twi-ny recommended events

IRISH COLD CASE: SCORCHED EARTH AT ST. ANN’S

Suspect John McKay (Luke Murphy) is interrogated by Detective Alison Kerr (Sarah Dowling) in Scorched Earth (photo by Teddy Wolff)

SCORCHED EARTH
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Through April 19, $74
stannswarehouse.org
www.atticprojects.com

Writer, director, choreographer, dancer, and actor Luke Murphy returns to St. Ann’s Warehouse, following 2024’s sci-fi gem Volcano, with the searing Scorched Earth.

I called the nearly four-hour Volcano “an eruption of ingenuity, a multimedia, multidisciplinary melding of past, present, and future bathed in mystery.” The same can be said of the ninety-minute Scorched Earth.

“What does it take to be from somewhere?” Detective Alison Kerr (Sarah Dowling) asks while discussing a questionable case, setting the stage for a play steeped in humans’ relationship with one another and the land.

The show takes place in a small, tight-knit, unnamed Irish town where the body of a wealthy man, William Dean (Will Thompson), was found on a ten-acre plot of land he had just won at auction, outbidding John McKay (Murphy), a tenant farmer who had worked on the property for eight years. Ten years after the death, Kerr has reopened the case. She brings in McKay for twenty-four hours of interrogation, a digital clock on the wall counting down the time.

The fractured narrative shifts kaleidoscopically in time and space, between the interrogation, re-creations of past events, and a radio talk show where host Leanne Meany (Tyler Carney-Faleatua) speaks with Dean, both before and after his death. Alyson Cummins’s stark set is a bleak, gray, angled room in which the cast of five moves around tables and chairs, an open door morphs into a telephone booth where Sergeant Leahy (Ryan O’Neill) calls Kerr, and a rectangular section of the back wall slides open to reveal other elements. Patricio Cassinoni’s slide projections depict crime-scene photos, pages from official reports, and aerial views of the contested land while putting the murder in context of other similar disputes through Irish history.

Much of the story is told through captivating movement that takes the story in fascinating directions, brilliantly expanding the tense atmosphere as the police procedural unfolds. McKay dances with a grass body (Carney-Faleatua) that is less a green monster than a piece of the land. The deceased Dean writhes around on the floor, his body like a limp, boneless creature. There’s even a country line dance where, as Leahy announces, “no one has to touch each other,” a sly reference to the previously accepted claim that Dean died because of a fall, not at the hands of a murderer.

Meanwhile, the townsfolk seem far more concerned about John O’Donnell’s missing donkey than what happened to Dean, which they seek to remain buried in the cold earth.

Scorched Earth incorporates thrilling dance in police-procedural narrative (photo by Teddy Wolff)

Scorched Earth was inspired by John B. Keane’s 1965 play The Field, which was adapted into a 1990 film by Jim Sheridan that featured an Oscar-nominated Richard Harris as an elderly Irish tenant farmer who is fighting to own the land his family has worked on for generations, as well as by Mark O’Connell’s A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder, Myles Dungan’s Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History, and Andrew Jarecki’s The Jinx, the Peabody-winning docuseries about real estate heir Robert Durst and a long-unsolved murder.

Cork-born Murphy (Sleep No More, Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte) is magnetic as McKay, a deeply conflicted man who firmly believes the land should have been his. Dowling, who portrays a bartender and a bank teller in addition to Kerr, is cool and calm as the determined detective. Thompson, who starred opposite Murphy in Volcano, brings nuance to Dean, a rich mogul who can afford to buy whatever he wants. (Perhaps the character was also based partly on William K. Dean, a doctor who retired to a New Hampshire farm where he was murdered in 1918; the case, investigated by a private detective named Wilhelm DeKerlor — oddly similar to “Kerr” — remains unsolved.) O’Neill and Carney-Faleatua provide expert support.

Scorched Earth is a scintillating success all the way around, including Cummins’s costumes, Stephen Dodd’s stark lighting, which beams in from the sides of the set, and composer Rob Moloney’s wide-ranging score. Everything merges beautifully for an exhilarating, powerful surprise Sisyphean conclusion where it all comes tumbling down, no matter who you are or where you’re from.

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

BANG BANG: REBECCA DE MORNAY IN THE PUSHOVER AT THE CHAIN

Pearl Penny Chen (Di Zhu) and Evelyn (Rebecca De Mornay) have some unfinished business in The Pushover (Dan Wright Photography)

THE PUSHOVER
Chain Theatre
312 West Thirty-Sixth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through April 26, $45–$69
www.chaintheatre.org

Rebecca De Mornay makes an impressive New York stage debut in the world premiere of John Patrick Shanley’s curiously uneven but ultimately satisfying modern noir The Pushover.

De Mornay, who rose to stardom in the 1980s and ’90s in such films as Risky Business and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and more recently has had recurring roles on such series as John from Cincinnati and Jessica Jones, portrays Evelyn, an elegant kingpin involved in a lesbian love triangle with hyper-anxious chef Pearl Penny Chen (Di Zhu) and hyper-anxious restaurant manager, gambler, thief, and drug addict Soochi (Christina Toth). The action shifts from an exclusive spa in New Mexico, where Evelyn conducts her business, to an Asian restaurant in Queens, where Pearl is trying to restart her life and career.

Pearl sends Soochi, who has stolen from her, to Evelyn so that Soochi can make restitution. But Evelyn’s unexpected shifts between jokes and threats set a tone of menace early on.

Describing her exclusive spa, Evelyn explains, “Yeah, there’s an abundance of staff serving a pretty small clientele. And also, it’s the heat of the day, so a lot of folks hang in their rooms about now, or schedule treatments. Me? I like to use the time to pay parking tickets.” An unimpressed Soochi says, “You seem to have a lot of them.” Evelyn replies, “It’s worse than you think. I don’t even have a car.”

A few moments later, Evelyn, who admits to being a “gangster” and a “monster,” snarls, “I warn you! Do not talk shit about Pearl. She was my best shot, you understand? And when you cheated her, you cheated me. And you don’t want to cheat me. No, you do not.”

Evelyn has a plan to make things right, but it is impossible to trust the drug-addled Soochi, producing an explosive finale involving souls, money, and guns.

Soochi (Christina Toth) is at the center of a dangerous love triangle in John Patrick Shanley world premiere at the Chain (Dan Wright Photography)

The Pushover is clumsily directed by Kirk Gostkowski (Humpty Dumpty, Leave Me Behind) and is hampered by an unnecessary frame story in which Pearl meets with a therapist (Christopher Sutton, who plays multiple small roles). The changes in Jackson Berkley’s small, intimate set slow down the pace, and Debbi Hobson’s costumes, from spa robes to white gloves, call too much attention to themselves.

