twi-ny recommended events

macbitches

Five theater students discuss their upcoming production of the Scottish play in macbitches (photo by Wesley Volcy)

macbitches
Chain Theatre
312 West Thirty-Sixth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through September 10, $25
www.chaintheatre.org

One of the most iconic images of theater itself is that of Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, sometimes depicted as happy on one side and sad on the other. Every play, of course, has a beginning and an ending, but it’s not always clear when a show starts, and too many works seem to be unable to find a satisfying conclusion. Such is the case with the world premiere of Sophie McIntosh’s aptly titled macbitches, running at the Chain Theatre through September 10.

As the audience enters the space, two characters are onstage, one embroidering, the other impatiently checking her cellphone. Is the play happening? Most audience members sat down, took out their own cellphones, engaged in conversation with their companion(s), or closed their eyes and rested, ignoring what was happening onstage. A few moments later, two more characters arrived through a side door and hung out in the area between the audience and the stage, one looking for someone, the other reading a book. Had the play begun? Few people in the audience paid attention; even the people sitting right in front of these two new characters, who were practically in their laps, remained glued to their phones.

A few of us took advantage of the activity and followed the actors while also exploring the set, a well-decorated living room in a dorm, with small posters of such plays as Hedda Gabler, The Crucible, and Metamorphoses in addition to a giant poster of Russian-American actress, director, producer, and screenwriter Alla Nazimova. A mood was being created and we were getting a feel for the characters through their facial gestures and movements, but the majority of the audience chose not to notice any of that until the lights went down, at which point there could be no argument: The show was underway.

Rachel LaBeau (Caroline L. Orlando) shares her thoughts on theater and Shakespeare in world premiere (photo by Wesley Volcy)

Sophomore Piper Bell (Laura Clare Browne), junior Cam Witkowski (Morgan Lui), and seniors Alexis “Lexi” Lapp (Natasja Naarendorp) and Rachel LaBeau (Caroline L. Orlando) have gathered, anxiously awaiting the call board announcing who will be playing which role in the Minnesota college’s upcoming production of Macbeth. Rachel is fully expecting to be Lady Macbeth, having previously portrayed Hedda Tesman in Hedda Gabler, Janet Van de Graaff in The Drowsy Chaperone, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Abigail Williams in The Crucible; Lexi is anticipating a key role as well, while Cam and Piper are eager for meaty supporting parts. But they all end up disappointed and more than a little surprised when unknown freshman Hailey Hudson (Marie Dinolan) from a small town in Indiana snags Lady M.

In order to find out who Hailey is, Rachel and Lexi decide to have a small get-together, inviting her to their dorm room. Piper, a perpetually upbeat virgin who grew up in a very Christian family, seems genuinely happy for Hailey, an adorable young woman who likes to say “cool” a lot.

“You must be so excited,” Piper says. “I am! Like literally so stoked,. I already told my parents and they’re gonna come see the show both weekends. They’re like really proud,” Hailey responds. “I’m proud! Oh man, when I gave you your tour last spring, I knew I had a good feeling about you and now look at you! Out there getting the lead your first semester!” Piper exclaims.

But Rachel and Lexi do not share Piper’s enthusiasm, for a few reasons. When Hailey, who refers to Macbeth as “Maccers,” says, “It’s not like Shakespeare is like totally pure . . . I mean, he probably wasn’t actually a real person, right?” Rachel nearly explodes. “Do not tell me you’re an Anti-Stratfordian,” she rages. “People who preach that Shakespeare could never have written his plays because he wasn’t educated enough or well-bred enough or whatever are ignorant, privileged pseudo-scholars who don’t want to believe that true art, true genius can come from anyone.”

Soon Rachel and Lexi are plying the innocent Hailey, who clearly is not enjoying her cosmo, with shots of Fireball and Svedka to help them pull off a devious plan.

Best friends Rachel (Caroline L. Orlando) and Lexi (Natasja Naarendorp) concoct a mean plan in macbitches (photo by Wesley Volcy)

Most of macbitches could pass the Bechdel test; although the five women talk about men — from classmates to the two school theater directors, Arik, who helms the plays, and Martin, who guides the musicals — it’s the ladies who are in charge of the narrative. In a way, they all have a version of Lady M inside them, making their own decisions as they search their desires.

