All in Play
Capping an unusually gay year for New York theatre, I take a look at what many consider to be the first gay play (“The Boys in the Band”) and what might be the newest gay play (“Log Cabin”). Catch the former if you can (tickets are scarce and expensive); skip the latter.
Two new plays that trenchantly tackle experiences of African American men across the present and history of our country opened Off-Broadway last week. Both “Pass Over” and “Sugar in Our Wounds” floored me for different reasons; though distinct in content and message, they are united in a common theme of black erasure. This is a look at each, both of which I highly recommend.
Joshua Harmon’s new play, “Skintight” at Roundabout Theatre Company, entertainingly surveys the ways in which our notions of beauty and age shape and shade all our relationships. Idina Menzel makes a rare stage play appearance in a role tailor made for her talent, but this play offers little resolution, only more questions, and a steady stream of laughs—enjoyable, but largely forgettable.
Elevator Repair Service’s “Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf” by Kate Scelsa is self-styled “fan fiction” parody response to Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, lovingly skewering the latter with a sometimes absurdist literary, dramaturgical, and feminist critique. The ambition is admirable and the result mixed, though entertaining.
“Dan Cody’s Yacht” is a new play by Anthony Giardina that tackles contemporary issues of privilege, mobility, inequality, and education through an implausible, plot-hole ridden story with an irredeemable leading character and disgraceful ideological point of view. Skip it.
“Peace for Mary Frances”, a new play by Lily Thorne, receives a world premiere production by The New Group starring Lois Smith as a fading matriarch of a very dysfunctional family, waiting to die in home hospice. Hyper-realistic, brimming with both tedium and spasmodic explosions of family feuds, death isn’t always the most compelling experience to observe, but that turns out to be the point.
Susan Stroman, John Kander, and David Thompson continue their thirty year collaboration with “The Beast in the Jungle”, a “dance play” inspired by Henry James’ 1903 novella. The dancing and music is beautiful to watch and hear, but the piece is dramatically unfulfilling, its more cryptic source material diminished in the course of fleshing out, crystallizing, and modernizing the story.
Hook & Eye Theater’s fourth collaborative play “She-She-She” examines the experience and legacy of New Deal-era She-She-She campers and their contemporary descendants, set against a larger dialogue about female agency, grief, trauma, and isolation. While this witty, playful, and heartfelt show has closed, be sure to put Hook & Eye Theater on your radar.
Dominique Morisseau completes her “Detroit Cycle” with “Paradise Blue”, a tail-end jazz-age noir tale about the cost of history and bigotry through the lens of Detroit’s racist city planning in the late 1940s. Expertly written in the vein of August Wilson and Tennessee Williams, rivetingly staged by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and finely acted by a terrific ensemble, this play is another triumphant entry by Ms. Morisseau, and a “must see” of the spring season.
“Dance Nation” at Playwrights Horizons is Clare Barron’s explosive and raw look at a ragtag troupe of 11-to-13 year-old competitive dancers as they discover their bodies, their power, and their ambition amid the glorious horror of adolescence. Both messy and explicit, this hilarious and unsettling new play is refreshingly weird and thrillingly honest, featuring an excellent ensemble cast and perfect direction. Catch this one if you can.
The 2017-2018 Broadway season comes to a close with three play revivals: an excellent, energetic production of “The Iceman Cometh” with Denzel Washington; a perfunctory and pageant-like production of “Saint Joan” starring Condola Rashad; and an absolutely ravishing London transfer of Tom Stoppard’s brilliant “Travesties”, starring Tom Hollander.
Marin Ireland gives a ravishing performance in a first-rate revival of Tennessee Williams’ rarely seen “Summer and Smoke”, jointly produced by Classic Stage Company and Transport Group. This lyrical, low-rent Southern Gothic tragedy is stripped to its bones by director Jack Cummings, III, allowing the actors to shine uninhibited and deliver riveting and magnetic performances. This play is a highlight of the spring season in New York, and should not be missed.
