this week in broadway

POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive

Ann all-star cast of women create mayhem in Selina Fillinger’s POTUS(photo by Paul Kolnik)

POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE
Shubert Theatre
225 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave
Tuesday – Sunday through August 14, $39-$250
potusbway.com

I can’t remember the last time I consistently laughed so long and hard at the theater. For 110 minutes — including an intermission during which the joyous tears kept falling as we rehashed what we had just experienced in the first act — Selina Fillinger’s outrageous farce, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, had everyone in the Shubert Theatre rolling in the aisles. It’s the funniest play on Broadway in years, but what makes it truly exceptional is that it also has a lot to say about the potential end of the white male patriarchy in America.

The very first word of the play is the “c” slur, the most derogatory term a woman can be called. That’s what the president called his wife, Margaret (Vanessa Williams), at a press conference in front of the world — and the first lady herself. His casual insult sets into motion the behind-the-scenes machinations inside the White House, which is run by his harried chief of staff, Harriet (Julie White), a “walking kegel” with a mannish haircut, and his humorless press secretary, Jean (Suzy Nakamura), who finds turtlenecks to be universally flattering. They rev up to deal with the immediate fallout, but that’s only the start of their berserk day.

Time magazine journalist Chris (Lilli Cooper) is in the West Wing, breast pumps pumping away, as she prepares to interview Margaret for the Women of Excellence series. The young and perky Dusty (Julianne Hough) is wandering around spewing blue vomit and explaining that the president is waiting for her, but no one knows who she is. Stephanie (Rachel Dratch), his hapless secretary and the low dog in the pack, has a photographic memory and speaks five languages, but she’s terrified that Dusty has been called in to replace her. And then Bernadette (Lea DeLaria), the president’s drug-dealing sister and Jean’s former lover, surprises everybody when she suddenly arrives from prison with an ankle monitor, claiming that her brother has pardoned her.

“We’ve talked about this! You can’t pardon someone just because she’s your baby sister!” Margaret says to Harriet. “Our ratings would plummet! We would be crucified! She’s wanted in three countries, Harry. . . . Not to mention all the holidays we’d have to start spending with her if she were to get out — You know, Bernadette bought my daughter a dildo for her sixteenth birthday? And stole my ruby earrings, probably wears them as nipple piercings now.”

Harriet (Julie White) and Jean (Suzy Nakamura) have to negotiate around presidential ass play in Broadway farce (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Harriet and Jean are also dealing with an important endorsement POTUS is scheduled to make, a speech he has to give to the FML (er, Female Models of Leadership Council), and the anal abscess that is preventing him from sitting down.

Jean: How does a person even get an anal abscess?
Harriet: Jerry told him it can happen sometimes from ass play. . . . Ass play. When it’s rough. Ass play.
Jean: I know what ass play is
Harriet: When it’s rough ass play.
Jean: Stop saying ass play. . . . Is that particular activity a plausible cause for this anal abscess?
Harriet: How would I know?
Jean: You’re his right-hand.
Harriet: Not for that activity.

Soon Stephanie is floating through the White House covered in post-it notes and blood with a pink inflatable donut around her waist as the seven women have to band together if they ever want to get out of the West Wing alive, or at least with any remaining stitch of dignity.

Dusty (Julianne Hough), Bernadette (Lea DeLaria), and Jean (Suzy Nakamura) all have different agendas in hysterical comedy (photo by Paul Kolnick)

In a script note, Fillinger (Something Clean, Faceless, The Armor Plays: Cinched/Strapped), who is only twenty-eight, writes, “At least three of these women should be WOC. Actors can be cis, trans, or non-binary. Age is flexible. Beauty is subjective. So long as they’re fast, fierce, and fucking hilarious.” All seven actors are indeed fast, fierce, and fucking hilarious as the nonstop laughs keep swirling past at such a dizzying pace that you’re likely to miss more than a few. Bernadette, upon meeting Dusty, who has a blue mouth: “What’d you do — blow a Smurf? . . . I banged one of those Blue Man guys once — you know, in my experimental phase: stamina like a bull but I was queefing cobalt for days.” Jean: “Is this day about to become an oozing pustule on the anus of my week?” Margaret to Bernadette: “I should have known you were here by the smell of lies and yeast infection.”

But they’re also not past criticizing their own administration. “I don’t think a government as cozy with Saudi Arabia as Bahrain’s can really pass judgment on ours,” Jean says after hearing that “Bahrain is pissy” about the president’s use of the “c” word about his wife.

