live performance

ALL IN THE TELLING: SAUL RUBINEK AT THE MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE

Saul Rubinek will be at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for two very special, deeply personal evenings

Who: Saul Rubinek, Annette Insdorf, Caroline Aaron
What: “All in the Telling — a somewhat true story”
Where: Museum of Jewish Heritage, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
When: Wednesday, March 25, and Thursday, March 26, $18, 7:30
Why: Last fall, Genie Award winner Saul Rubinek brought his one-man show, Playing Shylock, a melding of the Bard’s Merchant of Venice and Rubinek’s own life, to the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Fort Greene. The Jewish Canadian Rubinek, who was born in a German refugee camp in 1948 and later raised in Canada — and whose parents were Holocaust survivors — is now coming to Manhattan to present two special evenings at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. On March 25 and 26, he will perform excerpts from and sign copies of his new novel, All in the Telling: a somewhat true story (Redwood, $24.99), described as “a true story of miraculous survival, a murder mystery, an operatic family drama, and undying romance,” inspired by his parents’ real-life experiences.

The reading will be accompanied by clips from his 1987 documentary, So Many Miracles, in which Rubinek takes his mother and father back to Poland to reunite with the farmers who hid them during the Holocaust. The first night will be followed by a conversation with Columbia University School of the Arts film professor Annette Insdorf (Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust), while the second night will conclude with a discussion with actress Caroline Aaron (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Between the Temples). Rubinek, who has starred in such films as Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, Tony Scott’s True Romance, and Ralph L. Thomas’s Ticket to Heaven, is a master storyteller who knows how to command an audience, so these programs promise to be memorable events.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TAKING ACTION TO SAVE DEMOCRACY: ART AT A TIME LIKE THIS SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Janet Biggs, Mary Lucier, Shaun Leonardo, Marka27, Pablo Helguera
What: Public art campaign benefit for Art at a Time Like This
Where: Cristin Tierney Gallery, 49 Walker St.
When: Thursday, March 27, minimum donation $150 ($75 for artists), 6:00 – 9:00
Why: Only a few days into the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, independent curator and author Barbara Pollack and artist agent Anne Verhallen took action, starting the nonprofit Art at a Time Like This (ATLT), dedicated to the idea that “art can make a difference and that artists and curators can be thought-leaders, envisioning alternative futures for humanity.” Art at a Time Like This has presented two dozen online and in-person exhibitions and programs since then, including “Dangerous Art, Endangered Artists,” “Rupture: Interventions of Possibility,” and “Don’t Look Now: A Defense of Free Expression.”

On March 27, ATLT will be celebrating its sixth anniversary, at the Cristin Tierney Gallery on Walker St., with a three-hour evening of cocktails, conversation, and a call to action, featuring four impressive speakers: artists Janet Biggs, Mary Lucier, Shaun Leonardo, and Marka27, with Pablo Helguera serving as moderator. The event is hosted by Leonardo Bravo, Andy Cushman, Helina Metaferia, Marilyn Minter, Gina Nanni, Megan Noh, Eric Shiner, and Cristin Tierney.

“At the very beginning of a worldwide pandemic, we asked a simple question: How can you think of art at a time like this?” Pollack tells twi-ny. “The question is now more relevant than ever, which presents both a tragedy and an opportunity for creative solutions.”

The next creative solution for ATLT is the exhibition “Take One Action,” which the organization considers “an antidote” for what is happening around the globe today. All artists are invited to submit one artwork, along with a suggested action to help protect and preserve our democracy — with an eye toward the midterm elections. Select contributions will be printed and wheatpasted across the city and/or appear in an ever-growing digital exhibit.

“Barbara and Anne responded to the pandemic with amazing speed, care, and inclusiveness by asking a question: ‘How can you think of art at a time like this?’ The overwhelming response was: ‘How can you not?’” explains Biggs, a research-based interdisciplinary artist known for her immersive work in video, film, and performance. “They have continued to ask that question in the face of ongoing trauma, injustice, and upheaval, and artists have continued to answer with work that is engaged, compassionate, and necessary. That is why Art at a Time Like This — and its programming — is so essential.”

