A three-person choir (Grace McLean, Suzzy Roche, and Nina Ross) has important information to share with Meek (Alana Raquel Bowers) and Smooch (Will Cobbs) in Cold War Choir Practice (photo by Maria Baranova)
COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE
Newman Mills Theater
Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space
511 West Fifty-Second St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 5, $35-$85
mcctheater.org
Ro Reddick dreams up a red Christmas in her Susan Smith Blackburn Prize–winning fresh, delightfully dark comedy Cold War Choir Practice. Afsoon Pajoufar’s set, a Roll-a-Rama in Syracuse in December 1987, is bathed in red, Brenda Abbandandolo’s costumes of the three-person choir are red, the holiday lights and neon sign are red, the program is red, even the Christmas tree is red.
Better red than dead?
Meek (Alana Raquel Bowers) is a forward-thinking ten-year-old girl in a choir with three grown women (Grace McLean, Suzzy Roche, and Nina Ross) who sing such lyrics as “Reaganomics, / cold war, Soviets, supply-side, Wellspring, / nuclear war, eighty-seven, armageddon! / Merry merry merry merry merry merry! Ah!”
For Christmas, Meek, who helps her father, Smooch (Will Cobbs), at the roller disco he owns and operates, wants “a pound puppy, a Speak & Spell, and a nuclear radiation detector.” Smooch, struggling to keep the business out of the red, is not concerned with geopolitics as much as just getting by every day. He tells the audience, “You think I ain’t notice Meek the only one of us up in this little choir? PSSHHH up in here beggin’: ‘Mister president, please. Please, mister president’ — what kind of song is that? You need to be tellin that muhfuckr: ‘We want freedom. We want employment. We want education’ — That’s three lyrics right there, got seven more ready to go.”
Smooch’s mother, Puddin (Lizan Mitchell), hangs around the rink, sharing her thoughts with the choir about the state of the world while focusing on finances. “Y’all might wanna find something more positive to sing. And no. I do not have any money, so don’t even fix ya mouth to ask,” she says. “You gon’ be charging folks, you need to put a little more effort into them lyrics — and don’t fall on that ice! I know ya mama don’t got good insurance — I seen her car. Don’t nothin’ get past Puddin — see now you got me lettin’ all the heat out.”
Smooch’s estranged brother, Clay (Andy Lucien), a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who recently denigrated the family in the New York Times, calls unexpectedly, telling Puddin that is being ushered to Washington for an important meeting and needs to drop off his wife, Virgie (Crystal Finn), to stay with the family while he’s away. Virgie is in a kind of daze; Clay and Virgie believed she was at a Wellspring Women’s Optimization Workshop, but it turned out to be a Russian indoctrination camp, although neither of them knows that. Smooch doesn’t want to do any favors for Clay and Virgie, but Clay trumpets his importance at being needed at a secret treaty meeting, for which he is carrying critical classified documents in his briefcase that Virgie has been programmed to steal.
Meanwhile, Meek gets a Soviet pen pal through the choir leader (Ellen Winter, who is also the Roll-a-Rama DJ), who sends her a Speak & Spell that teaches her the Russian words for “revolution” and “government official” and apparently comes with a spy (Ross) who tells the girl, “I have a friend, a very good friend. She wants to meet you. She will tell you what it is you can do for Mother Russia. And if you agree, you will come and live in peace in Ural Mountains with your family.”
The plot unfurls with such choir songs as “Milkshake for Peace,” “Lay Down Your Arms,” and “One America,” interspersed with news reports and quotes from Ronald Reagan (“In the Communist world, we see failure.” “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”) as the choir prepares for a holiday concert — which will be exactly twenty-eight minutes, since it takes thirty minutes for a Soviet long-range ICBM to reach America — and the battle over the briefcase gets serious.
Meek (Alana Raquel Bowers) gets more than just a Speak & Spell for Christmas (photo by Maria Baranova)
A coproduction from MCC, Clubbed Thumb, and Page 73, Cold War Choir Practice was inspired by Reddick’s childhood, when she was in a children’s choir that sang about nuclear war and world peace. The play became her thesis at Brown and has been extended at the Newman Mills Theater through April 5.
Directed with a sharp edge and incisive humor by Tony nominee Knud Adams (English), Cold War Choir Practice is an involving, intriguing, and thoroughly enjoyable ninety-five minutes that feel as relevant as ever, considering what is happening right now with the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, and other nations. The play is one of several current or recent shows staring down the face of communism from the 1980s to today, including Mother Russia, Chess, and Seagull: True Story.
Bowers (Chicken & Biscuits), who is in her early thirties, is a genuine delight as Meek, an intelligent, if innocent, young girl who is cheerful even as she worries about the future. When Virgie thinks that Meek is more concerned with nuclear proliferation than school, Meek says, “After armageddon there won’t be any schools. Our toys will be the bones of the dead, slick with blood and warm with radiation.”
Finn (Deep Blue Sound) has a field day as Virgie, an at-times catatonic woman who has lost control of her mind. Cobbs (Is This a Room) and Lucien (The Last Seder) excel as the very different battling brothers, Smooch ready, willing, and able to fight for his rights, Clay satisfied to be in the room where it happens.
McLean (Suffs), Roche (the Roches, the Wooster Group), and Ross (To Kill a Mockingbird) are fun and bouncy as the choir, which serves as a kind of Greek chorus, with a fine if underused Winter (The Beastiary) as their leader. And Mitchell (On Sugarland) takes over every scene she’s in as the lovable Puddin, who pulls no punches, saying whatever is on her mind.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may not exactly be Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, but nuclear war is back in the discussion and it’s getting uglier by the day; thank goodness we have such shows as Cold War Choir Practice to let us see it through the eyes of a child.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]