Five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman, who has directed and/or choreographed such musicals as Crazy for You, Show Boat, The Music Man, and The Producers, brings that sensibility to Potus; the actors’ movements are so carefully choreographed that it’s almost like a whirlwind dance, and several times, during extremely frantic moments, the performers, in Linda Cho’s colorful costumes and Cookie Jordan’s fab hair and wigs, aren’t afraid to put their bodies in harm’s way if they don’t hit their marks just right, filling each minute with added tension. Beowulf Boritt’s spectacular revolving set takes us from the press briefing room to the bathroom to various offices — but never inside the Oval itself, a space that is sadly still occupied by men only.

Chris (Lilli Cooper) and Margaret (Vanessa Williams) are not sure what Stephanie (Rachel Dratch) is up to in the West Wing (photo by Paul Kolnik)

In their Broadway debuts, Emmy winner Hough (Footloose, Dancing with the Stars) holds her own with the all-star veteran cast, Nakamura (Dr. Ken, The West Wing) stands tough even when up against the wall, and Dratch (SNL, Ripcord) nearly steals the show as she roams the White House on puppy uppers and doggie downers. But Fillinger and Stroman allow plenty of room for anyone to steal any scene, which leads to glorious mayhem from Grammy, Emmy, and Tony nominee Williams (Into the Woods, The Trip to Bountiful), spoofing Michelle Obama; DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black, The Rocky Horror Show) living up to her title of go-to raging butch; Cooper (Tootsie, The Wildness) as a single mother trying to keep her life and career in balance; and Tony winner White (The Little Dog Laughed, Airline Highway) as Harriet, who sacrificed it all so she can now steer a sinking ship. “Room full of men, talking about weapons and war, not a woman in sight,” Harriet points out.

The atmosphere in the Shubert is electric from the very second you enter, with pop songs by woman superstars blasting through the speakers, from Rihanna, Heart, and Annie Lennox to Pat Benatar, L7, and Bikini Kill, a playlist that is referred to as BitchBeats in the show; the centerpiece is Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” in which the rock goddess screams out, “Hey man, bet you can’t treat me right / You just don’t know what you was missin’ last night / I wanna see you beggin’, say, ‘Forget it’ just for spite / I think of you every night and day / You took my heart, and you took my pride away.” After POTUS, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and Broadway, might never be the same again.

THE MINUTES

Assalone (Jeff Still), Superba (playwright Tracy Letts), and Breeding (Cliff Chamberlain) form a decidedly white triumvirate in The Minutes (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

THE MINUTES
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 24, $39-$249
212-719-1300
theminutesbroadway.com

Tracy Letts skewers tribal politics and political correctness in the cancel culture age in his acerbic black comedy The Minutes, running on Broadway at Studio 54 through July 24. Letts, who won the Pulitzer Prize for August Osage Country, which deals with a dysfunctional family and a missing patriarch in Oklahoma, now turns his razor-sharp pencil — which the character he portrays, Mayor Superba, actually sharpens during The Minutes — on the small Midwest town of Big Cherry, where truth appears to be a Kafka-like concept.

The ninety-minute play takes place at a city council meeting, where the members are arranged in a semicircle; they are like a dysfunctional family with Superba at the head of the table. Mr. Oldfield (a riotous Austin Pendleton) is the curmudgeony, doddering grandfather, Ms. Innes (Blair Brown) is the Dianne Feinstein–like matronly grandmother, Mr. Superba is the strict father, Mr. Matz (Sally Murphy) is the disheveled, ditzy sister, Mr. Breeding (Cliff Chamberlain) is the snooty, privilege-flaunting younger brother, Mr. Assalone (Jeff Still) is the unscrupulous older brother, Mr. Hanratty (Danny McCarthy) is the good-natured but misguided uncle, Mr. Blake (K. Todd Freeman) is the oddball uncle unable to make decisions for himself, and administrative assistant Ms. Johnson (Jessie Mueller) is the niece trying to keep the family together.

The newest councilmember, the fresh-faced Mr. Peel (Noah Reid), has returned to the chambers after having attended his mother’s funeral; he arrives like it’s the first day of school, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But he is taken aback when he sees that Mr. Carp’s (Ian Barford) space at the table is empty and no one will tell him why. “I’m sure you’ll learn what you need to know,” Johnson tells him before things get underway.

Hanratty is looking for support for his accessible public fountain restoration project, which will be highlighted by a bronze statue of a local war hero. Blake is pushing his Lincoln Smackdown idea. Innes wants to read into the record a statement about the Big Cherry Heritage Festival.

Peel (Noah Reid) shares his issues with Johnson (Jessie Mueller) in sharp Tracy Letts satire (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Peel is intent on finding out why Carp is no longer part of the council, but no one is sharing any details. When Superba skips over the reading of the minutes from the prior week, Peel pushes back, determined that the rules of order be followed and the information be made available. It’s clear that something bad happened that the others have decided to bury, so he attempts to rectify it. However, getting to the bottom of things is not going to be easy, but as secrets are revealed, bit by bit, a clearer picture of what went on the prior week starts coming into focus, a stark portrait of where America is today in 2022, where facts are just another opinion.

