twi-ny recommended events

VULTURE FESTIVAL 2018

Maggie Gyllenhaal will be at the Vulture Festival to discuss The Deuce and four other projects

A POP CULTURE EXTRAVAGANZA
Milk Studios (and other venues)
450 West Fifteenth St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Saturday, May 18, and Sunday, May 19, free – $160
vulturefestival.com/ny

New York magazine’s fifth annual Vulture Festival takes place this weekend at Milk Studios and other locations, celebrating pop culture. Below are only some of the nearly three dozen events that encompass film, music, comedy, art, podcasts, books, and more; all tickets include complimentary access to the Vulture Lounge following the event. Among the other participants are Julianna Margulies, Rachel Bloom, Adam Pally, Sutton Foster, Hilary Duff, Debi Mazar, Darren Star, Wendy Williams, Johnny Knoxville, Cameron Esposito, Marti Noxon, Rachael Ray, Adam Platt, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Groff, Liev Schreiber, David Edelstein, Bo Burnham, and Wyatt Cenac.

Saturday, May 19
John Leguizamo: In Conversation, moderated by Matt Zoller Seitz, followed by a book signing, Milk Studios — Penthouse, $30, 11:30 am

One Book, One New York, One Event: Jennifer Egan in conversation with Adam Moss, Milk Studios — Studio 1, free with advance registration, 2:30

Maggie Gyllenhaal in Five Acts, conversation focusing on five of her projects, Milk Studios — Penthouse, $30, 4:00

Roxane Gay and Amber Tamblyn Present Feminist AF, with special guests Jennine Capó Crucet, Sharon Olds, and Morgan Parker, Milk Studios — Studio 1, $30, 6:45

Tracy Morgan in Hilarious Conversation, moderated by Matt Zoller Seitz, Milk Studios — AT&T Studio, $30, 8:00

Claire Danes and Jim Parsons will be at Milk Studios on May 20 to discuss their new film, A Kid Like Jake

Sunday, May 20
Jerry Saltz’s Masterly Tour of the Met Breuer, tour of the Met exhibit “Like Life” led by Jerry Saltz, Met Breuer, $150, 9:00 am

Boozy Brunch with Your Best Friends Gillian Jacobs, Vanessa Bayer, and Phoebe Robinson, conversation with stars of new Netflix film Ibiza, moderated by Michelle Buteau, Milk Studios — Studio 4, $30, 12 noon

Claire Danes and Jim Parsons’s A Kid Like Jake, discussion of new movie with actors Claire Danes and Jim Parsons, director Silas Howard, and writer Daniel Pearle, Milk Studios — Studio 1, $30, 2:15

In Conversation with Samantha Bee, the Full Frontal Team, and Rebecca Traister: discussion with Samantha Bee, Melinda Taub, Ashley Nicole Black, Allana Harkin, Mike Rubens, and Amy Hoggart, moderated by Rebecca Traister, Milk Studios — AT&T Studio, $40, 5:45

Ava DuVernay and the Cast of Queen Sugar, with Ava DuVernay, Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, and Kofi Siriboe, Milk Studios — Studio 4, $30, 6:45

PARADISE BLUE

P-Sam (Francois Battiste) has some harsh words for Blue (J. Alphonse Nicholson) as Corn (Keith Randolph Smith) and Pumpkin (Kristolyn Lloyd) look on in Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through June 10, $30 through June 3, $65 after
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Paradise Blue, which opened tonight at the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center, celebrates and extends the great tradition of exceptional sociopolitical American plays established by August Wilson. In 2013, actress, poet, and playwright Dominique Morisseau began “The Detroit Projects,” a three-play series centered on her Michigan hometown, inspired by Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” ten works set in each decade of the twentieth century in his native Pittsburgh. Paradise Blue, which comes after 2013’s Detroit ’67 and before 2016’s Skeleton Crew, takes place in the primarily black neighborhood of Black Bottom in Paradise Valley in 1949, on the eve of an urban renewal push. (Coincidentally, Wilson’s second Pittsburgh play was Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.) The tortured Blue (J. Alphonse Nicholson) is a trumpet player who owns the Paradise Club, following in the footsteps of his father. He has just fired the bassist, leaving his bandmates, ornery drummer P-Sam (Francois Battiste) and thoughtful, considerate pianist Corn (Keith Randolph Smith), in the lurch as he prepares a solo that is proving difficult for him and arranging for the sweet and innocent Pumpkin (Kristolyn Lloyd), his lover who works at the club, to sing a number in public for the first time.