Admission is a minimum donation of $150 ($75 for artists) for what should be a fascinating gathering of thought-leaders who will not just be honoring the success of ATLT but continuing the fight to use art to make a difference.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

STOP THAT PIGEON: BIDDING A FOND ADIEU TO DINOSAUR ON THE HIGH LINE

Iván Argote’s Dinosaur will be flying off from the High Line soon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FAREWELL, DINOSAUR
High Line Plinth on the High Line Spur
Thirtieth St. at Tenth Ave.
Friday, March 21, free, noon – 4:00
www.thehighline.org

It promises to be the biggest send-off for a New York City pigeon ever.

On June 14, 2025, the High Line welcomed Iván Argote’s High Line Plinth commission, Dinosaur, with “Pigeon Fest,” a festival celebrating pigeons, urban ecology, and public art on National Pigeon Appreciation Day. The High Line is now saying goodbye to the seventeen-foot-tall, one-ton aluminum pigeon sculpture on March 21 with another party, “Farewell, Dinosaur,” consisting of games, photo ops, and more, with Argote, DJ Tommy Sparks, and Miriam Abrahams, the British multidisciplinary artist who won the Pigeon Impersonation Pageant at the opening. Visitors are encouraged to again come in feather-brained costumes as they play bingo and have Argote sign limited-edition posters.

“The name Dinosaur makes reference to the sculpture’s scale and to the pigeon’s ancestors who millions of years ago dominated the globe, as we humans do today,” the Colombia-born, Paris-based Argote said in a statement. “The name also serves as a reference to the dinosaur’s extinction. Like them, one day we won’t be around anymore, but perhaps a remnant of humanity will live on — as pigeons do — in the dark corners and gaps of future worlds. I feel this sculpture could generate an uncanny feeling of attraction, seduction, and fear among the inhabitants of New York.”

The attraction, seduction, and fear will continue through early April, when Dinosaur will go extinct on the High Line, replaced by Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Light That Shines Through the Universe.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CELEBRATING WIFREDO LAM AT MoMA WITH DANCE, MUSIC, AND POETRY

Wifredo Lam with the unfinished Bélial, empereur des mouches in his garden, Havana, 1947 (courtesy Archives SDO Wifredo Lam, Paris / photo by Ylla © Pryor Dodge)

Who: Ballet Hispánico New York, Aruán Ortiz, Yaissa Jimenez
What: A Special Evening Celebrating “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream”
Where: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West Fifty-Third St. Between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
When: Thursday, March 19, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “I knew I was running the risk of not being understood either by the man in the street or by the others,” Cuban-born artist Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla said, “but a true picture has the power to set the imagination to work, even if it takes time.” The wide-ranging MoMA retrospective “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” paints a fascinating portrait of Lam, the son of a Chinese immigrant and the grandson of a Congolese former slave mother. It’s a marvelous collection of paintings, drawings, archival photographs, sketches, books, and ephemera tracing Lam’s career, which took him from Cuba, Spain, and France to Martinique, Haiti, and New York as his imagination turned to Spanish modernism, Surrealism, and Afro-Cuban tradition. Among the highlights of the exhibition, which runs through April 11, are the 1943 gouache on paper masterpiece The Jungle, a trio of dazzling abstracts, and a collection of plates.

On March 19 at 6:30, MoMA will be hosting “A Celebration of ‘Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,’” as Ballet Hispánico New York, Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz, and Dominican writer and poet Yaissa Jimenez will perform specially commissioned new works in the exhibition galleries, paying tribute to Lam and his legacy. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE PLUCK OF THE IRISH: THE US PREMIERE OF ULSTER AMERICAN

Director Leigh Carver (Max Baker), playwright Ruth Davenport (Geraldine Hughes), and actor Jay Conway (Matthew Broderick) meet for the first time in David Ireland’s Ulster American (photo by Carol Rosegg)

ULSTER AMERICAN
Irish Repertory Theatre, Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West Twenty-Second St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through May 24, $55-$125
irishrep.org

Among the topics raised in the US premiere of David Ireland’s Ulster American are the n word, rape, murder, the Troubles, car crashes, religion, Brexit, alcoholism, and self-identity.