Tony, Pulitzer, and Oscar winner Shanley is one of America’s finest playwrights and screenwriters; his resume includes Doubt and Outside Mullingar on Broadway, Prodigal Son and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea off Broadway, and the films Moonstruck and Five Corners. This new play doesn’t stand up to his best.

Yet somehow it works. It has the feel of the Cher and Nancy Sinatra heartbreak song “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” and Rebekah Del Rio’s dream-pop “No Stars,” both of which can be heard at the Chain, adding to the noirish mood. And De Mornay (Born Yesterday, Closer) provides a steadying force as Evelyn, a strong-willed, powerful woman who knows what she wants and says what she means; she commands the stage with an engaging magnetism, bringing the narrative back to its focus each time it is about to go off the rails.

When Soochi becomes upset after Evelyn asks about the blouse she’s wearing, the mob boss says, “It was a trivial question. Maybe that’s the real problem. Maybe the real problem is you want everything to be important, and everything isn’t important.”

It’s a statement that also describes The Pushover.

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

SINCE MY BABY LEFT ME: HEARTBREAK HOTEL AT DR2

Simon Leary and Karin McCracken face heartache in Heartbreak Hotel at DR2 Theatre (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

HEARTBREAK HOTEL
DR2 Theatre
103 East 15th St. between Irving Pl. & Park Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 19, $29-$56
heartbreakhotelplay.com
www.darylroththeatre.com

New Zealand company EBKM sets the tone for the American premiere of Heartbreak Hotel during the entrance music, with such songs about romantic pain and misery as Aimee Mann’s “Save Me,” Alanis Morissette’s “That I Would Be Good,” Cher’s “Believe,” and Lenny Kravitz’s “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over” preparing the crowd for what is to come at the small, intimate DR2 Theatre.

Writer and star Karin McCracken, who cofounded the troupe with director Eleanor Bishop, comes onstage, walks to the lip, and, with the lights on, looks out at the audience and says, “I was hoping to get to know everyone a bit before we start, so I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. For the first question, you don’t need to respond out loud. If you just think your answer, and make eye contact with me, I’ll be able to tell. It’s just a thing I’m able to do. So: Is anyone here heartbroken, or grieving, or otherwise bereft?” Starting at the back, she then goes row by row, looking into the eyes of each of the ninety-nine audience members, a clever way to form an instant connection.

She then explains she’s neither a musician nor a singer but she has taken up both disciplines because she read that creativity promotes neuroplasticity and singing suppresses cortisol, relieving stress — “Unless you’re singing in an environment that would naturally promote anxiety, like live performance.”

Over the course of about seventy minutes, she shares her story directly with the audience, re-creating scenes from her character’s past. Simon Leary performs all the other roles: a tinder date, her gay bestie, a supermarket worker, a doctor, and her former partner, who she was with for six years. She also plays, on synthesizer, relevant songs by Bonnie Raitt, Sinéad O’Connor, and the Cranberries, dances, and uses such other scientific terminology as “norepinephrine,” “monocytes,” “RNAs,” “serotonin,” “oxytocin,” “Takotsubo syndrome,” and “chipotle sauce,” which serves as medical explanations regarding love and loss as well as potential excuses for why humans make certain decisions.

Karin McCracken wrote and stars in US premiere of EBKM’s Heartbreak Hotel (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

Dressed in a country-rock-style jacket with sequins, fringe, and tassels, she deals with her situation with limited success, clearly unable to put the relationship behind her, in scenes such as “Dating While Heartbroken,” “The Science: Protest,” and “Anxious/Avoidant,” the words passing by on a semicircle of LED boxes like digital ticker tape. The production design, which also features pink shag carpeting, is by Rachel Marlow (who also did the lighting) and Brad Gledhill of Filament Eleven 11, with sound by Te Aihe Butler that ranges from a German club to a noisy bar to a quiet beach.

McCracken is engaging as the unnamed woman, imbuing her with a believable honesty, refusing to make her a victim while not afraid to reveal her flaws and mistakes. You’ll root for her to finally take those necessary next steps even as she keeps getting in her own way. Leary slides neatly from character to character, making subtle changes in each as the woman’s story unfolds.

It all leads to a powerful finale, one that resonates with Presley’s 1956 hit — “Well, since my baby left me / I found a new place to dwell / It’s down at the end of Lonely Street / At Heartbreak Hotel / Where I’ll be, I’ll be so lonely, baby / I’m so lonely / I’ll be so lonely, I could die” — but has a hopeful twist at the end, hinting that there may be a way out of the woman’s self-imposed prison.

On the way out of the theater, each audience member is given a small pamphlet consisting of notes and resources, from poetry and music influences to illustrations and acknowledgments, including one for her mum.

Early on in the show, her mother, in a prerecorded voiceover, says, “When someone is in the midst of a heartbreak, it feels like time has stopped — because they want the past and don’t want what the future holds. A state of limbo. It’s a terrible thing.”

As always, mother knows best.

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

PLAYING CHICKEN: KRYMOV LAB’S UNCLE VANYA AT LA MAMA

Vanya (Zach Fike Hodges) makes an appeal to Yelena (Shelby Flannery) as Waffles (Amen Igbinosun) watches and Professor Serebryakov (Colin Buckingham) reads in Krymov Lab NYC production at La MaMa (photo by Marina Levitskaya)

UNCLE VANYA, SCENES FROM COUNTRY LIFE
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
The Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Tuesday – Sunday through April 12, $10-$60
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

“When I was supposed to have a master class at Hunter College and I was preparing and I decided to look at Uncle Vanya, the scenes I was going to use for that master class, all of a sudden I felt nauseated,” Dmitry Krymov said at a talkback following the April 1 matinee of Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life at La MaMa, where he pointed out how everything had changed since Russia invaded Ukraine. He was in Philadelphia at the time, preparing The Cherry Orchard, and has been unable to return to his home country ever since. “I felt this is the food I put in the refrigerator many, many years ago, and I’m warming it up over and over again. I was so mad at myself for doing so that I decided to do what you just saw. That was the idea. I jumped in my bed. That’s what you were seeing right now. What you just saw was a work of my imagination at that particular moment.”