Amid rumors that Blue is going to sell the club as part of Detroit mayor Albert Cobo’s gentrification plan for Black Bottom — “Ain’t nobody pullin’ no more favors outta me. I been pullin’ favors up to my ears and I’m goin’ tone deaf,” Blue explains — the mysterious Silver (Simone Missick) struts in, renting a room at the Paradise for an extended period of time, paying cash up front. “If it’s somewhere that Colored folks is doing more than sharecroppin’ and reapin’ White folks’ harvest . . . I ought to be there,” she says. Silver is the opposite of Pumpkin, wearing silky, revealing black clothing, instantly commanding the attention of every man in any room she enters. “Spiderwoman. That’s what they call her,” P-Sam says. “She go walkin’ like that. . . . some kinda sexy spider . . . lurin’ fellas into her web. And then just when you get close to her . . . she stick into you and lay her poison.” As the night of the show approaches, P-Sam questions Blue’s loyalties, Corn and Pumpkin are both getting close to Silver, and Blue has to face some deep, dark demons.

Blue (J. Alphonse Nicholson) takes hold of Pumpkin (Kristolyn Lloyd) in New York premiere at the Signature (photo by Joan Marcus)

Paradise Blue keeps the spirit of August Wilson alive while further confirming Morrisseau (Pipeline, Blood at the Root) as a rising star in her own right. The play is smoothly directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, like a bandleader orchestrating a jazz number, albeit more of a nocturne than swing or bebop. A close friend of Wilson’s, Santiago-Hudson is the co-artistic director of a New York Public Radio project that is recording all ten plays in Wilson’s American Century Cycle; he won a Tony for Best Featured Actor for his performance in Seven Guitars, earned another Tony for directing Jitney last year, and took home an Obie for directing The Piano Lesson at the Signature in 2013. (He also portrayed the writer in Wilson’s one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned, at the Signature.) Neil Patel’s two-part set features Silver’s bedroom in one corner and the interior of the nightclub on the rest of the stage; the audience sits in rising rows on the horizontal sides. Above it all is a rusty marquee that spells out the club’s name in lights. The facade separating the floor from the balcony is plastered with concert posters of icons who supposedly played the Paradise, from Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, and Duke Ellington to Jimmie Lunceford, Howlin’ Wolf, and Louis Jordan.

Rui Rita’s sensitive lighting focuses between the two rooms as well as, occasionally, on Blue’s horn, which resides on a trumpet stand on the club stage, as if it’s his soul haunting him, while Darron L West’s fine sound design lets the music soar. Wilson regular Smith (Jitney, Fences, King Hedley II) is superb as the gentle, caring Corn; Smith has such a calming presence that watching him onstage, no matter what he’s doing, is warm and comforting. Obie winner Battiste (Head of Passes, The Good Negro) portrays the suspicious P-Sam with a fire in his belly; Lloyd (Dear Evan Hansen, Invisible Thread) is adorable as the vulnerable Pumpkin, a wide-eyed young woman in love with poetry but frightened of taking charge of her life; and Missick (Misty Knight in Luke Cage and The Defenders) is sexy and alluring as Silver, who is no mere femme fatale. However, Nicholson (Seven Guitars, Caleb Calypso and the Midnight Marauders) can only do so much as Blue (a role originated at the 2015 Williamstown Theatre Festival by Blair Underwood), who is not as fully drawn and fleshed out as the other characters, his motivations not as evident throughout the play. But that turns out to be a minor quibble in what otherwise is an exciting and captivating work that evolves with the rhythm of the blues as it explores race, class, and family legacy. Paradise Blue is the first of three Morrisseau plays that the Signature will present during her five-year residency; I’m already hungering for the next one.