Letts, who has written such previously plays as Mary Page Marlowe and Man from Nebraska and starred on Broadway in such classics as All My Sons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, tweaked The Minutes, which debuted at Steppenwolf in 2017, during the pandemic; the play had just begun previews at the Cort in March 2020 when Broadway closed down.

It now feels up to the moment as the play turns toward such controversies as whitewashing history, the validity of monuments, colonialism, and cultural appropriation. In addition, the show replaced the original Peel, scandal-ridden Armie Hammer, with Reid, making his splendid Broadway debut as an idealist who believes that he and the council can really make a difference. (Ha!)

Letts nails the constant frustration of government as the council goes about its activities, which are filled with personal and financial interest and a complete lack of care for the public good. The often surreal conversations reveal the utter hypocrisy and endless nonsense underlying it all as the characters pretend to discuss the underrepresented and argue over nomenclature. Peel regularly corrects the others for strange mispronunciations; “I’m not sure you’re saying that right,” he tells several of the others, but they ignore him as he learns that both what they say and how they say it just doesn’t matter.

When Breeding suggests that it is not the right time for her to read her statement, Innes declines to wait. “It is a statement I’d like to read to the council. About the council,” she says. Breeding responds, “I wonder if it might be more appropriate to read in a meeting of the Council Rules Committee.” Everyone looks at Matz, who has a problematic attention span. “Ms. Matz?” Superba says. “Yes?” she answers. Superba: “You’re chairperson of the Council Rules Committee.” Matz: “Yes, I am.” Superba: “Is there a committee meeting scheduled in the near future?” Matz: “That would depend on your definition of future.” Superba: “‘Events that will happen in the time to come.’” Matz: “Then yes, of course.”

Peel (Noah Reid) finds out more than he ever wanted to know about local politics in The Minutes (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Another hysterical exchange, which would make Beckett proud, occurs between Superba and Oldfield:

Superba: Before we begin, any announcements?
Oldfield: I have an announcement.
Superba: All right, go ahead.
Oldfield: Well, let’s talk about parking.
Superba: Is that an announcement?
Oldfield: I’m announcing that I’d like to talk about parking.
Superba: George, that’s not an announcement.
Oldfield: I believe it is.
Superba: Announcing what you’d like to talk about is not an announcement, any more than announcing that you’re going to the bathroom.
Oldfield: Well, that’s embarrassing. I didn’t think when I came in here tonight I would have to hear the word “bathroom.”
Superba: That might not be the last time tonight you hear that word.
Oldfield: Let me go on the record as saying, “I hope it is.”
Superba: Are there any other announcements?
Oldfield: I would like to announce that there is an unclaimed empty parking space available to this council.
Superba: What are you saying, that you want the parking space?
Oldfield: No, I’m not saying that. Even though I most definitely want the parking space. . . . .
Superba: I still don’t consider this even remotely in the realm of “announcements.”

Over the course of the last few years, with the proliferation of smartphone cameras and the need to record everything, Americans have been privy more than ever to the circuslike atmosphere of town meetings, statehouse discussions, and congressional debates. We see elected representatives butcher the English language, deliver grandstand speeches chock-full of inaccuracies, and misinterpret the law every day. In The Minutes, Letts and director Anna D. Shapiro (Straight White Men This Is Our Youth), who helmed August Osage Country, present the Big Cherry council meeting as if we’re watching C-SPAN, with David Zinn capturing the essence of a council meeting chamber, complete with ridiculous local art, framed proclamations and photographs of former members, and a large U.S. flag. (The costumes are by Ana Kuzmanić, with lighting by Brian MacDevitt and sound and original music by André Pluess.)

In his superbly understated Broadway debut, Reid, the Canadian singer and actor best known for his role as Patrick Brewer on Schitt’s Creek, is a stand-in for the audience, as if he’s our elected representative (voted in by our ticket purchases?), aghast at what he’s seeing; democracy is unraveling right before his, and our, eyes, and no one else in the room seems to care.

Every word matters to Peel, as it does to Letts the playwright, who leaves us with a bizarre finale that is likely to leave your mouth agape, at a loss for words. The title applies not only to the omitted meeting records but also to the short time we have left to fix the mess we’ve made of the great American experiment.

