalid Karadsheh), ask Asaf to support their bringing a controversial speaker to campus. They tell him that the speaker argues for a revisionist history of Israel’s foundational and follow-up wars. Contrary to the standard view that Israel was defending itself, the speaker posits that the wars were fought ferociously for one reason: “the likely outcome was more territory.”
To his credit to give all opinions a place in civil discourse, Asaf discusses the nature of the support they want, but questions why they want this particular speaker. Additionally, with a follow-up which indicates that activist organizations are noting who is importuning Asaf, another oppositional individual shows up to challenge Asaf. Reuven Fisher (Ben Rosenfield), a religious Jewish graduate student attacks Asaf’s arguments and the others that we’ve previously heard. Fisher defends Israel ‘s position with the Palestinians.
Interspersed among those who have backed Asaf into a corner, Nakia Clark (Cherise Boothe), confronts him about his questioning the fact that Israel is the one expected to ameliorate its position and is always used as a “whipping boy,” when it is the only place historically where Jews can find safe on their home turf.
As we listen to their wrangling, we take into account that Nakia and Asaf have history together. Once a couple who dated, Nakia shepherded Asaf in community social justice, inspiring him to go with her on marches, and schooling him in protest as she strengthened her role as a Black community organizer. Now, years later, she challenges him once more to step up and not renege on his support of the manifesto which Nakia, herself, wrote.
Where is Asaf’s place in these arguments when the university community knows the stand he wished to take that he now equivocates about taking? Moses uses the character of Asaf as a canvas upon which to project all the viewpoints in the arguments about Israel, Palestine, Black discrimination and colonial oppression. The playwright proves knowledgeable and informative, especially in recounting the conflicts in the history of Israel starting from its inception in 1948 and its wars against the PLO and the complicated rise of Hamas which didn’t happen in a vacuum but was allowed by an extremist government to its own benefit, not necessarily to create equity and harmony with the Christians, Jews and Muslims who make Israel their home.
However, as has occurred since divisions created an untenable situation between Zionists, Palestinians, Muslims, Christians and Jews when Israel was formed in 1948 and worsened up to the present war in Gaza, there is only the horrific struggle. Moses indicates the lessons in why with his exploration of the reasons in The Ally. Thus, how can there be a positive resolution in this work? All is uncertain, with even more passionate feelings on all sides we’ve heard presented.
And of course, Asaf now has issues with each of the groups because of his lack of certainty; thus, his reputation has received a hit. Even Gwen is annoyed that his equivocation has bounced back to impact her project. Only more questions remain.
However, Moses and Neugebauer have pulled a rabbit out of a hat with this production which focuses the audience on the arguments which make them understandable and relatable, especially because the ensemble is just brilliant. Importantly, we have been shown the intricacies of intense debate which, if continued will eventually lead to the possibility of a positive resolution. Thus, we are left with the feeling that there must be an open dialogue during which responsible individuals listen to each other and again and again hash out some consensus, as impossible as that seems..
This is one to see because of its overall coherence, incredible performances and fine direction. Neugebauer stages the debate amongst the stakeholders, so we thrillingly follow every word. Could there have been edits? Perhaps. However, Moses has built solidly and any removal of the bricks in his structure will lessen the impact overall.
Kudos to the creative team who effect the director and playwright’s vision. These include Lael Jellinek (scenic design), Sarita Fellows (costume design) Reza Behjat (lighting design) Bray Poor (sound design).
The Ally runs 2 hours 35 minutes at the Public until March 24th. https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2324/the-ally/
