OPEN THROAT
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
July 10-14, $25, 8:30
littleisland.org
“I’ve never eaten a person but today I might,” the narrator states at the beginning of Henry Hoke’s award-winning 2023 novel, Open Throat. “I wake up in the thicket to the sound of whipcracks and look out and see a bulky man in a brown leather jacket and brown hat swinging the whip toward two other people a man and a woman / the woman holds a phone up and says you look just like him oh my god / the man with the whip smiles and cracks it again and I feel something in the bottom of my stomach that’s not hunger / I also feel hunger.”
The narrative unfolds in stream-of-consciousness verse in short paragraphs with no punctuation and only the pronoun I capitalized throughout.
Hoke, whose other books include The Groundhog Forever and The Book of Endless Sleepovers, has now adapted Open Throat into a play that will premiere July 10-14 at the Amph on Little Island. The story follows a queer mountain lion who must leave his home in the hills by the Hollywood sign and face what humanity is doing to the planet.
Directed by Caitlin Ryan O’Connell (King Philip’s Head Is Still on That Pike Just Down the Road, Twin Size Beds), the play features a promising cast; Marinda Anderson, Alex Hernandez, Layla Khoshnoudi, Ryan King, Jo Lampert, Chris Perfetti, Susannah Perkins, Calvin Leon Smith, and Steven Wendt, who also designed the shadow puppets.
The piece was commissioned for the outdoor Amph on Little Island, which rests on the edge of the Hudson River amid trees, so the location should fit right in. The choreography is by Lisa Fagan, with set, props, and masks by Noah Mease, lighting by 2024 special Drama Desk Award winner Isabella Byrd, and sound and music by Michael Costagliola. Tickets are only $25 and gain you access to specific sections.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]