HANGMEN

Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen takes place primarily in a pub owned by a former executioner (photo by Joan Marcus)

HANGMEN
Golden Theatre
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 18, $59-$199
866-811-4111
hangmenbroadway.com

At the end of my review of the Royal Court Theatre/Atlantic Theater Company production of Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen, I wrote, “It’s not going to hang around forever — although a Broadway transfer would be most welcome — so book your tickets now.” The show has indeed made a terrifically executed transition to the Golden Theatre, where it will be holding its bitingly funny necktie party through June 18. Book your tickets now.

The story opens in 1963, in a prison cell where death-row inmate Hennessy (Josh Goulding), despite insisting on his innocence, is about to meet his fate courtesy of master hangman Harry Wade (David Threlfall), largely believed to be the second best executioner in the land, behind the far more famous Albert Pierrepoint (John Hodgkinson). Hennessy shouts, “He’s hanging an innocent man! They could’ve at least sent Pierrepoint!” Harry responds, “I’m just as good as bloody Pierrepoint!” Hennessy adds, “Hung by a rubbish hangman, oh that’s so me!”

Two years later, the death penalty has been abolished in Britain, and Harry runs a pub with his wife, Alice (Tracie Bennett), and their teenage daughter, Shirley (Gaby French). The bar’s regulars include the comic trio of Bill (Richard Hollis), Charlie (Ryan Pope), and the older, nearly deaf Arthur (John Horton), along with the more serious Inspector Fry (Jeremy Crutchley), who doesn’t seem to spend a lot of time on the job.

A creepy customer (Alfie Allen) menaces hangman Harry Wade (David Threlfall) in Broadway play (photo by Joan Marcus)

When Clegg (Owen Campbell), a young journalist, enters the bar seeking to interview Harry about the law change, Harry explains, “One thing I’ve always prided myself on, for right or for wrong, I’m not saying I’m a special man, but one thing I’ve prided myself on is that, on the subject of hanging, I’ve always chosen to keep me own counsel. I’ve always chosen not to say a public word on this very private matter, and why have I chosen to do that you may ask? . . . For the past twenty-five years now I’ve been a servant of the Crown in the capacity of hangman. ‘A What of the Crown?’ Did you say? ‘A spokesman for the Crown’? . . . When was the last time you heard a servant making speeches…?” Then Clegg has the temerity to mention that he will also be speaking with Pierrepoint, so, unable to resist the spirit of competition, Harry quickly hauls the scribe upstairs, where he spills all sorts of beans.

Meanwhile, the mysterious Mooney (Alfie Allen) has quietly entered the bar, a menacing sort who takes a shine to Shirley. Mooney is later joined by Syd (Andy Nyman), Harry’s former assistant, who appears to have a bone to pick. When Shirley goes missing, Harry throws the law of the Crown out the window in a desperate effort to find her.

Syd (Andy Nyman) has some information for his old boss (David Threlfall) in Hangmen (photo by Joan Marcus)

Despite the formidable subject matter, Hangmen is a rip-roaring, gut-bustingly dark comedic yarn from master author McDonagh, who has won an Oscar and three Oliviers and has been nominated for four Tonys; he has written such other plays as The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Pillowman, and The Beauty Queen of Leenane and such films as In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, and Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. He and director Matthew Dunster (The Lightning Child, Mogadishu) haven’t gussied things up for Broadway; the production is just as sharp, just as thoroughly satisfying as the off-Broadway version, with the same set and costumes by Anna Fleischle, lighting by Joshua Carr, and sound by Ian Dickinson.

Everything I said of that previous staging holds true for this one; the only difference is that about half the cast has changed. The marvelous Threlfall (Nicholas Nickleby, Frank Gallagher in the original British version of Shameless) takes over for Mark Addy and immediately owns the role of Harry, his moustache and bow tie reminiscent of Hercule Poirot, though he is not nearly so clever and more than a bit buffoonish. Also new — and excellent — is Allen (The Spoils, Equus), best known as the whimpering Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones. When Syd refers to Mooney as “a creepy-looking fella,” Mooney insists that he’s “menacing.” He’s both.

As I noted in my previous review, Hangmen is loosely inspired by the exploits of the real-life Harry Allen, an English hangman who at first assisted Pierrepoint (the subject of the 2005 biopic Pierrepoint — The Last Hangman) and later, as chief executioner, hanged a man named James Hanratty who professed his innocence to the very end.