And what an imagination Krymov has. His new play is not a reimagination or a reinvention of Chekhov’s 1898 tragicomedy but a glorious explosion of its innards. Krymov shifts the focus to Yelena (Shelby Flannery), who spends most of the show sitting near the front of the stage in her knickers, the rest of the characters seated in a semicircle behind her. A city denizen, Yelena does not want to be in the country, instantly uncomfortable as she is harassed by flies and frightened by the sounds of wild animals nearby. Over the course of ninety inspired minutes, she is approached by Dr. Astrov (Javier Molina), an environmental activist who is in love with her; her husband, Professor Serebryakov (Colin Buckingham), who owns the family estate; Vanya (Zach Fike Hodges), the brother of the professor’s late wife who has no life outside the estate; Sonya (Natalie Battistone), daughter of the professor’s late wife who works with Vanya and is worried about becoming a spinster; Waffles (Amen Igbinosun), a simple-minded man who lives on the estate, faithful to the spouse who abandoned him years before for another man; Vanya’s controlling mother (Anya Zicer); the stern nanny (Tim Eliot) who makes a terrifying chicken soup; and a hen (MaryKate Glenn) wearing pink bunny slippers and a rooster (Sasha Drey) who plays the acoustic guitar.

The existence of the hen and rooster serves as a microcosm of Krymov’s approach to the narrative. In the original play, at one point the nanny calls out to the chickens on the estate and tells Sonya, “The speckled hen has disappeared with her chicks. I am afraid the crows have got her.” Krymov turns that brief mention into a heart-wrenching subplot. The two costumes are hilarious until they’re not, when the actors remove at least part of them. Meanwhile, the set is a long vertical rectangular slightly rising white platform that leads to a large horizontal canvas in the back on which designer Emona Stoykova has painted a rough black-and-white country scene inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s last painting, “Wheatfield with Crows,” evoking not only the killer crows but the tragedy of Van Gogh’s suicide by gun — the firearm a mainstay of Chekhovian drama and something that Krymov also turns inside out and upside down.

Eventually, Vanya gets tired of not being the center of attention and screams out, “I am the main character of this play! . . . THIS PLAY IS ABOUT ME! IT’S CALLED UNCLE VANYA. NOT UNCLE PROFESSOR, NOT UNCLE DOCTOR, NOT UNCLE SONYA, NOT UNCLE WHAT’S HIS NAME OR WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS. NOT UNCLE MAMA, NOT UNCLE CHICKEN. IT’S UNCLE VANYA. ME!”

However, this is Dmitry Krymov’s Uncle Vanya, not Anton Chekhov’s, as evidenced most defiantly by an utterly brilliant finale.

A hen (MaryKate Glenn) and Yelena (Shelby Flannery) take a smoking break in Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life (photo by Marina Levitskaya)

Writer-director Krymov has assembled a terrific team to pull off this bewitching, circuslike production, every element pulling rabbits out of hats, with costumes by Luna Gomberg, puppets by Leah Ogawa, lighting by Krista Smith, sound by Denis Zabikaya, projections by Yana Biryukova, and impressive dramaturgy by Shari Perkins. The cast is exceptional, led by Flannery as a complex Yelena, who adds depth to a role often performed as a knowing seductress, and Glenn as the unforgettable Hen, who will break your heart.

The play is also heavily influenced by the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the characters search for their identity and place in an ever-more-dangerous world, where potential violence hovers around every corner and love and connection are not easy to come by. At the talkback, Krymov was near tears several times when he spoke fondly about his former home and answered questions from members of the audience watching from Russia (and other countries) on a livestream.

Krymov previously presented his unique takes on Ernest Hemingway and Eugene O’Neill in Three Love Stories Near the Railroad and Alexander Pushkin in Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” in our own words.

I can’t wait to see what magic he has in store for us next.

A BAD CASE OF WRITER’S BLOCK: THE UNKNOWN AT STUDIO SEAVIEW

Sean Hayes stars as a writer facing a crisis in David Cale’s The Unknown (photo by Emilio Madrid)

THE UNKNOWN
Studio Seaview
305 West 43rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through April 12, $158-$349, streaming $89
studioseaview.com

There are only a few seats left for each of the final performances of David Cale’s The Unknown at Studio Seaview, but the last four shows, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, will also be available as a livestream so you can watch this creepy psychological thriller from the comfort of your own home, where you’re likely to have seen star Sean Hayes in Will & Grace, if not also Martin & Lewis and The Millers. Just be sure to keep the lights off.

Following up his Tony-winning portrayal of Oscar Levant in Good Night, Oscar, Hayes is Elliott, a New York City writer experiencing a bad case of writer’s block. “I don’t know, maybe it’s from spending too much time surfing the internet, and it’s affected my ability to concentrate, but I was having a hard time keeping focused,” he tells us at the beginning.

He accepts an offer from his best friends, Larry and Chloe, to stay for a while in their isolated upstate cabin, but the first day he is there he hears a voice singing, “I Wish You’d Wanted Me,” a song from his hit musical. The sound echoes around the theater, enveloping everyone, but Elliott doesn’t find anyone around the place. Out of cellphone range, he later calls Larry, who claims it is not some kind of prank. Elliott also chooses not to contact the police, the first of numerous possible mistakes he makes as he realizes that the story he is involved in might be just the one to end his block, no matter the consequences.

Solo specialist Cale (The Redthroats, Deep in a Dream of You) and director Leigh Silverman (On the Exhale, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe) previously collaborated on Harry Clarke and Sandra, so they know their way around one-person plays, but The Unknown drifts into TV-detective territory with a convoluted plot that feels overstuffed even at a mere seventy minutes, with several unnecessary scenes and a disappointing twist ending.

Hayes does a fine job on a spare set, standing in front of a brick wall as he switches between Elliott, Larry, Chloe, the mysterious Joey Dupain, and others. Cha See’s lighting maintains a noirish feel, accompanied by Caroline Eng’s sound design and Isobel Waller-Bridge’s music. There are intimate, revealing moments, including one that got a gasp out of the audience, as the concept of stalking is stretched to its limits, but there are just not enough chills. Maybe watching it home alone will offer a better opportunity to get past some of its inscrutability.

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

JOHN WATERS AT EIGHTY: STILL GOING TO EXTREMES

John Waters loosens up in preparation for his eightieth-birthday shows, coming to the Society for Ethical Culture on April 19

GOING TO EXTREMES: A JOHN WATERS 80th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
Adler Hall at the New York Society for Ethical Culture
2 West Sixty-Fourth St. & Central Park West
Sunday, April 19, $87.97 – $130.69, 7:30
ethical.nyc
www.dreamlandnews.com

“Secretly I think that all my films are politically correct, though they appear not to be. That’s because they’re made with a sense of joy,” filmmaker, actor, writer, visual artist, and monologist John Waters has said.

After having spoken with him, I now feel that John Waters himself is made with a sense of joy.