Oh, did I mention that it’s a comedy — and a hilarious one at that?

The eighty-minute play takes place in real time on a Sunday night in the cozy living room of British theater director Leigh Carver’s (Max Baker) London home, decorated by set designer supreme Charlie Corcoran, with two armchairs, a couch, several small tables, a writing desk, a window in a rear nook, theater posters for The Mousetrap, Camelot, London Assurance, Macbeth, and the National Theatre, and several bookcases filled with tomes about Noël Coward, Samuel Beckett, and other theater legends.

Leigh is meeting with Jay Conway (Matthew Broderick), an Oscar-winning American actor who is starring in a new work Leigh is directing, by Irish playwright Ruth Davenport (Geraldine Hughes). Rehearsals are set to begin the next day, and Leigh wants the three of them to get to know each other more first. Jay is on the couch, in the middle of a conversation with Leigh, telling him, “Is there homophobia in Hollywood? Of course. And misogyny? How can we deny it? It’s reflected in so much of our output. Narrative upon narrative centered around the abuse of women, the violent abuse of women. And racism? Only a fool could pretend otherwise.”

Leigh is surprised when Jay asks, “You ever use the n word?” After discussing James Baldwin, power dynamics, and the Bechdel test — a measure, proposed by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, that judges a fictional work based on whether it includes scenes in which at least two women talk about something other than men — Jay adds, “Why should I, a man, dictate to Bechdel, a woman, what should or should not be part of her fucking theory? This is me, learning from my mistakes, learning to shut the fuck up. . . . And that’s what I’m saying, this is where we’re at. Guys like me and you taking a back seat. Allowing the Ruth Davenports of the world to have their say. Fucking white heteronormative, privileged fucking uh . . . cis . . . motherfuckers like you and I who have to stand aside now. We have a moral responsibility to . . . I mean not me. Obviously. I’m Irish Catholic, so I can’t . . . I’m not part of that – the equation of – . . . I have an intersectional exemption.”

Jay speaks in a calm manner but with an undercurrent of excitement as he attempts to show off what he believes to be his supreme knowledge of society and his allyship with women and people of color. Leigh gets bored quickly but jumps in every once in a while to agree with Jay or correct a mistake, but nothing is going to stop Jay from making his points. He’s clearly a superstar who is used to being coddled and listened to.

Leigh is then shocked when Jay determinedly asks, “Do you think there are any circumstances where it’s morally acceptable to rape someone?” The audience is shocked as well as Jay describes a situation, inspired by a movie plot, when it might actually benefit a certain kind of woman; he names the person he would rape, then forces Leigh to choose his victim. The director squirms in his chair as they debate the validity of the question, but Jay is not about to give up until Leigh finally gives him a name, trapped by his need to suck up to Jay, since a lot is riding on this play.

A few minutes later, Ruth arrives, and things get really bizarre. She apologizes for being late, explaining that her mother had just gotten into an accident and is in the hospital. Her mother was driving Ruth to the airport and they were arguing about a friend of Ruth’s who was killed in the Troubles. Ruth tells the men, “I just lost it with her and — I don’t know what came over me, I just said, ‘Mummy — why do you always have to be such a cold-souled, blackhearted thoughtless fucking bitch?’” That was followed by the crash.

Initially, the three of them heap praise on one another. Ruth gushes that she’s Jay’s biggest fan and feels like she already knows him. Jay thanks her for writing him the role of a lifetime, saying, “Your script. Your fucking script, Ruth. Is the single best script I’ve read for ten fucking years.” Leigh believes that, given the quality of the script and the beloved star, they are critic-proof. “Hey, fuck the critics, I don’t give a fuck about the critics,” Jay declares. “They’re fucking animals, Leigh. They’re animals, Ruth. And we should do with them what we do with animals. Kill them and eat them. And the good ones keep as pets.”

But when Ruth says that, although she is from Northern Ireland, she considers herself British and that the protagonist of her play is the same, both Jay and Leigh are infuriated, and the real fireworks begin.

Jay: Are you British because Britain used to own Ireland? So they used to own you, like a slave, so you’re British?
Leigh: Exactly!
Ruth: They never owned me. I was never a slave!
Jay: It’s confusing because to me you sound Irish.