Amid all the jokes, the play does make key points about the death penalty, which is currently legal in twenty-seven states. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, in America, “186 people have been exonerated and released from death row since 1973.” There’s no figure on exactly how many innocent people have been executed. And that’s no laughing matter.

for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf

for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is facing an early closing notice at the Booth Theatre (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 5, $49 – $225
forcoloredgirlsbway.com

As I write this, there is a movement afoot to prevent the first Broadway revival of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf from closing early; the show opened April 20 to good reviews and was scheduled to run through August 14, but it was announced a few days ago that it would be leaving the Booth after the May 22 matinee. To help fill seats and keep the choreopoem, in which seven women share intimate stories of misogyny, abuse, and their retaking of power, from shutting its doors, journalists, artists, and theater bigs (Ayanna Prescod, Bebe Neuwirth, Mickalene Thomas, Chita Rivera, Lorin Latarro) have been sponsoring free ticket giveaways to lift the current average attendance, which is barely half capacity. The night I saw it, the audience seemed much larger than that and loved every second of the play, built around a series of monologues with music and dance in between. [ed. note: The show has now been extended through June 5.]

Director Leah C. Gardiner and choreographer Camille A. Brown collaborated on a sensational 2019 revival at the Public, where the original production moved in 1976 after earlier iterations at smaller venues in Berkeley and downtown New York (and shortly before moving to Broadway). Toni-Leslie James’s ravishing costumes featured multiple images of the face of each actor’s most beloved female relative, honoring the ancestors; Myung Hee Cho’s inclusive set was highlighted by three rows of chairs for audience members along the back arch of the circular stage, in front of a large mirror, which reflected the rest of the audience so they appeared right behind the cast; and Jiyoun Chang’s bright lighting often illuminated everyone in the theater. The show has been reimagined and reinvented for the Booth, unfortunately not for the better, but Shange’s striking words are as sharp as ever.

It all begins with a voice-over from Obie-winning, Oscar-nominated poet, novelist, playwright, kids’ book author, activist, and essayist Shange herself — who portrayed Lady in Orange back in 1976 and updated the script in 2010 — offering, “Aunt mamie was a lil colored girl, Auntie Effie was a lil colored girl, Mama was a lil colored girl, you’re a lil colored girl . . . / Imagine . . . if we could get all of them to talk, what would they say? / Imagine all the stories we could tell about the funny looking lil colored girls, and the sophisticated lil colored girls, and the pretty lil colored girls . . . the ones just like you!”

Seven women share their heartbreaking and celebratory stories in Ntozake Shange’s powerful choreopoem (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

Over the course of the next ninety minutes, Lady in Orange (Amara Granderson), Lady in Brown (Tendayi Kuumba), Lady in Red (Kenita R. Miller), Lady in Green (Okwui Okpokwasili), Lady in Blue (Stacey Sargeant), Lady in Purple (Alexandria Wailes), and Lady in Yellow (D. Woods) poignantly relate key moments from their lives, with such titles as “dark phrases,” “no assistance,” “latent rapist,” “abortion cycle #1,” and “i usedta live in the world.” (Okpokwasili and Wailes return from the Public; I saw three understudies: Treshelle Edmond as Lady in Purple, McKenzie Frye as Lady in Orange, and Alexis Sims as Lady in Green.)

Hee Cho’s set is now dominated by a half dozen screens on the left and right, on which Aaron Rhyne’s mostly abstract (and distracting) visuals are projected. Sarafina Bush’s costumes are contemporary street clothing, the colors not as boldly obvious. Chang’s lighting is more standard, and Justin Ellington’s sound is built for the music, which is by Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby and tends toward light jazz and R&B. Brown is the director and the choreographer, the first Black woman to do both on Broadway since Katherine Dunham for her three-act revue in November 1955.

The Obie, Tony, and Bessie-winning Brown has choreographed for her own company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, as well as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and such Broadway shows as Choir Boy and Once on This Island; she also choreographed and codirected (with James Robinson) the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Her style is rarely subtle, and that can work well in a dance presentation, but in for colored girls it quickly becomes overwhelming; instead of giving agency to the characters, it takes away from the narrative. Perhaps Gardiner was a calming influence; her deft touch is missing from this version.

for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is the first Broadway show to be directed and choreographed by a Black woman since 1955 (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

The cast is terrific, with an especially superb turn by the pregnant Miller, who thrillingly delivers “no assistance,” ending an affair with a lover (“this note is attached to a plant / i’ve been waterin since the day i met you / you may water it / yr damn self”), and “no more love poems #1” (“this is a requium for myself/ cuz I have died in a real way/ not wid aqua coffins & du-wop cadillacs/ i used to joke abt when i waz messin round / but a real dead lovin is here for you now/ cuz i dont know anymore/ how to avoid my own face wet wit my tears/ cuz i had convinced myself colored girls had no right to sorrow”).

The centerpiece is Lady in Green’s “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff,” in which she fights for her own being, for who she is and what is hers. She declares, “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff / not my poems or a dance I gave up in the street / but somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff / like a kleptomanic working hard & forgettin while stealing / this is mines / this aint yr stuff / now why don’t you put me back & let me hang out in my own self.”