WALL TO WALL LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Symphony Space honors Leonard Bernstein with Wall to Wall presentation on May 19 (photo by Don Hunstein, 1961; courtesy of Sony Music)

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Saturday, May 19, free with advance RSVP (reserved premium seating $100-$250), 3:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org

Symphony Space celebrates the fortieth anniversary of its popular Wall to Wall series on May 19 with Wall to Wall Leonard Bernstein, eight hours of the Maestro’s music, divided into three segments, running from 3:00 to 5:30, 5:30 to 8:30, and 8:30 to 11:00. Free general admission tickets are available in advance, or you can get premium reserved seating for $100 per segment or $250 for the whole eight hours. The show will feature compositions (and occasional dance) from West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, Peter Pan, and On the Waterfront in addition to such works as the Chichester Psalms, Three Meditations from Mass, To What You Said, The Lark (French and Latin Choruses), Simple Song, and Halil: Nocturne for Flute, Percussion, and Piano. Among the many performers are pianists Garah Landes, Simon Mulligan, Michael Brown, Grant Wenaus, Peter Dugan, and Eric Huebner, cellists Summer Boggess and Nick Canellakis, percussionists Gregory Landes, Daniel Druckman, Pablo Rieppi, and Sae Hashimoto, bassists Randy Landau and Aaron Theno, flutists Janet Axelrod and Mindy Kaufman, sopranos Harolyn Blackwell and Elizabeth Smith, baritone John Brancy, Calliope Brass, DUO: Stephanie and Saar, the Pit Stop Players, Keigwin + Company, and many more. The event will also include film clips and discussions about Bernstein’s life and career. Over the decades, the Wall to Wall program has also honored such luminaries as Steve Reich, Johnny Cash, Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Aaron Copland, and the Gerswhins, among others.

HARLEM EatUp! FESTIVAL 2018

Chef Marcus Samuelsson is one of the hosts of the fourth annual Harlem EatUp! Festival (photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images for Harlem EatUp!)

CELEBRATION OF FOOD CULTURE AND SPIRIT
Multiple locations in Harlem
May 15-21, free – $1,500
harlemeatup.com

The fourth annual Harlem EatUp! Festival takes place May 15-21, with dozens of chefs, restaurants, culinary organizations, mixmasters, and artists participating in tastings, dinners, concerts, and more celebrating Harlem culture. Below are only some of the special events happening uptown.

Wednesday, May 16
Dine in Harlem: Clay, with host chef Gustavo Lopez and guest chef Leah Cohen of Pig & Khao, $135, 7:00

Dine in Harlem: Melba’s Restaurant, with owner Melba Wilson and guest chef Andrew Zimmern, $110, 7:00

Thursday, May 17
The Harlem EatUp! Annual Luminary Award Dinner, honoring Dapper Dan and Bevy Smith, hosted by chefs Marcus Samuelsson, Adrienne Cheatham, and Geoffrey Zakarian, Red Rooster Harlem, $250, 6:30

Dine in Harlem: Harlem Shake, with proprietor Jelena Pasic and guest chef Josh Capon of Mercer Street Hospitality and live music by Angel Rose, $85, 7:00

Saturday, May 19
The EatUp! Main Stage at the Harlem Stroll, with culinary demonstrations by Leticia “Skai” Young, Raymond Zamanta Mohan, Jose Garces, Marcus Samuelsson, Stephanie Izard, Melba Wilson, and Jacques Torres and live performances by the Peoples Band, Lorenzo Laroc, and the Rakiem Walker Project, Morningside Park, free, 12:30 – 5:30

Ultimate Grand Tasting at the Harlem Stroll, featuring dishes from Bo’s Bagels, Charles Country Pan Fried Chicken, Drunken Fruit, Ginny’s Supper Club, Harlem Haberdashery, Harlem Chocolate Factory, Harlem Shake, Harlem Tavern, Land Yoga, Lee Lee’s Bakery, LoLo’s Seafood Shake, Make My Cake, Melba’s Restaurant, Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread, Oso Harlem, Piatto D’Oro, Ponty Bistro, Row House, Settepani, Sisters Caribbean Cuisine, SpaHa Soul, Sugar Hill Creamery, Sugardale Inc., Tastings Social presents Gaudir, the Edge Harlem, and the Grange Bar & Eatery, adults only, Morningside Park, $85-$110, 12:30 – 5:30

Saturday, May 19
and
Sunday, May 20
The Marketplace at the Harlem Stroll, with more than two dozen food vendors, a kids’ zone, demonstrations, live performances, and more, Morningside Park, free, 12:30 – 5:30

