Dave Malloy’s Three Houses takes place inside a magical nightclub (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
THREE HOUSES
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday-Sunday through June 16, $59-$115
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org
In Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, composer, writer, performer, and orchestrator Dave Malloy took audiences inside one section of Leo Tolstoy’s epic 1867 novel, War and Peace. In Octet, he invited everyone into an intimate meeting of internet addicts. In his latest work, Three Houses, he welcomes visitors to an open-mic night where the children’s fable “The Three Little Pigs” is reimagined as an adult parable about emerging from the pandemic, with the Big Bad Wolf salivating at the door.
In the “Pleasure Principle versus Reality Principle” chapter of his 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim writes, “‘The Three Little Pigs’ teaches the nursery age child in a most enjoyable and dramatic form that we must not be lazy and take things easy, for if we do, we may perish. Intelligent planning and foresight combined with hard labor will make us victorious over even our most ferocious enemy — the wolf!”
The dots collective has turned the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at the Signature Center into a dark, cozy nightclub with the audience sitting on three sides. In the back is a bar on a raised platform, surrounded by framed pictures, animal heads mounted on a wall, and other homey objects. A small chamber orchestra plays at the four corners of the floor: conductor Mona Seyed-Bolorforosh on piano and organ, Yuko Naito-Gotay on violin, Blair Hamrick on French horn, and Maria Bella Jeffers on cello. Wolf (Scott Stangland) makes the drinks and runs the open mic; two waiters (Henry Stram and Ching Valdes-Aran) serve the customers, each of whom will get their chance to share their personal saga in long, dramatic songs, taking them back to the houses, seen in projections behind the bar, where they stayed when the world closed down.
Susan (Margo Seibert) recounts her escape to her grandmother’s house in the Latvian woods, Sadie (Mia Pak) moves to her aunt’s adobe home outside Taos, and Beckett (J. D. Mollison) finds a tiny studio basement apartment in a red brick building in Brooklyn. Each song begins with a similar opening, first by Susan: “during the pandemic, / when the lockdown hit, / i had just separated from my husband / and i had fled to the baltics. / i was alone in a new home: / my grandmama’s giant ranch house / in the middle of a white forest in latvia. / so this is the story / of how i went a little bit crazy / living alone in the pandemic.” Sadie goes a little bit crazy with an online game, Beckett with online ordering, hearkening back to the obsessions in Octet.
As one of them sings, the other two sit at their tables and watch, participate, or dance. At several points, all three sing in unison: “declining social and professional opportunities / with a vague whisper of retreat and interiority: / i’m in a quiet place right now”; “99.4% of the population / wiped clean. / burn it all down, / start anew”; and “that’s death out there!”
They find ways to occupy their time: organizing bookshelves, drinking wine, playing video games, engaging in physical activity, developing rituals to fight loneliness, and encountering their grandparents (Stram and Valdes-Aran) in flashbacks. Each of the protagonists is accompanied by one of James Ortiz’s puppets: Susan’s is a slinking Latvian household dragon named Pookie (voiced and operated by Pak), Sadie’s a cushy badger named Zippy (voiced and operated by Mollison), and Beckett’s a giant marionette spider named Shelob (voiced and operated by Seibert) after the Lord of the Rings creature.
It all comes to a head when Wolf starts knocking at Beckett’s door, representative not just of covid but of the scary world outside, pandemic or not. Shelob lays it out: “the wolf slowly circled, / devising various schemes / to try to get in and devour beckett whole.”
Beckett (J. D. Mollison), Susan (Margo Seibert), and Sadie (Mia Pak) share their pandemic stories in Signature Theatre world premiere (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
In “Pleasure Principle versus Reality Principle,” Dr. Bettelheim also writes, “The story of the three pigs suggests a transformation in which much pleasure is retained, because now satisfaction is sought with true respect for the demands of reality.” In their third collaboration, following Octet and Ghost Quartet, Malloy and director and choreographer Annie Tippe blend fact and fiction, fantasy and reality as three human beings struggle to survive in an apocalyptic scenario. Alone with their memories, they are desperate for connection but terrified of where that may lead. “look, we need access, buddy!” the Wolf shouts at Beckett through a locked door; Beckett responds, “go away go away go away!”
The hundred-minute Three Houses is filled with pleasure. Haydee Zelideth’s costumes, particularly Susan’s gorgeous green dress, are nightclub-chic, while one of the Wolf’s sweaters is a true delight. Christopher Bowser’s pinpoint lighting moves with a compelling rhythm that matches Nick Kourtides’s enveloping sound. Or Matias’s music direction and supervision of Malloy’s lovely score is beautifully lush and visceral.
Mezzos Seibert (Octet, The Thanksgiving Play) and Pak (Suffs, In the Green) bring an infectious warmth to Malloy’s doomsday lyrics, while baritone Mollison (Octet, Iphigenia 2.0) serves as an exceptional anchor, not unlike the third little pig. Stangland (Cyrano, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812) is temptingly charming as the hirsute Wolf, who, in case you didn’t know, has ulterior motives. Stram (The Elephant Man, The Hairy Ape) and Valdes-Aran (Aying, Mother Courage) provide fine support in multiple roles.
There might not be any “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin” or “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in,” but there are still morals to be found in this adult fairy tale, starting with the need for courage enough to venture outside, especially to see such dazzling works as Three Houses.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]