The confusion only increases as the battle lines are drawn.

History and identity collide in superb dark comedy at Irish Rep (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Ulster American debuted at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe and had a highly touted 2023 London revival starring Woody Harrelson, Louisa Harland, and Andy Serkis. Director Ciarán O’Reilly’s (The Weir, The Emperor Jones) adaptation is a sizzling slow build, balancing humor with pathos and bravado until all hell breaks loose. Leigh, Ruth, and Jay dig deep into their personal sense of identity while also judging the others’. “You don’t get to decide who’s British and who isn’t,” Ruth says to Leigh, who replies, “Well, we sort of do. That’s the point.” A bewildered Jay chimes in, “This is more complicated than I thought.”

The argument relates to what is happening in the United States right now, as liberals and conservatives, both in the government and private citizens, feud over the status of legal and illegal immigrants.

The three characters also all bring up the subject of history, as if that will provide the answers they are seeking. “History is so important to this. For this play, I feel like I need to know the history of Ireland like I know my own ball sack,” Jay says. But even history is subjective these days.

Tony winner and New York City native Broderick (Shining City, Evening at the Talk House) is brilliant as Jay; his singsong delivery and stiff posture imbue the Hollywood icon with a sense of invulnerability, but in this case he is on his own, not surrounded by a sycophantic entourage he is probably used to. He glories in stating his opinions and flaunting his progressive ideals, but they are essentially only lip service, with curses casually thrown in not for emphasis but just because.

The Belfast-born Hughes (Molly Sweeney, Jerusalem) is a powder keg as Ruth, who is beyond thrilled to be working with Leigh and Jay until she starts learning more about them and some of their views; she’s not about to just sit back and let them run all over her, instead going toe-to-toe.

And Baker (Continuity, The Low Road), who hails from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is completely convincing as the British Leigh, who has to walk the fine line between Jay and Ruth but is more conniving than he likes to admit, unable to remain neutral even as he attempts to befriend and care about each of them.

Ireland (What The Animals Say, Most Favoured) and O’Reilly (The Weir, The Emperor Jones) know what of they speak; both are from the north of Ireland, but the former is from Belfast and Ballybeen in Northern Ireland, while the latter is from Cavan, in the Republic of Ireland. In one of his previous, plays, the darkest of dark comedies Cyprus Avenue, Ireland also examines the issue when the protagonist insists, after calling another character the n word, “The last thing I am is Irish. I am anything but Irish. I am British. I am exclusively and non-negotiably British. I am not nor never have been nor never will be Irish.”

Ireland and O’Reilly take that to the next level in Ulster American, along with a sensational cast, critics be damned.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE TASTE OF CAPITALISM: MOTHER RUSSIA AT THE SIGNATURE

David Turner stars as the title character in Lauren Yee’s Mother Russia (photo by HanJie Chow)

MOTHER RUSSIA
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 22, $74-$162
signaturetheatre.org

Asian American playwright Lauren Yee continues her geographic theatrical journey with the New York premiere of Mother Russia at the Signature, the third of what she calls her “cycle of communism plays in Asia in the twentieth century and its intersection with Western pop culture.” Cambodian Rock Band was a play with music about the second-generation immigrant experience and the Cambodian genocide of 1975–79, while The Great Leap was a culturopolitical fantasy about a basketball “friendship game” between American and China in 1981 that delved into the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square uprising.

In Mother Russia, Yee explores that nation’s conversion to capitalism in the wake of Mikhail Gorbachev’s introduction of Glasnost and Perestroika in the mid-1980s, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s 1992, and the character Mother Russia, hilariously portrayed by David Turner in an all-red nun’s habit / opera clown costume, prepares the audience for what’s to come.

“Do not bother to check. I am not in program. So you will not find me. Don’t worry, I am no one,” she says by way of introduction. “They think I will die before long. But! What do they know? . . . I have been let down by so many shitty men. Have you ever loved a shitty man? My life — if you can call this a life — has been one shitty man after another. So now I am here. With you sluts. You have kids? Never have kids. You are only as happy as your unhappiest child, and me? I have so many. And no matter what you do, they will never be happy.”