Sunday, May 20
The EatUp! Main Stage at the Harlem Stroll, with culinary demonstrations by Melba Wilson, Lorenzo Boni, Jernard Wells, Marcus Samuelsson, Jarobi White, Adrienne Cheatham, and Laila Ali and live performances by Siya featuring Yacouba Sissoko, Vy Higginson’s Sing Harlem Choir, and Johnny Mambo & Friends, Morningside Park, free, 12:30 – 5:30

Ultimate Grand Tasting at the Harlem Stroll, featuring dishes from Bier International, Bierstrasse, BLVD Bistro, Cove Lounge, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Drunken Fruit, Ginny’s Supper Club, Harlem Chocolate Factory, Harlem Haberdashery, Harlem Tavern, Kingston Restaurant & Bar, Land Yoga, Lady Lexis Sweets, Lloyd’s Carrot Cake, Moffle Bar, Piatto D’Oro, Row House, Settepani, Shake Shack, Sisters Caribbean Cuisine, Spaha Soul, Sugardale Inc., Tastings Social presents Mountain Bird, the Kosher Kitchen, the Sylvia Center, and Uptown Veg & Juice Bar, adults only, Morningside Park, $85-$110, 12:30 – 5:30

SAINT JOAN

A teenage farm girl (Condola Rashad) is on a mission from God in Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 10, $65-$159
saintjoanbroadway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

“There is something about her,” men say of Saint Joan, the title character in Bernard Shaw’s 1923 play. There is also something about Condola Rashad, who portrays Joan in the current Manhattan Theatre Club revival at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Rashad has now appeared in five Broadway shows, earning four Tony nominations, for Stick Fly, The Trip to Bountiful, A Doll’s House, Part 2, and Saint Joan. (She was also nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her 2009 off-Broadway debut, Ruined, but got shut out as Juliet in a misbegotten Broadway revival of Romeo and Juliet in 2013.) The thirty-one-year-old Rashad is charming as Joan, a teenage farm girl in 1429 who claims that Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine speak to her and that God has commanded her to lead the French to victory in Orleans against the occupying English so the hapless Dauphin (Adam Chanler-Berat) can claim the throne as King Charles VII. She joins a luminous roster of actresses who have played Saint Joan, including Wendy Hiller, Uta Hagen, Joan Plowright, Jean Seberg, Imelda Staunton, Imogen Stubbs, Amy Irving, and Diana Sands, the only other black woman to portray Joan in a major production, at Lincoln Center in 1968. Rashad’s Joan is sweet-natured but determined, gentle yet forceful, a kind of hero just right for the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter generation. Joan goes about the world of men — Rashad is the only woman in the cast, among twelve actors, save for a brief appearance by Mandi Masden as the Duchess de la Trémouille — with an ease that emanates from her faith.

Military squires, royals, and religious leaders disparage Joan until they meet her, slowly falling under her captivating spell. Robert de Baudricourt (Patrick Page) brags about how he “burns witches and hangs thieves,” but Joan tells him, “They all say I am mad until I talk to them, squire. But you see that it is the will of God that you are to do what He has put into my mind,” and he does. Captain La Hire (Lou Sumrall) calls her “an angel dressed as a soldier.” Charles might not want to be king, but Joan is on a holy mission to see that he is crowned at Rheims Cathedral. “If the English win, it is they that will make the treaty: and then God help poor France!” she tells Charles. “You must fight, Charlie, whether you will or no. I will go first to hearten thee. We must take our courage in both hands: aye, and pray for it with both hands too.” But after she impossibly takes Orleans despite being massively outnumbered and then urges the campaign continue on to recapture Paris, the military, the church, and the monarchy realize her power and turn on her, trying her for sins that could get her burned at the stake.

The Dauphin (Adam Chanler-Berat) finds a savior in Joan (Condola Rashad) in Manhattan Theatre Club Broadway revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

Scott Pask’s set is dominated by large gold pipes hanging from above, as if the entire play takes place inside a giant church organ, spreading Joan’s religious message. “It is in the bells I hear my voices,” Joan tells Jack Dunois (Daniel Sunjata), who ably fights by her side. “Not today, when they all rang: that was nothing but jangling. But here in this corner, where the bells come down from heaven, and the echoes linger, or in the fields, where they come from a distance through the quiet of the countryside, my voices are in them.” Shaw (who preferred not to use the first name George) famously said, “I’m an atheist and I thank God for it”; in writing the play, he was trying to neither convert anyone nor convince them to leave the fold, nor was he creating a biblical-style story of good versus evil. In a preface to the published edition, Shaw wrote, “There are no villains in the piece. . . . It is what men do at their best, with good intentions, and what normal men and women find that they must and will do in spite of their intentions, that really concern us.” Shaw, who also wrote such works as Pygmalion, Major Barbara and Man and Superman and won the Nobel Prize shortly after Saint Joan, does not include any superheroes either. “I am not a daredevil: I am a servant of God,” Joan says to Dunois. “My heart is full of courage, not of anger. I will lead; and your men will follow: that is all I can do. But I must do it: you shall not stop me.”

