Revival of Yasmina Reza’s The Unexpected Man runs February 16-25 at IATI Theater (photo by Marina Levitskaya)
THE UNEXPECTED MAN
IATI Theater
64 East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
February 16-25, $49.87
www.eventbrite.ca
“I’m prepared to risk any kind of adventure with you,” Martha imagines telling Paul in French playwright Yasmina Reza’s The Unexpected Man. Martha then imagines Paul responding, “Come on, Martha, life is short.”
STEPS Theatre and Art Against Humanity are presenting a unique revival of the show February 16-25 at IATI Theater in the East Village, starring Roman Freud as the man and Mickey Pantano as the woman. As the play opens, they are sitting in the same train compartment, going from Paris to Frankfurt; Martha recognizes Paul as the author of the novel she is reading, The Unexpected Man, but she hesitates to take it out of her purse and read it right in front of him, believing it would be insensitive. Over the course of ninety minutes, they deliver internal monologues about their lives.
“Can never sleep on a train. Hard enough in bed, let alone on a train. Strange this woman never reads anything,” he wonders to himself.
“I like traveling. As soon as I set foot in Frankfurt, I shall be another person: the one who arrives is always another person, And so it is that one progresses, from one person to another, until it’s all over,” she explains to herself.
Their “conversation” touches on a wide range of topics, from art and religion to friendship and ex-lax. As the train approaches its destination, so does their connection.
The Unexpected Man debuted in England in 1998, starring Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon. Two and a half years later, Christopher Hampton’s translation ran at the McGinn/Cazale Theater, with Atkins and Alan Bates, earning a slew of award nominations.
This new version is directed by Slava Stepnov (White on White; Enemies, A Love Story) and produced by Polina Belkina, with set and costumes by Arcady Kotler and Elina Kotler. Reza’s previous works include two Tony winners for Best Play, Art and God of Carnage.
“Today I was thinking about what The Unexpected Man and Yasmina Reza brought to my life,” Freud recently posted on social media. “One of the huge accomplishments of this play is that so many characters are left outside the main storyline — friends, lovers, spouses, critics, writers, kids. They are mentioned frequently throughout the play, which creates a crowded feeling, as if you’re in the presence of many people, some invented on the spot, some already dead. The play has a cast of probably twenty people, reflected by only two storytellers. All those offstage characters live and breathe in the play. Also, The Unexpected Man — the book in the heroine’s purse. After my first reading of the play, this imaginary book became a point of obsession for me.”
The play runs for ten performances; tickets are $49.87.
“Did I write what I wanted to write? No, never. I wrote what I was capable of writing, not what I wanted to,” Paul says, encapsulating the human experience. “All you ever do is what you’re capable of.”
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]