Despite the shortcomings of this production, for colored girls deserves a longer life on Broadway, telling an important story that particularly needs to be heard as Roe v. Wade is under fire and a woman’s right to her own body is threatened by a white patriarchy trying desperately to hold on to its fading power. It’s a truly American story; the characters hail from outside Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, L.A., and Newark, cities that have faced racial violence. It seems clear they’ve had enough and that the lives of women, and specifically women of color, would be different if they were in charge.

MACBETH

Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star as a devious husband and wife in Sam Gold’s unusual take on the Scottish play at the Longacre (photo by Joan Marcus)

MACBETH
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 10, $35-$425
macbethbroadway.com

As you enter the Longacre Theatre to see the latest conjuring of Macbeth, the thane’s first appearance on the Great White Way since Terry Hands’s 2000 version with Kelsey Grammer lasted just thirteen performances, the sparse stage is a scene of activity. On one side, three people are cooking soup while listening to a podcast. Various others wander about or are busy in the wings. Front and center, the ghost light glows — a superstition that is believed to keep at bay supernatural beings who haunt theaters and can curse shows, although it usually is turned on only after everyone has left and the venue is empty. During the pandemic lockdown, many theaters kept their ghost lights on in the hope of eventually returning. Thus, once inside the Longacre, you feel as if you’ve walked into some kind of rehearsal that is getting ready to close up for the night.

More than any other of his major works, Shakespeare’s 1606 tragedy invites experimentation of a high order. In the past fifteen years, I’ve seen no fewer than ten adaptations of the Scottish play, including an all-women version that took place at a contemporary girls school, a re-creation of Orson Welles’s radio production, a presentation that required the audience to make its way through a dark heath to get to their seats, one set during the cold war and prominently featuring a bevy of video projections, another occurring inside the head of an institutionalized man, and a mashup with a Japanese manga that moved the action to a blue boxing ring.

Like King Lear, it also attracts big-name star power; among those who have portrayed the thane of Cawdor in New York since 2006 are Sir Patrick Stewart, Ethan Hawke, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Alan Cumming, Liev Schreiber, and Corey Stoll. Now comes James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, in a production helmed by Tony and Obie winner Sam Gold, who is responsible for the much-derided 2019 Broadway revival of Lear with Glenda Jackson in the title role.

Macbeth (Daniel Craig) speaks with a pair of murderers (Danny Wolohan and Michael Patrick Thornton) in Shakespeare adaptation (photo by Joan Marcus)

While the trio, who turn out to be the three witches (portrayed alternately by Phillip James Brannon, Bobbi MacKenzie, Maria Dizzia, Che Ayende, Eboni Flowers, and Peter Smith), continue stirring the pot, Michael Patrick Thornton, who plays the nobleman Lennox, wheels onto the stage and provides a curtain speech about James I’s obsession with witches in the seventeenth century while also asking the audience to, all at once, shout out the name of the show, which is supposed to bring bad luck when spoken inside a theater. Very few people joined in.

Gold has pared down the production to the point where no single actor is the star; there’s an equality among the diverse cast that does not force us to swoon at either Craig or Oscar, Emmy, and Olivier nominee Ruth Negga as Lady Macbeth and instead allows the audience to appreciate the other participants. The text is delivered without many flourishes, as famous lines come and go at a regular pace, with some favorites getting cut; for example, the witches never say, “Double, double toil and trouble.” The actors are dressed in Suttirat Larlarb’s contemporary costumes; Macbeth’s succession from military jacket to paisley bathrobe to fluffy white fur coat is a hoot.

Christine Jones’s set is the antithesis of royalty; the “thrones” are two old, ratty chairs, and the banquet table lacks fancy dinnerware. The crown worn by King Duncan (Paul Lazar) is just plain silly, like a high school prop, but even funnier is when Lazar, following the monarch’s murder, removes his fat suit in front of us and proceeds to play other characters. There is much doubling and tripling of actors, so it’s not always clear who’s who. Amber Gray excels as Banquo and her ghost but is seen later as a gentlewoman. Danny Wolohan is Seyton, a lord, a murderer, and a bloody captain who has lost part of one leg. Emeka Guindo is both Fleance and young Siward. Downtown legend Lazar also shows up as old Siward and the porter, who, in front of the curtain, discusses with Macduff (Grantham Coleman, though I saw understudy Ayende) and Lennox how drink affects sexual prowess. To further the comparison, Macbeth later pops open a can of light beer.

Jeremy Chernick’s special effects feature lots of blood, some of which is added to the simmering soup (along with innards). As Macbeth warns, “Blood will have blood.”