But then the story turns on a dime, throwing everything that came before it under the bus as Rachel and Lexi become mean girls who seriously threaten Hailey. While it was clear that the two roommates had an ulterior motive for inviting Hailey over, what they aim to do is so extreme that it is difficult to believe. The play up till then had been thoroughly engaging, with well-drawn characters, excellent acting, smooth direction, and no men, reminiscent of Sanaz Toosi’s recent Wish You Were Here, about five close female friends in Iran, as well as Erica Schmidt’s ingenious 2019 Mac Beth for Red Bull, in which seven students at an all-girls school put on a contemporary version of the Scottish play.

While McIntosh (Ipswich, cityscrape), who is in Columbia’s MFA writing program, and director Ella Jane New (Chasing the River, Six Corners) raise important issues of misogyny, abuse, and harassment, the ending feels like it should be part of a different play. There was a moment that I thought the show would be over, and I would have found that satisfying, but the next scene, though meant to be shocking — not unlike the conclusion of Macbeth — instead was upsetting and disappointing. In Schmidt’s Mac Beth, women grab the power; in macbitches, they give it back.

MATISSE: THE RED STUDIO

MATISSE: THE RED STUDIO
MoMA, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through September 10, $14-$25 (sixteen and under free)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

“It’s always been sort of a very mysterious painting,” MoMA senior paintings conservator Anny Aviram says in a short video (see below) about Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio. “He leaves clues, but at the same time he confuses you.” The 1911 masterpiece, a painting of the artist’s studio in the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux that includes miniature versions of other works and objects, is explored in extraordinary detail in “Matisse: The Red Studio,” on view at MoMA through September 10.

The exhibition is divided into two parts; one looks at the history behind the creation and presentation of the work, while the other gathers all the extant pieces that are depicted on the canvas. Thus, on one side, you’ll find detailed information about the construction of the studio itself; correspondence between Matisse and collector Sergei Shchukin, who is also seen in a charcoal sketch; photographs of Matisse and his family; a letter from David Tennant and Harry Rowan Walker to Matisse confirming their purchase of the painting for £806 for the Gargoyle Club; Roger Fry’s A Room at the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition, in which a significant portion of The Red Studio can be seen on the back wall; Matisse’s lovely, claustrophobic The Studio under the Eaves; the marvelous The Studio, quai Saint-Michel, another interior with dramatic lines and canvases that mimic windows; and other ephemera.

In the other room, The Red Studio is surrounded by eleven of the works that appear in it, from paintings, sculpture, and a ceramic plate to drawings of one canvas that has been lost, in addition to tables, chairs, flowers, and design elements that can be found in works in the previous room. The painting wasn’t originally all Venetian red; as the above video reveals, tiny bits of the original colors are still visible, along with a few stray paintbrush bristles. Among the works are the bold sculpture Jeannette IV, the daring Nude with a White Scarf, the entrancing Le luxe (II), the intriguing Young Sailor II, and the rare Impressionistic landscape Corsica, the Old Mill. This is the first time the works have been together since they were in the studio when Matisse painted them, and the reunion is utterly thrilling.

Be sure to listen to the audioguide, which features commentary from curator Ann Temkin along with artists Faith Ringgold and Lisa Yuskavage, writers Siri Hustvedt and Claire Messud, and professor Mehammed Mack. “What we really wanted to do was bring visitors into Matisse’s world, first of all, into the studio that’s the subject of the painting, into the other artworks that are in the painting, and then into the events and artworks that relate to this work as it went on to live its life in the decades following its making,” Temkin explains. “The outrage caused by these images, their radicality when they were produced, is something that I think is good to recover,” Hustvedt explains. “That deconstruction of color, like disassociating color from the object, is a kind of revolutionary act,” Mack adds. “Matisse is so easy to think about as the maker of beautiful, relaxing pictures. We really wanted to try to re-create what extraordinary focus and effort and leaps of imagination and daring an artist goes through in making a work of radical innovation, like The Red Studio,” Temkin continues. “That, for me, is the fascination. It’s as if we have a glimpse inside his head,” Messud concludes. It’s quite a journey.

ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME

Once Upon a (korean) Time offers a remarkable theatrical experience at La MaMa (photo by Richard Termine)

ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Tuesday – Sunday through September 18, $60-$80
212-475-7710
ma-yitheatre.org
www.lamama.org

“Fairy and folk tale tropes offer modern authors . . . ideal frameworks and well-known terms of reference through which to explore the meanings and mythologies of war, both real and imagined. They do so for children and adults alike,” editors Sara Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis write in the introduction to their 2016 book, War, Myths, and Fairy Tales (Palgrave Macmillan). Playwright and actor Daniel K. Isaac and director Ralph B. Peña take that approach to the next level in Ma-Yi Theater Company’s explosive yet intimate Once Upon a (korean) Time, running at La MaMa through September 18.