The only son of a lowly widow, twenty-five-year-old Dmitri Petrovich (Steven Boyer) thinks he is happy and successful; he runs a little metal-shack kiosk in St. Petersburg, selling condoms, bullets, candy bars, Nestlé’s Quik, Heinz Ketchup, Marlboro cigarettes, Coca-Cola, and other American goods, and he is in love with his girlfriend, Masha, the name of characters in Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters and The Seagull. The shack has an ad for Folger’s coffee on its facade, in Russian except for the company logo, an example of the intrusion of capitalism. Meanwhile, Dmitri still dreams of being a spy for the KGB. One day a man enters the shop and Dmitri instinctively pulls a (Chekhovian) gun on him until he recognizes it is his old pal Evgeny Evgenievich (Adam Chanler-Berat), who had moved to Moscow three years earlier with his father, a powerful party leader who has now become “a burgeoning capitalist.”

“Oh, seems like just yesterday my mom was scrubbing the horseshit out of the floor of your dad’s government dacha!” Dmitri proclaims.

However, it turns out that Evgeny is not there to say hello to Dmitri but to shake him down, which is the job his father has forced him to do even though he is no good at it. Nonetheless, the naive Dmitri trusts Evgeny enough to let him in on a secret: that he is being paid handsomely in vouchers to secretly record the comings and goings of Yekaterina Mikhailovna Shevchenko (Rebecca Naomi Jones), a former famous activist and singer known as Katya M who defected to the West but has now returned as a quiet teacher whose past has been forgotten — except for the man who is paying Dmitri to track her.

Evgeny declares that he is a big fan of Katya M’s and wants to participate in the surveillance, begging Dmitri to hire him. “You want to be my servant?” Dmitri asks. Evgeny responds, “More like an employee,” having a hard time forming that last word.

Soon Evgeny is not only listening in on Katya at home and school but also following her on the bus, where they strike up a conversation. His obsession grows as he seeks relationship advice from Dmitri while hiding his identity from Katya. Both he and Katya are plagued by unseen fathers: Evegeny seeks approval from his ever-silent father, closed off from him behind a door, while Katya wants the truth about what happened to her father, a poet who was disappeared many years before.

In one of the funniest moment of the play, Dmitri and Evgeny devour a McDonald’s “filettofish” sandwich together. “Is this what capitalism tastes like?” Dmitri says with a rush of excitement.

It isn’t long before everyone is getting a taste of capitalism and Western society, filtered through Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand.

Dmitri (Steven Boyer) and Evgeny (Adam Chanler-Berat) spy on Katya (Rebecca Naomi Jones) in New York City premiere at the Signature (photo by HanJie Chow)

“There is not enough of me in this play,” Mother Russia says at one point. “Have you noticed this? Right?”

We noticed; there’s not enough of Mother Russia, and David Turner, in the play. She shows up in various places in interstitial scenes — sitting in the audience or on the ledge of Dmitri’s shack — to share her wisdom about the nation, embodying it with humor and angst while delving into history. “Back in the day, we would all have same couch. This is true!” she recalls. “Now you go to store, and all you see are choices.” After Evgeny claims that these are “unprecedented times,” Mother Russia goes into a riotous monologue about the history of Russia, arguing, “What bullshit. You know what was a hard year? Seven. Seven was a hard year.”

Turner (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Arcadia) is enchanting as the acerbic Mother Russia; he also portrays Katya’s mother in one critical scene. Boyer (Hand to God, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow) is sweetly appealing as the not-too-smart Dmitri, Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal, Nantucket Sleigh Ride) is steady as the deeply conflicted Evgeny, and Jones (Big Love, Oklahoma!) is alluring as Katya, although her story has a few key plot holes. As funny as the play is, there are several overly goofy and silly scenes and awkward moments, but it all works out in the end.

Western pop culture is central to the play, more than in just Katya’s former life as a pop star. Outside the theater, in the lobby, is a poster for “The Mother Russia Mixtape,” which notes, “The musical genre heightened the appeal of anti-Soviet countries, causing dissent and the rise of counterculture among Russian youth.” It includes sixteen influential tracks, from the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR” and Prince’s “Ronnie, Talk to Russia” to Sting’s “Russians” and Billy Joel’s “Leningrad” along with Sergey Kuyokhin’s “Intro Pop-Mechanics” and Kino’s “I Want Changes.”