Three witches (Phillip James Brannon, Bobbi MacKenzie, Maria Dizzia) stir up a cauldron of trouble in Macbeth (photo by Joan Marcus)

So what’s it all about? Though uneven, Gold’s adaptation subverts our expectations about stardom, Broadway, and Shakespeare. It’s hard to believe that this is the same story told with such fierce elegance by Joel Coen in his 2021 Oscar-nominated film, The Tragedy of Macbeth, with a dominating Denzel Washington as Macbeth and a haunting Frances McDormand as his devious partner. In fact, under Gold’s supervision, the real standout is Thornton, who relates to the audience with a sweet warmth and playful sense of humor. However, as Macbeth also says, “And nothing is, but what is not.”

Gold (Fun Home; A Doll’s House, Part 2) previously directed Craig (Betrayal, A Steady Rain) as Iago in an intimate and compelling Othello at New York Theatre Workshop and Oscar Isaac in Hamlet at the Public; Negga has played Ophelia at London’s National Theatre and Hamlet at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The ads for Macbeth might push the star draw of this new production, but that is not what Gold is focusing on.

He may not be making any grand statements about lust, greed, and power, but he is investigating the common foibles of humanity, the desires we all have and our considerations of how far we will go to achieve them. Is he completely successful? No, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t given us an intriguing, provocative, unconventional, absurdly comic, and, yes, highly entertaining production of one of the greatest tragedies ever written.

As Lady Macbeth advises, “What’s done, cannot be undone.”

BIRTHDAY CANDLES

Ernestine (Debra Messing) lives a relatively simple life in Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles (photo by Joan Marcus)

BIRTHDAY CANDLES
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 29, $39-$250
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

“Have I wasted my life?” Ernestine (Debra Messing) asks her mother, Alice (Susannah Flood), at the beginning of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles, continuing through May 29 at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre.

Haidle’s Broadway debut is a touching and bittersweet, if at times Hallmark-y, look at ninety years in the life of an average American woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The play is built around her annual preparation of her birthday cake, a recipe handed down from mother to daughter in their family. Each scene takes place in the same kitchen, which never changes. Ernestine wears essentially the same costume (by Toni-Leslie James) in every scene as she ages, the time shifts indicated only by a sharp chime that arrives in the middle of the action and contextual clues given by the dialogue and the outfits of the other characters, which range from her boyfriend and future husband, Matt (Tony nominee John Earl Jelks), to her numbers-obsessed neighbor, Kenneth (Enrico Colantoni), who has a serious crush on her, to a parade of children, their spouses, their children, etc. (Jelks, Crystal Finn, Susannah Flood, and Christopher Livingston play multiple roles, their character not always immediately apparent as the next generation arrives. I saw understudy Brandon J. Pierce stepping in for Livingston.)

Ernestine serves as a witness to birth and death, illness and infidelity, success and failure, devoid of any references to the outside world. Whereas Jack Crabb, portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in Arthur Penn’s 1970 epic revisionist Western Little Big Man, spends his 121-year life on the road, meeting famous people (General Custer, Wild Bill Hickok), encountering a diverse series of events (battles with Native Americans, saloon shootouts, getting married and operating a small store), and watching everything change around him, Ernestine lives in a self-contained bubble, with no inkling of what is happening in society at large; there are no references to politics, sports, entertainment, anything that can put us in a specific time and place, only what is occurring within the family at any given moment, and always on her birthday. Another signifier is Ernestine’s annual measurements penciled on a doorframe; she grows taller until she begins shrinking as an old woman. Birthday Candles also recalls Thornton Wilder’s 1931 The Long Christmas Dinner, a one-act play that covers ninety years of the Bayard clan without ever leaving the dining room.

The show opens as Ernestine is turning seventeen, filled with the excitement of all that life offers. “I am a rebel against the universe. I will wage war with the everyday. I am going to surprise God!” she announces to her mother, who is more concerned with teaching her daughter the basic but cherished recipe for the cake.

Ninety years pass by in ninety minutes in Birthday Candles (photo by Joan Marcus)

“Eggs, butter, sugar, salt. The humblest ingredients,” Alice tells Ernestine. “But when you turn back and look far enough, you see atoms left over from creation,” implying that the history of the family — perhaps of humanity itself — is embodied in the cake.

Ernestine responds, “Stardust. The machinery of the cosmos is all here, I get it. Will you help me with my audition?”

Ernestine is practicing for the lead in her high school’s gender-switching production of Queen Lear, signaling that Birthday Candles is going to be a matriarchal tale about mothers and children; the men play second fiddle. “Madam, do you know me?” Alice reads as Cordelia. Ernestine, as the queen, answers, “You are a spirit, I know. When did you die?” In King Lear, the elderly monarch starts losing his mind as he deals with his three daughters, the calculating Regan and Goneril and the youngest, Cordelia, the only one who truly loves him. By having Alice reading the part of Cordelia and Ernestine portraying Lear, Haidle is alerting us to the casting choices and plot that follow.