The ninety-five-minute show was inspired by Isaac’s biological family as well as his chosen family — in a moving program note he explains, “I am an only child of a Korean immigrant single parent [who fled south during the Korean War]. I do not know my biological father or his side of the family or their history. My maternal grandparents passed before I was born. . . . I have been disowned multiple times for being gay. . . . So the notion of ‘family’ is complicated for me.”

The notion of family is central to the play, which unfurls across a series of interrelated vignettes in which different kinds of battles provide opportunities to tell Korean folk tales as both distraction and metaphor in the midst of heated conflict. The first chapter, “Earth,” takes place in a trench in the 1930s, where two soldiers are under brutal attack. “We gotta get outta here / How do we get outta here / Should we make a run for it / Let’s make a run for it / I don’t wanna die / I’m too young to die / I don’t wanna be here / Get me out of here get me out of here get me out,” one of the soldiers cries out. He demands that the other soldier retell him the legend of brothers Heung-bu and Nol-bu: After their parents die, one sibling inherits everything and banishes the other and his pregnant wife and child. But a single seed from a previously injured baby jeh-bee (swallow) results in magic calabashes that just might right the wrongs.

Two women (Sonnie Brown and Jillian Sun) meet during the 1992 LA riots in Once Upon a (korean) Time (photo by Richard Termine)

The scene is brilliantly directed by Peña on Se Hyun Oh’s bold set, which is highlighted by two massive vertical boulders that rotate throughout the play to form a variety of walls, blockades, caves, and other barriers. As the soldiers hide behind rocks, bullets fly past and bombs explode ever closer; the audience is seated on the same side of the trench as the soldiers, immersing everyone in the dire situation. Oliver Wason’s lighting and Fabian Obispo’s sound, along with projections by Yee Eun Nam and Phuong Nguyen’s costumes, make us feel like we are all in harm’s way. It’s about as powerful an opening scene as I’ve experienced in a long time.

The involving depiction of the horrors of war continues with “Water,” set in a WWII comfort station where three Korean women, one a virgin, are being sexually, physically, and psychologically abused by viciously hostile Japanese soldiers. To distract the virgin from what is soon to happen to her, the other two women share the story of Shim-Cheong, a woman who sacrifices herself in order to save the life of her blind father.

A through line begins to develop as the action moves to a cave during the Korean War (“Heaven”) where the story of the Tiger and the Bear is told, a convenience store (“Fire”) amid the 1992 LA riots supplemented with the tale of the Grandma and the Tiger, and a contemporary gathering where three couples meet at a Korean BBQ restaurant and put it all in context as they await the future.

The stories within the stories offer compelling Korean myths to accompany the central narrative, especially since the outstanding cast goes back and forth between portraying the mythological figures and the “real” characters, sometimes as plays within the play. In “Water,” for example, one of the comfort women tells the virgin that she will be Shim-Cheong, then lays out the plot, gives her her motivation, and even makes a key alteration to her costume.

A Korean BBQ restaurant is the setting for the poignant conclusion of Daniel K. Isaac play (photo by Richard Termine)

Obie-winning Ma-Yi founding member and producing artistic director Peña and Isaac, who previously worked together on Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady — Isaac is best known as an actor, appearing in numerous plays as well as in Billions and other television shows and films and will next be seen in You Will Get Sick at Roundabout next month — also zeroes in on the ideas of legacy, tradition, and belonging, from defending one’s homeland to emigrating overseas. As soon as the young woman walks into the convenience store, the older woman says, “I telling you story.” The young woman asks, “Like once upon a time?” The older woman replies, “No / That American thing.”

At the BBQ restaurant, the six people discuss such fairy tales as Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast as well as their family histories. “Korean stories are so funny,” Jon says. “And usually way more gruesome,” Sasha adds.

Once Upon a (korean) Time is both funny and gruesome, an expertly told tale that excites the eyes and the ears and keeps the heart pumping. There are no lags; something is always happening onstage, and constant movement and projections keep the audience entranced. The seven actors are extraordinary, with Sonnie Brown, Sasha Diamond, David Lee Huynh, Teresa Avia Lim, Jon Norman Schneider, David Shih, and Jillian Sun playing multiple roles. A jubilant scene in which the Sea Dragon bursts into a musical number could have felt out of place but instead is a welcome break from all the solemnity, even as he eagerly declares, “I hear we have a virgin in the house!”