The exemplary cast also features Max Gordon Moore as Bluebeard, Walter Bobbie as the Bishop of Beauvais, John Glover as the Archbishop of Rheims, Matthew Saldivar as Bertrand de Poulengey, Robert Stanton as Baudricourt’s steward, Russell G. Jones as Monseigneur de la Trémouille, and Jack Davenport as the Earl of Warwick. Most of the actors play more than one role; Page is particularly impressive as Baudricourt and the Inquisitor. Daniel Sullivan’s (The Little Foxes, Proof) direction can get a little bumpy though there are several deft touches, and at nearly three hours, the show can be a little trying. Which brings us to the rather campy epilogue. Shaw wrote Saint Joan in 1923, three years after her canonization, something he deals with in the somewhat surreal, comic, and arguably out-of-place conclusion. “As to the epilogue, I could hardly be expected to stultify myself by implying that Joan’s history in the world ended unhappily with her execution, instead of beginning there,” Shaw wrote. “It was necessary by hook or crook to shew the canonized Joan as well as the incinerated one; for many a woman has got herself burnt by carelessly whisking a muslin skirt into the drawing-room fireplace, but getting canonized is a different matter, and a more important one. So I am afraid the epilogue must stand.” And so it does, for better or worse.

THOMAS COLE’S JOURNEY: ATLANTIC CROSSINGS

Thomas Cole, “The Titan’s Goblet,” oil on canvas, 1833 (Gift of Samuel P. Avery Jr., 1904)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Daily through May 13, $12-$25 (New York residents pay-what-you-wish)
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

Thomas Cole’s five-part masterpiece, “The Course of Empire,” serves as a primer, or maybe more of a warning now, of the fall of a major power. It leads viewers down a dark path, beginning with “The Savage State” and continuing with “The Arcadian or Pastoral State,” “The Consummation of Empire,” “Destruction,” and “Desolation.” But the British-born Cole was more than just a chronicler of doom, as displayed in the Met Fifth Avenue exhibit “Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings,” which closes Sunday. In 1818, the teenage Cole traveled across the ocean, emigrating to America, later venturing back to England and Italy, honing his craft. Cole was an early leader of the Hudson River School with Thomas Doughty and Asher Brown Durand, painting magnificent landscapes in the Catskills and elsewhere. The Met exhibit, which honors the bicentennial of Cole’s arrival in America, includes dozens of his works and related paraphernalia, along with canvases by J. M. W. Turner, Claude Lorrain, John Martin, John Constable, Frederic Edwin Church, Durand, and others.

THE ICEMAN COMETH

David Morse, Denzel Washington, and Colm Meaney star in George C. Wolfe’s Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 1, $79 – $209
icemanonbroadway.com

Two-time Oscar and Tony winner Denzel Washington is nothing short of majestic as traveling hardware salesman Theodore “Hickey” Hickman in George C. Wolfe’s powerful adaptation of Eugene’ O’Neill’s staggering masterpiece, The Iceman Cometh. Washington’s charm lights up the dark goings-on at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, where set designer Santo Loquasto has transformed the stage into the No Chance Saloon, the Bedrock Bar, the End of the Line Café, a dank, depressing Greenwich Village dive in 1912 owned by Harry Hope (Colm Meaney) that is populated by a gang of luckless losers intent on drinking themselves into oblivion. The only thing they have to look forward to is the twice-a-year arrival of Hickey, who cheers them up by filling them with free drinks and telling wild stories from the real world outside. He’s like Jesus turning water into whiskey for his apostles, who consist of Larry Slade (David Morse), a former activist who has turned his back on life and wants nothing to do with anyone; Ed Mosher (Bill Irwin), a former circus performer; Harvard Law School graduate Willie Oban (Neal Huff); Boer War nemeses Piet Wetjoen (Dakin Matthews) and Cecil Lewis (Frank Wood); nighttime bartender Rocky Pioggi (Danny McCarthy), who also is a pimp for Margie (Nina Grollman), Pearl (Carolyn Braver), and Cora (Tammy Blanchard); Chuck Morello (Danny Mastrogiorgio), the daytime bartender who is in love with Cora; disgraced NYPD detective Pat McGloin (Jack McGee); communist revolutionary Hugo Kalmar (Clark Middleton), who sleeps through much of the show; Joe Mott (Michael Potts), the only African American at the bar, who wants to open a black-only gambling house; and Jimmy Tomorrow (Reg Rogers), a former journalist who believes he will return to society “tomorrow.”