Over a career lasting more than sixty years, the Baltimore native, who turns eighty on April 22, has brought joy to a ravenous public that devours his eclectic movies, books, talk-show appearances, and solo performances. He broke through in the early 1970s with the counterculture trio of Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, and Female Trouble, all starring the drag queen Divine, and scored more mainstream success later with Polyester, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and Serial Mom.

His writings include 1981’s Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste, in which he explains, “To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits watching one of my films, it’s like getting a standing ovation.”; the 2014 nonfiction Carsick, which details his 2012 cross-country hitchhiking trip; and his first novel, 2022’s Liarmouth . . . A Feel-Bad Romance, about a pair of con artists, luggage, and a chatty penis. Among his numerous acting jobs, he portrayed the Groom Reaper on the based-on-fact legal drama ’Til Death Do Us Part and made a cameo as Jesus in Ash Christian’s Mangus!

A master of the spoken-word lecture, he has performed such solo shows as This Filthy World, Naked Truth, Make Trouble, and A John Waters Christmas. His latest, Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration, comes to the Society for Ethical Culture on April 19.

Waters, who is always impeccably dressed and styled, usually in a sports jacket and tie, highlighted by his famous pencil-thin mustache, is utterly charming on the phone, laughing often as we discuss the ins and outs of showbiz, holiday-themed monologues, Howdy Doody, airplane etiquette, and ethical culture.

twi-ny: Hello, John.

john waters: Hey, Mark.

twi-ny: I met you many, many years ago. You would never, ever remember it, but it was at “Outsider Porn,” a marvelous show you curated with Dian Hanson in Chelsea of photos of erect penises by David Hurles.

jw: Yeah, I did that at the Marianne Boesky Gallery. Yes.

twi-ny: I had never seen anything like that kind of show and I just loved it.

jw: It was pretty brave of my gallery to do it.

twi-ny: Yes, but you know what, it was like all of your work, all the things you’re involved in: It makes people experience a different part of the world or a different kind of beauty that they’re not used to seeing.

jw: I’m coming to New York for my eightieth.

twi-ny: How great is that? So when you were a boy and you started doing puppet shows at children’s birthday parties, did you ever think that you would be working harder than ever in the entertainment business when you were eighty?

jw: I didn’t ever think that, but I never thought I wouldn’t do that either. I always was ambitious. My parents taught me I could be anything I wanted, even when what I wanted to be is not what they wanted me to be. So I would say, no. When you’re twelve years old, it seems like it takes a hundred years to be thirteen. When you’re seventy-nine, it takes one second until you’re eighty. So that’s the difference.

twi-ny: I wrote a piece last month about three artists who were all in their nineties, two painters and an actress. They’re doing some of their best work now.

jw: I always say, I’m afraid if I stop, I drop dead. I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. And I say in my show, I’m not going to give it all away, but I do say if I do drop dead, you can do selfies. I don’t do selfies in real life because I got Covid from doing it.

twi-ny: I read that at some show you were throwing masks around.

jw: I don’t think that’s true. It was before Covid even started; I wouldn’t have ever done that. I read that somewhere online too. It might have been in the very beginning, but I’m not so sure I did do that. Well, if it was ever, it would have been just once. I’ve thrown poppers into the audience. I’ve thrown anal bleach packets into the audience. I’m fine admitting the things I throw. Ground beef I’ve thrown, but I don’t think I ever threw that.

John Waters refers to his solo shows as “sermons” (photo by Greg Gorman)

twi-ny: In Carsick, you wrote that Brigid Berlin said to you, “How can I be bad at seventy? She’s got a point. I’m sixty-six years old, for Christ’s sake.” Now that you’re turning eighty — and, unfortunately, we lost Ms. Berlin in 2020 when she was eighty — can you still be bad at eighty? I’m thinking that you can still be bad at eighty.

jw: I guess, but what do you mean by bad? If anything, trying to be bad may never be good. What she meant by bad was . . . Brigid Berlin changed so much in movies and the conception of a rich girl, of a fag hag, of a junkie, of all the different bad labels. She ended up being a Republican, which is kind of funny.

twi-ny: Right?

jw: Yeah. I think she did find out how to be bad at eighty. She became a Trump supporter.

I hitchhiked across the country by myself at sixty-six. I took LSD with Mink [Stole] at seventy, and I always joked I was gonna turn heterosexual at eighty.

twi-ny: Well, now you’ve got something to look forward to — or not. When you were a kid, your parents took you to see Howdy Doody in New York City.

jw: Yep, I was in the Peanut Gallery at NBC Studios, where later I did David Letterman.

twi-ny: How would you describe that experience? Was that your first trip to New York City?

jw: No, not my first trip, but it was an earth-shattering one that changed my life because I was obsessed by Howdy Doody, as everybody was. It was the first television show in America, practically. My uncle knew someone at NBC Studios; it was not easy to get on that show. There were only, I forget, like twenty kids in the audience, but I remember walking into the studio. It was this giant studio with this tiny little puppet stage surrounded by fifty cameras. There were five Howdy Doody puppets, five of each character.

There was Buffalo Bob, who was mean to us and told us to shut up or we wouldn’t get anything when it was over. I looked around and realized this was all a big lie. And rather than be disillusioned, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

twi-ny: You got a taste of what was going on behind the scenes, how it’s done.

jw: I saw the illusion, I saw the whole thing, and I knew this would be the only thing I could ever really do.

twi-ny: And it really set in motion everything that you’ve done afterward. Staying in New York for a bit, you live here and in Baltimore and San Francisco?

jw: And Provincetown. And, more than any of them, airports. I did fifty-nine shows last year.

twi-ny: And you have a whole lot more coming up this year. One of my favorite things you’ve said was, “It’s hard to imagine how great and scary Times Square was.” Now, over the years, starting with Giuliani specifically, it’s gone through so many changes.

jw: No, it’s scary now because it’s suburbia.

twi-ny: They sort of Disney-fied it, right?

jw: Not even Disney-fied; it’s not even that good. It’s just people sitting in lawn chairs. I like Times Square, but I miss the . . . no, Times Square got so terrible at the end it had to change. But still, it’s amazing to walk by and think, Oh my God, I had sex in a movie theater in there. That place used to be the most insane place where both homeless and gay people went.

People would be trying to sleep and they’d accidentally put their arm through a glory hole. You think back on these memories and they’re long gone. Even the ghosts are in hell.

twi-ny: You’ll be at the Society for Ethical Culture on April 19. How has the concept of ethical culture changed from from the beginning of your career?

jw: I played there before; it’s an amazing place. Well, ethical culture — what ethnic am I? The filth world. I guess I am filth culture, which is a subculture of radical entertainment. Yes, basically, I’m a carny. That’s what I am.

twi-ny: Many of your shows are built around holidays. You’ve done, in addition to the birthday shows, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Halloween shows. Is that just a coincidence or are you drawn to holidays?

jw: I’ve done July 4 shows, I’ve done Valentine’s Day, I’ve done all of them. I tell you, I’m going to do Groundhog Day and do my old material.