Once Upon a (korean) Time is a gripping, all-too-real story of intergenerational trauma. Peña has called it “insane,” and insane it is, in only the best way. Isaac has dedicated the play to his mother, who will not be able to see it because she refuses to get vaccinated. And that’s a genuine shame, because her son has given the rest of us a remarkable theatrical experience.

DEANA LAWSON

Deana Lawson solo show at MoMA PS1 continues through September 5 (photo by Steven Paneccasio)

DEANA LAWSON
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Through September 5, $5-$10
718-784-2084
www.momaps1.org

One of the most powerful painting exhibitions I’ve seen in the last few years was Jordan Casteel’s “Within Reach” at the New Museum, which comprised more than three dozen large-scale portraits of BIPOC men, women, and children, each made as realistically as possible from a photograph. Deana Lawson’s eponymously titled solo show at MoMA PS1 recalls Casteel’s canvases in more than fifty large-scale, carefully staged photographs of acquaintances and strangers she has met in Africa and across the African diaspora, in what the Rochester-born artist calls “a mirror of everyday life.”

Deana Lawson, Roxie and Raquel, New Orleans, Louisiana, pigment print, 2010 (courtesy the artist, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., and David Kordansky, Los Angeles / © Deana Lawson)

In Black Gold (“Earth turns to gold, in the hands of the wise,” Rumi), a man stands in a dark alley, holding out several crosses on chains, a projection of a sharecropper behind him. In Coulson Family, a mother and her two sons pose in front of a small Christmas tree, one child looking away from the camera, smiling at an unseen source. In Nation, a pair of shirtless men, one pointing at the camera, the other heavily tattooed and wearing a complex facial piercing, sit on a brown leather couch. And in Uncle Mack, a man with a scar down his stomach and holding a rifle stands in the corner of a room, under a picture of his family. Meanwhile, in a corner at PS1, Lawson has arranged more than a hundred small, unframed photographs. She has also placed crystal assemblages throughout the space.

Deana Lawson adds special bonuses in many of the corners of MoMA PS1 solo show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“It’s about setting a different standard of values and saying that everyday Black lives, everyday experiences, are beautiful, and powerful, and intelligent,” Lawson has said, depicting “the majesty of Black life, a nuanced Black life, one that is by far more complex, deep, beautiful, celebratory, tragic, weird, strange.” It’s a stunning show, on view through September 5.

ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM

A one-night stand turns into a treatise on love, art, and immigrations in On That Day in Amsterdam (photo by Carol Rosegg)

ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM
Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St. between Park & Madison Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 4, $60-$125
212-279-4200
www.59e59.org
primarystages.org

Immediately after graduating college, I backpacked across Europe with my best friend. We had planned to spend a day or two in Amsterdam, but we were having such a great time, sleeping on a botel and enjoying the vast culture, that we ended up staying a week. The protagonists of Clarence Coo’s poignant if overly earnest On That Day in Amsterdam have no such option.

The ninety-minute play is told in flashback through the somewhat unreliable memories of Kevin (Glenn Morizio), who spends years trying to write the story of what happened “on that day in Amsterdam,” a phrase that begins many of the scenes. Kevin and Sammy (Ahmad Maksoud) hook up at a club and spend the night together on a houseboat. The next morning, Kevin, who is American, claims he has to take off to catch a plane back home, while the smitten Sammy, whose ancestry is less clear, wants to hang out all day with him before he is supposed to secretly leave that evening for the Netherlands and meet up with his brother to find a better life in England.

Sammy wants to get food and visit all the museums they can and eventually loosens up Kevin enough that they begin to do just that, their tale enhanced by third-person narration spoken by Rembrandt (the Romantic One) van Rijn (Brandon Mendez Homer), Anne (the Empathetic One) Frank (Elizabeth Ramos), and Vincent (the Perfectionist One) van Gogh (Jonathan Raviv).

“On that day in Amsterdam, two young men were in a bed and looked at each other in the morning light,” Anne says. “One of them was thinking about the present moment,” Rembrandt adds. “And the other was not,” Vincent concludes.

As they continue on their sadly brief adventure, Sammy and Kevin try to break down each other’s walls as well as those inside themselves.

“Can you relax?” Sammy asks, attempting to take a photo of Kevin, who responds, “I’m trying.” “Smile? No. Don’t smile. Actually, don’t listen to me. Just be yourself,” Sammy advises. “What does that even mean? Be myself?” Kevin wonders.