The preshow music features such late-1980s, early 1990s Russian rock songs as Mumiy Troll’s “Медведица” (“A Bear”) and Kombinatsiya’s “Бухгалтер” (“Accountant”); Yee and director Teddy Bergman (KPOP, Empire Travel Agency) shape the play like a pop song, with Mother Russia serving as a kind of chorus and bridge to the stanzas by Dmitri, Evgeny, and Katya, with a bonus dance number set to a pumped-up version of the theme from Swan Lake. The play also references Vanilla Ice, Die Hard, Rambo, Robert De Niro, American baseball teams, and Meryl Streep as well as Anton Chekhov and his wife, Olga Knipper.

“I miss communism!” Dmitri shouts near the grand finale.

In today’s world, maybe that’s what capitalism tastes like.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

GETTING PAST THE DAM: THE RESERVOIR AT THE ATLANTIC

Noah Galvin displays an infectious charm as Josh in The Reservoir at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

THE RESERVOIR
Atlantic Theater Company, Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 22, $56.50-$131.50
atlantictheater.org

As the audience enters the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theater to see Jake Brasch’s off-Broadway debut, The Reservoir, they are met by an unusual sight: An actor is flat on his back on the floor, as if dead. Next to him is wheeled luggage. There are two empty chairs on either side of the stage, in front of curtains, more of which hang high in the back, above a curving piece of scenery that represents water, as if the young man has washed onshore, perhaps having drowned. The night I went, most of the crowd paid little attention to the actor, instead checking their phones and engaging in conversation, as life goes on without him. It’s an apt metaphor for the play itself, which is an engaging and clever foray into family and addiction until it starts drowning in melodrama in the second half.

The young man is Josh (Noah Galvin), an alcoholic college student on leave because of his blackout benders and subsequent disappearances. After Josh awakes, appreciating the sunrise, a park ranger (Matthew Saldívar) tells him he can’t sleep there. Josh turns to the audience and says, “Focus on the cop, speak to the cop. But how did I get here? Did I get on a plane? A greyhound? Wouldn’t be the first time. One time I went to a club in Brooklyn and woke up three days later at a Chick-fil-a in West Virginia.”

A moment later he adds, “Okay. Focus. Morning. Bleeding. Suitcase. Denver. What’s the last thing I remember? The hot rehab worker breathalyzed me and drove me into Miami and then . . . Here we go. Here comes the sober. I hate this part, when the dam breaks and the questions come pouring in.”

He has mysteriously returned home, where his mother, Patricia (Heidi Armbruster), wants him back in rehab. He begs her for one last chance and she agrees to let him stay in his room if he promises to remain sober, take a job at the independent bookstore she owns, and go back to school in the fall.

For most of the play, the four chairs are occupied by Josh’s grandparents, the easygoing Catholic Irene (Mary Beth Peil) and Hank (Peter Maloney) on Patricia’s side, the talkative Jewish Beverly (Caroline Aaron) and Shrimpy (Chip Zien) on his father’s. Despite being surrounded by family and working for a mellow boss, Hugo (Saldívar), Josh can’t get his life in order, especially when Irene’s dementia gets worse. When she suddenly breaks into a lovely version of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” he starts understanding that she is seriously ill, telling Beverly about it. Grandma Beverly is very different from Grandma Irene:

Beverly: So this was truly, completely out of nowhere?
Josh: Unprompted. It felt channeled. Like a spirit was moving through her or something.
Beverly: Christ.
Josh: Yeah, maybe, could have been him. I mean really though, it was actually kinda beautiful.
Beverly: Well, if I ever get like that, if I start randomly singing at lunch, you have to shoot me, understand?
Josh: What?
Beverly: I’m serious. It’s not hard. This is Colorado. Use my credit card, go to Walmart, buy a rifle.
Josh: Dark.
Beverly: I’ll tell you what’s dark: old age. That’s why you’ll help your granny when the time is right.
Josh: I won’t.
Beverly: If I’m all but three words into “O Come, All Ye Faithful” —
Josh: I doubt that would be your song of choice.
Beverly: “Mi Chamocha” whatever. Push me off a cliff.