I rewrite the show completely once a year, which is like writing a short book, because it’s a seventy-minute monologue.

twi-ny: Everybody loves holidays, but do you feel a special connection to holidays, or is it just a good way to give you an idea of how to change the show?

jw: It’s exploitation, that’s all. People always say, What are you doing on Halloween? I say, I’m like a common drag queen; I gotta work. I mean, on the holidays, even at Christmas, when I’m touring around, I think, Where am I supposed to do Christmas shopping, in airports? I try to get people gift certificates for Hudson News but they don’t have them; they looked at me like I was crazy when I asked.

twi-ny: Only certain people would understand that.

jw: I think it’s funny. Of course, now a $50 gift certificate for Hudson News wouldn’t buy you a package of Kleenex. How much is a coffee? Eleven dollars for a small coffee to go?

twi-ny: Is there anything on your birthday that you specifically love to do?

jw: That’s something in my private life that I never share. I’m going to a foreign country and have a vacation. So much of my life is shared with the public, if you don’t keep some things private, you’re oversharing.

twi-ny: That’s a great point, because the films you’ve made, the books you’ve written, your shows, they’re very, very open. They’re not necessarily confessional, but you’re not hiding a lot as far as we can tell. So I would imagine that means people think they can tell you anything or ask you anything.

jw: It doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything.

twi-ny: Definitely not!

jw: They do tell me everything. I’ll sit on an airplane and a stranger next to me will tell me, You know, my parents fucked me in an Easter basket when I was five years old. Please don’t share that with me. I’m sorry for that, but I don’t know what I can do about it.

twi-ny: We’re going put the headphones on and watch that movie, I think.

jw: I read; that’s better. Anne Tyler said she used to always take the longest book on a plane so that she’d never be finished. I used to read a book called Lesbian Nuns and that would stop conversation usually. Now that would make people talk more. People would say, Oh, my sister’s one of them.

John Waters makes a key cameo in his 1988 hit Hairspray

twi-ny: Now that you’re reaching a certain age, does the number mean anything?

jw: How could I be eighty years old? It’s impossible to even imagine, yet here I am. I’m glad, I’m lucky, alive, to see and be able to be the busiest I’ve ever been in my life.

twi-ny: You’ve made a dozen feature films and many shorts, published ten books, you’re a photographer, you do voiceovers, you do your tours. Are there things in your professional life that you haven’t done yet that you’re itching to try?

jw: And my first poem is being published in The Atlantic this month.

twi-ny: Congratulations!

jw: So there’s one; the only thing left is to write a play. I’ve never done that.

twi-ny: I would love for you to challenge Broadway.

jw: I think I’d have a better chance off Broadway.

twi-ny: What might it be about?

jw: I wouldn’t tell. You never talk about something before you do it. After you do it you have to talk about it for the rest of your life.

twi-ny: You do a lot of interviews. I’m thrilled that you agreed to do this. Does it ever get tiring? Or, like you said before, is it all part of the exploitation?

jw: For every show I do, I’m contracted to do at least two interviews to promote it. It’s part of my job to do the press. I get ten newspapers a day and read about eight more. I like the press. I feel bad what they’re going through right now. So to me, why would you ever be in show business and say you hate the press? I use you to sell tickets and you use me to get people to read you and so that’s fair.

twi-ny: It’s a fair deal. I will say that in my case, I do this so people will know that John Waters is coming to New York City.

jw: You’re a social worker.

twi-ny: You’re most associated with Baltimore, where you filmed all your movies. One of my favorite movies last year was The Baltimorons.

jw: Yes, I liked it. I thought it was a very good religious romantic comedy. Not my favorite genre. They did it really well. The acting was really good in it. It was well shot. I liked it very much.

twi-ny: I imagine you might have been to that holiday Christmas market in the film.

jw: I avoid gatherings of Christmas glee, except my own — I have to be in a show every night. But certainly it fit in very well with films that are made in Baltimore, and I was very glad it’s a success.

twi-ny: I love the title.

jw: That’s a thing people always say here; it’s not negative.

John Waters is ready to scream at New York City show (photo by Greg Gorman)

twi-ny: Getting back to the show. In all the cities you go to, do audiences in different places react differently to John Waters? I’m sorry for talking about you in the third person.

jw: The same. They’re smart. They get dressed up for me. If they don’t get the jokes, they have homework to look it up. They’re very cool, all ages and all sexuality. I did a show this week in Phoenix. I did one in Santa Fe. In El Paso. And in New York. The audiences, I couldn’t tell the difference. And I mean that in a good way.

It was probably elitist of me to think that New York and LA get you but Phoenix and El Paso don’t.

jw: It’s a worldwide infected religion. I’m thankful. I even call my show sermons now.

twi-ny: So for New York, would you want people to come dressed any specific way?

jw: Don’t come dressed like you might on an airplane.

I see people on airplanes in an old filthy T-shirt and shorts in the middle of winter. Get dressed, pig! Really disgusting. So yes, people get dressed for me. I don’t have to tell them. No one wears a dirty sloppy T-shirt and baggy shorts to see me ever; it’s never happened.

twi-ny: I’ve seen that on Broadway.

jw: They know better.

twi-ny: You’re laughing through this entire interview. Every time I see you on talk shows or other programs, you just seem like a happy guy.

jw: Well, I’m not walking around like a lunatic. If you want to know the truth, I’m sick today. I have a really bad cold.

I am an actor. But I am who I say I am in interviews. That is the real me completely. But I’m not always like that all day.

twi-ny: I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me despite you’re not feeling well.

jw: Thank you for your support. I couldn’t get away with it without people like you.

twi-ny: I’m looking forward to the show.

jw: Thank you. And laugh loudly when you’re there.

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

TAKING CHARGE AT THE PUBLIC: THE PEOPLE’S THEATER HITS A GRAND SLAM

Chorus (Celia Keenan-Bolger) looks on as siblings Ismene (Haley Wong) and Antigone (Susannah Perkins) connect (photo by Joan Marcus)

ANTIGONE (THIS PLAY I READ IN HIGH SCHOOL)
Barbaralee Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through April 12, $89-$109
publictheater.org

The Public has hit a grand slam with four current productions, continuing founder Joe Papp’s mission that has been embodied by longtime artistic director Oskar Eustis, who wrote in American Theatre in 2007, “The voices that need to be reflected on our stages are not the voices of the few, but the voices of the many.”