After learning that they have far more in common than they originally thought, they both prepare to head off to their very different destinations.

“One year from now, one of these two young men will try to write a book,” Anne tells us. “— will begin to write a book,” Rembrandt corrects. “— will write a book,” Vincent says. “And the other will not,” Rembrandt affirms.

Most of On That Day in Amsterdam takes place behind a giant translucent scrim; Kevin occasionally exits through a door at the front and goes to a table with a computer monitor, where he attempts to write his book as the years go by, but he is haunted by what he fears might have happened to Sammy. Much of the action occurs on a platform in the middle of the stage, reminiscent of Martyna Majok’s 2017 NYTW production of Sanctuary City at the Lucille Lortel, which also dealt with family and immigration issues, and Nick Payne’s 2015 Constellations, in which a man and a woman keep replaying scenes from an intermingling past, present, and future. (The Amsterdam set is by Jason Sherwood, with lighting by Cha See, sound by Fan Zhang, and costumes by Lux Haac.)

Sammy (Ahmad Maksoud) and Kevin (Glenn Morizio) wonder what’s next for them in On That Day in Amsterdam (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Morizio and Maksoud form an endearingly tentative couple as Kevin and Sammy, dancing, kissing, shopping, and waiting on line at museums. Coo (Beautiful Province [Belle Province)], The Birds of Empathy) and director Zi Alikhan (The Great Leap, Lady Apsara) repeatedly reference the importance of art, as represented by Rembrandt, Vincent, and Frank, but the emphasis sometimes feels heavy-handed.

“Maybe everyone’s an artist at heart,” Kevin offers. “You think so? Not everyone can be Anne Frank,” Sammy says. “No,” Kevin agrees. Sammy: “She was a great writer. That’s why people remember her.” Kevin: “Sure.” Sammy: “Not everyone can be a great writer.” Kevin: “What I mean is — the instinct to be an artist. The potential? Maybe that’s in everyone. And if people don’t live up to that potential? That’s a waste.”

The show features projections by Nicholas Hussong on the scrim and in the back, from live shots of Sammy considering his fate to colorful images of paintings that resemble works by Rembrandt and Vincent but are clearly not, sticking out like sore thumbs; if the producers couldn’t get rights to the pieces, it might have been better to not include these abstractions at all.

Meanwhile, Kevin declares Sammy is an artist as well, based on one cellphone photo of a swan soaring in the air, later comparing it to Jan Asselijn’s The Threatened Swan, the first work to enter the collection of the Nationale Kunstgaleri, later to become the Rijksmuseum, a canvas that represents the protection of the country from its enemies. Such obvious metaphors fly throughout the play, which succeeds much better when it is goes for a more subtle approach.

It also brought back fond personal memories of that week in Amsterdam I spent once upon a time, where I was privileged to not be in the same situation as Kevin or Sammy.

MONTHLY CLASSICS: KILL!

Tatsuya Nakadai has a ball in Kihachi Okamoto’s campy Eastern Western

KILL! (KIRU) (Kihachi Okamoto, 1968)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, September 2, $15, 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Kihachi Okamoto’s Kill! is a goofy, fun Eastern Spaghetti Western, loaded with references to other samurai flicks. If some of it feels familiar, that’s because it is based on Shūgorō Yamamoto’s novel Peaceful Days, which was also turned into Akira Kurosawa’s 1962 Asian oater Sanjuro, though with significant changes. But this time around, it’s played more for laughs. Tatsuya Nakadai, one of the main villains in both Sanjuro and Yojimbo, stars as former samurai Genta, a laid-back dude who gets caught up in the middle of an inner struggle of a split clan (one group of which contains seven rogue samurai). He meets up with former peasant farmer Hanjiro (Etsushi Takahashi), who dreams of becoming a brave samurai and involves himself in the same battle, though on an opposing side. As the plot grows more impossible to follow, with lots of betrayals, double crosses, would-be yakuza, and romantic jealousy, so does the riotous relationship between Genta and Hanjiro. Masaru Sato’s score is fab as well. Another example of Okamoto’s (The Sword of Doom, Rainbow Kids) mastery of multiple genres, Kill! is screening September 2 at 7:00 as part of Japan Society’s ongoing “Monthly Classics” series, which continues October 7 with Hideo Nakata’s unforgettable Ringu.