Larry is deeply disturbed when Don Parritt (Austin Butler) shows up, the teenage son of an old lover from Larry’s anarchist days. Don desperately wants Larry’s approval and acceptance, but Larry refuses to care about anyone or anything, choosing to drink till he dies even though he’s probably the only person in the bar who could actually still play a role in society. As the men and women bicker, argue, joke around, and prepare for Harry’s birthday party, Hickey finally arrives, bigger and better than ever, immediately injecting life into the motley group of drunks. But this time around, Hickey, in his trademark straw hat, has something more to offer besides free drinks and Champagne: He is determined to help each man find a reason to stop being a worthless drunk and instead pick himself off his barstool, return to the real world, and make his “pipe dreams” come true. He is also armed with a secret that he’s not quite ready to share.

Harry Hope’s (Colm Meaney) birthday party is reminiscent of “The Last Supper” in The Iceman Cometh (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Four-time Pulitzer Prize winner O’Neill (Long Day’s Journey into Night, Strange Interlude) wrote The Iceman Cometh in 1939, but it was not staged until after WWII, in 1946, debuting at the Martin Beck Theatre. It deals with politics, racism, and the forgotten men of America, but O’Neill does not blame society, the economy, or war for their alcoholism and retreat from existence; these are men who would have given up no matter the era, lending the play a terrifying kind of timelessness. Hickey has never been their savior; ironically, he is the one who betrays them by suddenly trying to give meaning to their miserable lives. Wolfe even stages the party scene at a long table reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Wolfe has trimmed the show down to a slim three hours and fifty minutes, with two intermissions and a pause, pacing the drama well, like drinking a smooth glass of high-end whiskey and not a shot, or full bottle, or rotgut. The cast is exceptional, a team of pros giving it everything they’ve got. Meaney brings depth to Harry, Rogers plays Jimmy with just the right tease of hope, Potts adeptly handles the racism angle, and Butler, in his Broadway debut, is bright-eyed and determined as the young Don, a part previously played by such future stars as Jeff Bridges and Robert Redford.

Hickey (Denzel Washington) has quite a story to tell in Eugene O’Neill revival at the Jacobs Theatre (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

But the key to the success of the show is the relationship between Hickey and Larry; over the years, the former has been portrayed by Jason Robards, Kevin Spacey, Brian Dennehy, James Earl Jones, Lee Marvin, and Nathan Lane, while the latter has been played by James Cromwell, Robert Ryan, Patrick Stewart, Conrad Bain, Tim Pigott-Smith, and Dennehy. Washington and Morse, who both starred as doctors in the groundbreaking, Emmy-winning 1980s series St. Elsewhere, are staunch and deeply affecting in their roles. Morse’s Larry is loud and angry, often walking to the sides of the stage to just watch the other losers, as if he is better than them, even if he won’t admit it. Washington’s Hickey throws knowing glances at Larry; he wants his friend to change but knows it’s unlikely. Washington commands the stage with his full body, gesturing with his arms and legs, at times hunching over just a bit and leaning his head forward as he spreads his new ideas. He delivers the final monologue — on a chair, not a cross — beautifully as his disciples gaze intently from behind. Both Washington and Morse have received Tony nominations for their performances; the show has also been nominated for Best Revival, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design (Ann Roth), Best Lighting (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer), Best Sound (Dan Moses Schreier), and Best Director. The title comes from Hickey’s classic story about returning home one day to unexpectedly find the ice salesman with his wife in the hay, but it also refers to the specter of death haunting each one of these characters.