The quartet of works explore the state of America, and its position in the world, in wide-ranging plays that take things to the limit and beyond.

In the last dozen years, New York has seen no fewer than ten shows that featured some version of Sophocles’s Antigone character, the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta who risks her life by insisting on an honorable burial for her brother Polynices after her uncle, King Creon, declares him a traitor. The dark tale has inspired such recent adaptations as Satoshi Miyagi’s lush Antigone at Park Ave. Armory; Alexander Zeldin’s contemporary transformation, The Other Place, at the Shed; and Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s rousing, impassioned version of Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s The Gospel at Colonus at the Amph at Little Island.

At the Public’s Barbaralee Theater, Anna Ziegler’s Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) reimagines the Greek tragedy as a treatise on a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body. The narrative shifts between an alternate modern-day Thebes, where Antigone (a powerful and moving Susannah Perkins) is pregnant, and Pittsburgh, where the forty-year-old Dicey, serving as the chorus (a tender, superb Celia Keenan-Bolger), is contemplating her surprise pregnancy.

An early scene has them sitting across from each other on a plane, the teenage Antigone reading the Sophocles play. Dicey asks Antigone why she is reading it, and she responds, “Why shouldn’t I?” Dicey says, “It’s just that you don’t seem to like it very much.” Antigone explains, “It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m just like, is it even about her? It seems like it’s all about her brother’s body. A man’s body. . . . Is it even about her?”

With the death of Antigone’s parents, her uncle, Creon (a fine Tony Shalhoub), has taken the throne; one of his first edicts is to make abortion a capital crime, proclaiming, “A big part of the platform of this government is upholding the value of life, family, and kinship.”

Antigone seeks the support of her sister, the pristine, beautiful Ismene (a lovely Haley Wong), who is shocked when Antigone admits to her that she just had a drunken one-night stand with a waiter named Achilles (Ethan Dubin) despite being betrothed to Haemon (Calvin Leon Smith), Creon’s son. “Wouldn’t it have been okay to just let things be . . . quiet for a while. Not to make drama,” Ismene posits, to which Antigone replies, “Isn’t making drama, like, our inheritance?” Ismene is even more distressed when Antigone talks about getting a back-alley procedure from what turns out to be a sketchy proprietor (Katie Kreisler).

Desperately trying to retain control of his family and the kingdom, Creon enlists three guards (Dave Quay, Dubin, and Kreisler) to help, but they are more like the Keystone Cops than worthy protectors as Antigone refuses to back down from her beliefs.

King Creon (Tony Shalhoub) has harsh words for an abortionist (Katie Kreisler) in unique take on Antigone (photo by Joan Marcus)

Beautifully designed by David Zinn with intriguing costumes by Enver Chakartash, Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) is a chilling feminist call to action, a treatise on motherhood, responsibility, and gender expectations; Ziegler (Boy, Actually) and director Tyne Rafaeli (Data, Becoming Eve) challenge the audience while celebrating theater itself, including sharp references to Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The 135-minute play (with intermission) veers into repetitive didacticism at the conclusion, telling us what they’ve already shown us, but it also reminds us that things we learned in high school do stay with us if we pay attention.

The cast is exemplary, led by a fierce performance by Perkins (Grief Hotel, The Wolves, The Good John Proctor), a rising star who commands the stage even with such Tony-winning veterans as Keenan-Bolger (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Glass Menagerie) and Shalhoub (Happy Days, Act One).

At the start of the second act, Dicey recalls seeing a college production of Death of a Salesman, remembering, “I stood in the back . . . spellbound. There was just something about it.”

The same can be said for this Antigone.

Four Korean American sisters reconnect in Jeena Yi’s playwriting debut (photo by Joan Marcus)

JESA
The Shiva Theater
425 Lafayette St.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 12, $80
publictheater.org
ma-yitheatre.org

The Public teams with resident troupe Ma-Yi Theater Company, whose mission is “to develop and produce new and innovative plays by Asian American writers . . . shaping local and national conversations about what it means to be Asian American today,” for Jesa, a passionate world premiere that marks the playwriting debut of actor Jeena Yi. Although the story is about four Korean American sisters, the script calls it An American Family Drama, an important statement.

In present-day Orange County, four siblings gather for Jesa, a ritual honoring their parents on the anniversary of their deaths. Grace (Shannon Tyo), a seemingly perfect suburbanite with a lovely home, a husband, and a daughter named Lily, is hosting the ceremony, determined to have everything go exactly as planned. The fashionable Elizabeth (Laura Sohn), who works in private equity, arrives first, bringing fruit and a reminder that she is setting up a trust for Lily, no matter what Grace thinks about it. The brash, opinionated Tina (Tina Chilip), a chef, is next, screaming as she enters, “Who’s ready for Jesa, bitches!!!???” The last to show up is Brenda (Christine Heesun Hwang), an independent theater director who has flown in from New York and apparently is not going to stay long.

Grace has decided that they will perform a double Jesa, for their Umma’s (mother’s) one-year anniversary and their Appa’s (father’s) fifth, which doesn’t make all of them happy, as each has their own beliefs about the ceremony. Over the course of ninety minutes, the siblings chastise and insult one another, share good and bad memories, and try to bond as they prepare for and perform the rituals and reevaluate their own and their siblings’ lives.

Elizabeth (Laura Sohn) looks on as Tina (Tina Chilip) and Brenda (Christine Heesun Hwang) have a moment in Jesa (photo by Joan Marcus)

The banter among the women often comes fast and furious, as in this exchange:

Grace: Who knows when you’ll be around again, and its Umma’s first Jesa. You should pour her a drink.
Brenda: If I do Umma’s, then we have to do another round of bows for Liz and this is gonna take forever.
Grace: We have to do another round anyway.
Brenda: How many rounds are there???
Grace: Does it matter?
Brenda: I have to leave in like an hour.
Grace: What? I thought you’re staying here.
Brenda: No, I’m staying at my friend’s place in NoHo.
Liz: NoHo! That’s so far! You’re gonna show up at your friend’s at like three in the morning? Rude!
Brenda: You know what —
Tina: Just pour the drink!
Tina: Show some respect, Brenda.
Brenda: Sorry.

Jesa takes place in You-Shin Chen’s pristinely designed kitchen and living room set; Mel Ng’s costumes firmly define the differences among the four sisters as they discuss shrimp, dress socks, Lily’s upcoming birthday, photos of their parents, and a Jesa app that’s in English. Tyo (Yellow Face, The Comeuppance) is affecting as the ever-dependable Grace, whose idyllic life is starting to reveal some cracks; Heesun Hwang (SUFFS, Miss Saigon) is wistful as Brenda, who is still searching for her purpose; Sohn (The Blacklist) makes a strong New York stage debut as Elizabeth, who has not found happiness through money; and Chilip (Knight of the Burning Pestle, A Delicate Balance) is uproarious as the aggressive, nasty, but honest Tina.