LAVENDER MEN

Pete Ploszek, Alex Esola, and Roger Q. Mason star in Lavender Men (photo by Jenny Graham)

LAVENDER MEN
Streaming from Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles
August 27, 28, 29, September 3, 4, $25-$38
skylighttheatre.org

The Civil War might be known as the battle between the Blue and the Gray, but Black Filipinx playwright and actor Roger Q. Mason turns to a different color in the world premiere of Lavender Men, continuing at the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles and streaming online through September 4, in conjunction with Playwrights’ Arena.

During the pandemic, I watched virtual presentations of Mason’s The Duat, about a Black man (Gregg Daniel) searching for his place in a world of racial injustice, and Age Sex Location, part of the omnibus Matriarch: She’s Wide Awake Shining Light . . . , in which Ramy El-Etreby dances onstage in glittery drag and proclaims, “Fat bitch / Black queen / Mixed breed mishap / Round nosed fag ho / That’s what you think of me / As I walk down the street / My wide hips waddling / My fleshy neck obscuring a too-soft jawline.”

In the prologue of Lavender Men, Taffeta (Mason) says those same words, adding, “No fats, no fems, no blacks. / Well, kiss my black, fat, fem ass to the red! / I am more than that.” Taffeta, identified in the script as a “biracial, male assigned gender nonconforming fabulous queer creation of color,” is both narrator and participant in a reimagining of the relationship between Abe Lincoln (Pete Ploszek), who has just lost his 1858 Senate campaign to unseat Stephen A. Douglas and has returned to his law practice, and Elmer E. Ellsworth (Alex Esola), a soldier who has left the army — after being deemed too short to gain the promotions he thought he deserved — to work as Lincoln’s clerk.

Lincoln’s friend John Hay, later secretary of state for both William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, wrote that Lincoln “loved [Ellsworth] like a younger brother,” but Mason reinterprets that intimacy as a magnetic sexual attraction. Lavender Men doesn’t merely hint at their homosexuality but digs into it full force. Taffeta speaks with Lincoln and Ellsworth as if she is a kind of spirit from the future, offering them a second chance, while they understand that they are in a play being performed in front of an audience. “This is a fantasia, honey!” she declares.

Taffeta (Roger Q. Mason) watches intently as Elmer E. Ellsworth (Alex Esola) and Abe Lincoln (Pete Ploszek) grow close in streaming play (photo by Jenny Graham)

As Lincoln considers running for office and Ellsworth wants to reenlist, they explore their feelings for each other. Taffeta also shows up as Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd; his servant, Sadie; as well as a cadet, an officer, a lamppost, a chandelier, and a tree. Mason avoids putting Lincoln on a pedestal. At one point Abe asks Ellsworth, “What do you think of Negroes? . . . What should we do with them?” Ellsworth responds, “I haven’t really formulated an opinion, to be honest.” Lincoln says, “Well, they are the taste on everybody’s tongue — and it ain’t sweet. I’ll tell you that.” Ellsworth asks, “What about you, sir?” Lincoln answers, “We oughta send them back.”

Taffeta gives them multiple chances to change their fate, but they’re not sure if they want to. “It could be different this time. We can make it whatever we want,” Taffeta explains early on. “Can we change the ending?” Lincoln asks. “Sure, start wherever you like. We can even make it up — they’ll believe it,” Taffeta promises, speaking about the audience. But changing history doesn’t come easily.

Stephen Gifford’s set is filled with archival photographs and documents on the walls, along with an analog-pixelated image of Lincoln hovering over it all in the back. A wardrobe serves as an entrance and exit for Lincoln and Ellsworth, but it’s not quite Narnia awaiting them on the other side. The sharp lighting is by Dan Weingarten, with original music by David Gonzalez and sound by Erin Bednarz that includes whispered voices that occasionally taunt Taffeta. Wendell Carmichael’s costumes range from the men’s straightforward attire to Taffeta’s far more fabulous looks.

The show is smartly directed by Lovell Holder, who helmed Mason’s 2020 virtual performance piece The Pride of Lions for Dixon Place and cohosts the podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood with Mason; the stream is filmed with multiple cameras from different angles, but there are a few noticeably shaky moments.

Lavender Men is an intimate tale that touches on such issues as slavery, racism, trans hate, white saviors, and, primarily, being who one truly is inside. “We all have voices — goddamnit, let’s use them!” Taffeta proclaims, talking not only to Abe and Elmer but to Mason and everyone watching, in the theater and at home.