Meanwhile, Shrimpy, long divorced from Beverly, is planning on having his second bar mitzvah, at the age of eighty-three, and wants Josh to help him prepare, but he has a tendency to speak a little too openly, particularly when it comes to sex. Acknowledging that Josh is gay, Shrimpy asks him whether he has ever had a threesome, then explains, “I’m straight. Mostly. But, you know, sometimes I look at dicks on my computer. What can I say? I do. I look at the dicks. Hey, what do you say you help me with my bar mitzvah prayers?”

Josh, who has no friends his own age and is not dating, joins Beverly at her senior aerobics class at the JCC taught by Lenni (Armbruster), who says things like “Okay, my beautiful Jewish women, let’s start with a step touch. . . . And five six seven eight . . . Goyim style!” He spends nearly all his free time with his grandparents, but when Irene takes a turn for the worse, Josh’s life once again spirals out of control.

Josh (Noah Galvin) is surrounded by his grandparents in Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

In my recent review of Jacob Perkins’s The Dinosaurs, which just ended its run at Playwrights Horizons, I wrote, “If I never see another play set entirely at an AA or grief counseling meeting consisting of a group of people sitting on folding chairs near some coffee and donuts, it will be too soon.”

A coproduction with Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Reservoir is not set entirely at an AA or grief counseling meeting, but much of the second half feels like it does as Josh battles to remain sober while all of his grandparents experience health declines. The first act had a sharp, very funny, and relatable tone and mood, but after intermission it all falls apart as Brasch heaps on the soapy melodrama, sucking the life out of the story and hamstringing each of the actors and characters, which also include Josh’s imaginary doctor, Yaakov Stern (Saldívar), a real neuroscientist who discusses the concept of cognitive reserve and offers such advice as “Listen, Joshua. Alcoholism and Alzheimer’s? Not the same thing. You can rebuild, they cannot,” as well as Rabbi Silver (Armbruster), who leads Josh and Shrimpy in a wholly improbable scene in a temple.

Director Shelley Butler (The Scarlet Letter, This Is Fiction) can’t rein in a narrative that gets lost at sea as various pieces of furniture and book carts are wheeled on- and offstage through the sheer curtains, which turn color based on Jiyoung Chang’s lighting shifts. (The set is by Takeshi Kata, with casual costumes by Sara Ryung Clement and sound and incidental music by Kate Marvin.)

Independent Spirit Award nominee Galvin (Waitress, Dear Evan Hansen) is a delight to watch, infusing Josh with a bittersweet complexity that makes you want to root for him in spite of his many serious mistakes. Helen Hayes Award nominee Aaron (A Kid Like Jake, Madwomen of the West) and three-time Drama Desk nominee Zien (Harmony, Caroline, or Change) nearly steal the show as the madcap Jewish relatives, while two-time Tony nominee and Obie winner Peil (Dying for It, Cornelia Street) and Drama Desk nominee Maloney (I’m Revolting, On the Shore of the Wide World) are touching as the gentle old goyim. Armbruster (Boy, Man from Nebraska) and Saldívar (Junk, The Wild Duck) do what they can with underwritten, overly clichéd roles.

Brasch, who describes themself as “a queer, sober, Jewish clown,” was inspired to write the play based on a year in his own recovery during which he reconnected with his grandparents. The Reservoir feels almost too personal, with too many plot holes and too many off-color jokes that start sounding repetitive as the protagonist faces ever-harder truths.

Talking about a metaphorical river, Josh says, “Nothing can get past the dam. And we’ll never know where the water was heading. We’ll never know what lurks beyond. Immense dryness. A great expanse. Terrifying. What do we remember? What have we forgotten? All of the things that we do not know that we do not know. That gnawing feeling that there’s something missing. Something small. Something minor. Or maybe something huge?”

The first half of The Reservoir is rich and free flowing, but there’s too much missing in the second half, preventing it from getting past that dam.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]