As important as the double Jesa itself is to the plot, it slows down the otherwise swift pace; Yi (Walden, Cymbeline) and director Mei Ann Teo (SKiNFoLK: An American Show, Where We Belong) can’t quite find the right balance there, but otherwise Jesa, boasting an all-female and gender-expansive–identifying AAPI cast and creative team, is a funny and potent world premiere with awesome action, biting dialogue, and a spiritual surprise.

Yes, it’s about a Korean American family, but it could just as well be about any American family, regardless of heritage.

Public Charge explores the career of Julissa Reynoso, who cowrote play (photo by Joan Marcus)

PUBLIC CHARGE
Newman Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 12, $99
publictheater.org

Fact-based plays such as Oslo and Kyoto have proved that international diplomacy can be a fascinating theatrical subject, the former about a 1993 peace meeting between Israel and the PLO in Norway, the latter detailing a series of 1989–97 climate change conferences. Foreign policy is similarly at the center of the engrossing Public Charge, continuing at the Public’s Newman Theater through April 12.

Written by former US ambassador Julissa Reynoso and Michael J. Chepiga, the world premiere production tells the true story of Reynoso’s rise from her first attempt to immigrate to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was six in 1981 to working for the State Department under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Accompanied by her uncle Nelsido (Al Rodrigo) to the US Embassy in Santo Domingo, they are questioned by a consular officer (John J. Concado) who assumes the little girl, whose mother is working in a factory in the Bronx, will become a public charge, a noncitizen who will be dependent on the government for support. The officer makes such snide remarks as “Lots of welfare mothers in the Bronx.” and “It looks like her mother makes less than minimum wage. How is she going to feed this girl? We have enough people like you on food stamps.” He also chastises Julissa for not speaking English and rejects her application. “You are keeping this child away from her mother?” Nelsido says. “What kind of policy can that be?”

The story then jumps to Washington, DC, in 2009, when Reynoso is being interviewed by humorless State Department official Ricardo Zúñiga (Dan Domingues) for a position as a US representative overseas. “You work for the bureau that covers Latin America and the Caribbean?” Julissa asks. Ricardo responds, “Yes. I am in charge of Cuba.” To which Julissa says, “I thought Castro was?” She smiles, but he does not.

Soon she is working with Cheryl Mills (Marinda Anderson), chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, handling the Caribbean and Central America. Julissa is smart and savvy, willing to challenge the government’s written and unwritten policies, particularly when it comes to Cuba. When the 2010 earthquake devastates Haiti, Julissa has to obtain permission from Cuba to fly over its airspace in order to get medical supplies and other support to the Haitians as quickly as possible, but Ricardo says she cannot do that because America has cut off all contact with Cuba for decades.

Julissa proceeds anyway, opening long-closed channels. She enters into negotiations with Cuban officials Bruno Rodriguez (Armando Riesco), Jorge Bolaños (Rodrigo), and Josefina Vidal (Maggie Bofill), succeeding in Haiti but seemingly unable to free government contractor Alan Gross, who has been captured by the Cubans and imprisoned as a spy. His wife, Judy (usually Barbara Walsh, although I saw understudy Deirdre Madigan), is desperate to get him out and grows more and more upset with Julissa, who is haunted by her inability to secure his release.

Julissa also starts up a kind of friendship with Uruguayan president José Mujica (Rodrigo) after being named ambassador to the South American nation, although she is watched closely by his right-hand hatchet man, Chacha (Riesco), who distrusts everything American. As she continues her unique brand of diplomacy, pouring her heart and soul into the job, the story occasionally shifts back to a Bronx bodega where she talks politics and learns life lessons with her father, Julio (Riesco), and owner El Chino (Rodrigo).

In 1984, the three of them argue about Ronald Reagan and the Cuban embargo. “If Reagan lifted it, Cuba would be a rich country, and the Cubans would stay where they are. They would love Americans and American values, and hate the Soviets,” Julio claims. Julissa asks, “Show love and communism goes away? It’s that simple?” Her father answers, “Reagan should just pick up the phone and call Castro.”

A quarter century later, Julissa essentially takes that advice and runs with it.

International diplomacy takes center stage in Public Charge (photo by Joan Marcus)

It would have been easy for Public Charge to have drowned in self-congratulatory moralizing, but instead Reynoso and Chepiga (Getting and Spending, Matter of Honor) aren’t afraid to depict Julissa’s failings along with her successes; they don’t build her into a hero making grandiose speeches but instead reveal a bright woman battling an aging bureaucracy set in its ways and often unwilling to change.

Arnulfo Maldonado’s scenic design consists of pastel-colored jigsaw-puzzle-like platform pieces that the characters walk across and sit on, evoking a three-dimensional map of countries that are separated from one another, difficult to bring together. Lucy Mackinnon’s projections set the time and place, from 1981 Santo Domingo to 2009 DC, 2010 Port-au-Prince, and 2014 Montevideo. Haydee Zelideth’s costumes range from business professional to Mujica’s easygoing casual.

Tony-winning director Doug Hughes (Doubt, Frozen) lets the proceedings flow with an austere simplicity, maintaining a steady pace even when situations grow dire. Guevara (My Broken Language, Water by the Spoonful) portrays Reynoso with just the right amount of veritas, with solid support from Anderson (Merry Me, Sandblasted), Domingues (The Tempest, Wild Goose Dreams), and, in multiple roles, Riesco (Deep Blue Sound, Water by the Spoonful) and Rodrigo (Blood Wedding, Open Admissions).

It’s impossible to watch Public Charge without thinking about the state of international diplomacy under the current administration; we could use a whole lot of Julissa Reynosos in today’s government. Reynoso, Chepiga, and Hughes don’t exploit that, but they do get in one specific dig when Julio, talking about Reagan in January 1984, posits, “Reagan’s an idiot and a hypocrite. He doesn’t know history. And he has no idea of how to deal with Cuba. Or Latin America. Or anything. We could never have a worse president.”

Point taken.

Andrey Burkovskiy serves as host and MC of Seagull: True Story remounting at the Public (photo by Kir Simakov)

SEAGULL: TRUE STORY
LuEsther Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 3, $109
publictheater.org

Last May, I saw Alexander “Sasha” Molochnikov’s Seagull: True Story at La MaMa. As much as I enjoyed it then, it is even better in this revised version at the Public’s LuEsther Hall. I have adapted my initial review for this new production, which runs through May 3.

In Anton Chekhov’s 1896 tragicomedy The Seagull, wannabe playwright and director Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev says, “It’s not about old or new forms, but about the fact that what a person writes, not thinking about forms at all, they write because it flies freely from their soul!” The line is at the center of Seagull: True Story.

In 2022, Molochnikov was a successful Russian director who had staged works at the Moscow Art Theater and won the prestigious Golden Mask award for his production of The Seagull at the Bolshoi. He was starting to make a film when Russia began bombing Ukraine; he soon spoke out against the attack. He then found himself a target of Vladimir Putin’s administration and departed for America with not much more than the clothes on his back.

“The pressure on artists, comedians, and especially directors has been ruthless in Russia. As a result, a dozen or so of the most celebrated theater directors working in Moscow before the war have left the country,” he wrote in Rolling Stone in November 2022. “Now any performance has to be careful so as not to offend the Kremlin’s feelings. Those who were not ready to cave in and play that game chose to give up their opportunities, resources, stages, and salaries and run. They escaped Russia to foreign countries, counting only on their own talents and starting over from scratch. My case was the latest in a chain of attacks on the arts and free speech in Russia. . . . There is only one reason so many artists have left: It’s unsafe and dangerous to express a negative opinion of what Russian authorities call ‘a special operation’ and what the world calls an invasion.”

In Seagull: True Story, Molochnikov and writer Eli Rarey adapt Sasha’s real tale into a kind of theatrical fantasy rooted in Chekhov’s play, complete with a play-within-a-play, a love triangle, a complicated mother-son relationship, a gun, and discussions of form and freedom. Andrey Burkovskiy serves as the emcee for the evening, addressing the crowd directly while also playing several other key roles.

It’s February 2022, and young director Kon (Eric Tabach) is leading the rehearsal for his wildly inventive adaptation of The Seagull at the prestigious Moscow Art Theater, which was founded by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko in 1898. The MC succinctly sums up Chekhov’s plot: “Basically nothing happens. Treplev is a director in love with Nina, an actress. His mom is an actress too. Nina is in love with someone else. She leaves, Treplev is sad, she comes back, Treplev is even more sad. His mom is a bitch. He shoots himself. That’s it.”

Kon’s mother, Olga (Zuzanna Szadkowski), is a famous Russian actress who is playing Arkadina. Ivan (Quentin Lee Moore) is Treplev, her hapless son who is in love with Nina, portrayed by Masha (Gus Birney, replacing Stella Baker from the La MaMa cast). Poet and playwright Anton (Elan Zafir) is the dramaturg, while Yuri (Burkovskiy), the theater manager, keeps a careful watch on everything. Alexander Shishkin’s set features two dressing tables on either side of the stage in front of a red curtain and a deep open space behind it where the rehearsals are held; many of the props involve creative uses of plastic, from flags to ocean waves to bedspreads.

In a rare compliment, Olga tells Kon, “If Chekhov were here today, he would be happy to see that his play lives on in your hands. My little Stanislavsky!”

However, once Russia starts bombing Ukraine, the actors commence fighting — Ivan, defending the Kremlin, gets into it with Masha and Dmitri, who support Ukraine. But when Kon makes a private anti-Putin video that goes viral, he has to get out of the country immediately, leaving his mother and his good friend Anton behind.

In the second act, Kon arrives virtually penniless in New York, with nowhere to live. He meets aspiring actress Nico (Birney) on the subway and asks his mother’s old friend Barry (Burkovskiy), a producer, for help bringing his adaptation of The Seagull to the city, but first he must helm Barry’s bizarre immersive multimedia production of The Three Little Pigs.

“Wow! These are the kinds of shows I produce!” the MC declares.

Kon (Eric Tabach) and Nico (Gus Birney) meet cute in Seagull: True Story (photo by Kir Simakov)

A coproduction of Sofia Kapkov’s MART Foundation and Anne Hamburger’s En Garde Arts, Seagull: True Story is one of a number of recent shows from companies led by Russian or Ukrainian refugees, including Igor Golyak and Arlekin Players Theatre’s The Merchant of Venice and Our Class, Dmitry Krymov and Krimov Lab NYC’s Pushkin “Eugene Onegin” and Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life, and director Eduard Tolokonnikov and producer Polina Belkina’s encore engagement of Aleksandr Volodin’s Five Evenings.

The works bring an exhilarating aesthetic to independent New York City theater; Golyak and Krymov have brilliantly wild and unpredictable methods of storytelling where almost anything can happen, incorporating lunatic props and unique interactive elements. The exuberant cast of Seagull: True Story sing, dance, and march while switching between the play and the play-within-the-play. Certain lines of dialogue are accompanied by winks and nods as they relate just as much to what is happening in the United States under the current administration as to the events occurring in Russia and Ukraine. The first act is sensational, a fast and furious celebration of the power of theater even under the most stressful and dangerous situations. The second act has been significantly improved, streamlined to maintain a better focus.

At the beginning of the show, the MC says the word “fantastic” ten times, praising himself, the audience, and the play. He announces, “Don’t panic, you will be arrested only at the end of the show. No, no, I’m joking. Am I? Of course not. Everything is fantastic. Everyone is safe here.” Burkovskiy is fantastic in his multiple roles, his tongue firmly in his cheek as he offers his own spin on the MC from Cabaret. Zafir poignantly portrays the friendly and likable Anton, Birney adds a new dimension as the ambitious and sexy Nico, and Tabach ably stands in for Molochnikov as he faces a frightening reality and has to start all over again. (Molochnikov will assume the role himself at the April 12 gala performance.)

“The world loves Russian theater. It has survived under Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev. It will outlive Putin, too,” Molochnikov concludes in his Rolling Stone essay. “But the life we had before the war is over. Russian theater is universal. The pain in the works of Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy are understood and appreciated all over the world. I will work on my dramas, operas, and ballets abroad. ‘We will work,’ as Sonya says in Uncle Vanya. We will ‘look for new forms,’ as Treplev says in The Seagull. The theater will live on.”

Russia’s loss is New York City’s gain.

In his American Theatre article, Oskar Eustis also writes, “So we know that the theatre is about democracy and that the theatre is about imagining what it looks like from somebody else’s point of view — which means that the theatre has to be, from its very nature, controversial. It doesn’t always have to be politically controversial. It doesn’t always have to be offensive. But the whole idea of the theatre is the idea of imagining things that you haven’t imagined before — of imagining perspectives that are not yours. The theatre is not there to validate our own experiences. The theatre is there to push our own experiences, to expand our notion of what we are.”

All four productions now at the Public do just that.

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