As time marches on, new characters enter and old characters depart, the future replacing the past. Jelks portrays Ernestine’s husband, Matt, and their son, Billy; Finn is Billy’s wife, Joan, and their daughter, Alex; and Flood is Ernestine’s mother, Ernestine’s daughter, Madeline, and Alex’s daughter, Ernie. Finn and Livingston also appear as a surprise couple. People discuss their jobs, their relationships, and their personal identities in a vacuum. At one point, Madeline tells her parents and brother, “I don’t have a definition anymore. There aren’t any. In me. Or in the world.”

The actors make only small adjustments as their characters age, except for Messing once she passes her real-life age of fifty-three. Her slow decline as she survives so many of the others is heartbreaking, but she’s not about to stop making that cake on her birthday, no matter how old she is or who is around to enjoy it with her.

Ernestine’s (Debra Messing) life flashes before our eyes in Noah Haidle’s Broadway debut (photo by Joan Marcus)

One who is always there with her is her pet goldfish, given to her by Kenneth when they were seventeen and named Atman, the Sanskrit word for an individual’s essence, or soul. Kenneth explains, “The Katha Upanishad is the first to use the concept of Atman as a beginning argument of achieving liberation from human suffering. I quote, and please forgive my basic translation. ‘Like fire spreads itself throughout the world and takes the shape of that which it burns, the internal Atman of all living beings, while remaining one fire, takes the form of what He enters and is at the same time outside all forms.’” He points out that goldfish have only three-second memories and “then the world begins anew.” That’s one way to forget the pain, although the pleasurable moments vanish as well; Ernestine’s life is filled with plenty of both.

Haidle (Vigils, Smokefall) has created an emotional, gripping tale that is haunted by the fear of death as it explores various concepts of love, between married couples, parents and children, siblings, owners and pets, and a devoted neighbor. Director Vivienne Benesch, who helmed the play’s world premiere at the Detroit Public in 2017, manages the time shifts with aplomb as characters come and go through several open doorways on Christine Jones’s welcoming kitchen set, over which hangs dozens of household objects — remnants of a long life — in addition to the phases of the moon, a reminder of time itself.

Emmy winner Messing (Will & Grace,Outside Mullingar) is enthralling as Ernestine, who could be any of us. The different paths her life takes, each twist and turn, lead to familiar small dramas that are fully relatable; as she ages, it is hard not to consider what your own future holds. I am not a crier, but I have to admit that I was wiping away tears in the final scenes, and I was not the only one.

Colantoni (The Distance from Here, Fear) is utterly charming in his Broadway debut as Kenneth, an oddball who spends more than half a century pining for Ernestine, a regular reminder of the things in life we want that are so close but can so often be just out of reach. The rest of the cast is excellent as well, with a memorable comic turn by Finn as Joan, who has no filter and talks to herself out loud.

At a 1974 press conference, Muhammad Ali said, “If a man looks at the world when he is fifty the same way he looked at it when he was twenty and it hasn’t changed, then he has wasted thirty years of his life.” Did Ernestine waste her life? It’s a question we all ask ourselves as our birthdays come and go.

TAKE ME OUT

Much of Take Me Out happens in the locker room — with and without uniforms (photo by Joan Marcus)

TAKE ME OUT
Helen Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 11, $79-$199
2st.com/shows

Scott Ellis’s hit Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning Take Me Out is well on its way to the playoffs (Tony nominations) and the World Series (Tony wins), but you don’t have to know anything about baseball to root for this compelling tale of ego, homophobia, and winning and losing.

It all starts with the brilliant title itself, which refers to: the traditional 1908 tune “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” sung by fans during the seventh-inning stretch of every contest; a reverse riff on the chorus of John Fogerty’s 1985 hit, “Centerfield,” in which the former CCR leader declares, “Put me in, coach / I’m ready to play, today”; going out on a date; the public revelation that someone is gay; and the slang for a mob hit, as in “take him out.”

It’s 2002, and the world champion Empires, a stand-in for the Yankees — one backdrop features a silhouette of the Yankee Stadium wooden facade — are off to another good season. The story is narrated in flashback by shortstop Kippy Sunderstrom (Patrick J. Adams), a good friend of superstar Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams), a five-tool centerfielder who comes out of the closet with a sudden, unexpected announcement that he is gay. Darren did not do it to become a role model, to fight for gay rights, or to make a sociocultural statement; throughout the play, Darren’s motivations are private, driven primarily by ego and self-importance.

“Now, I’m not a personal sort of guy, really, and that’s not gonna be any different,” Darren, a handsome mixed-race player reminiscent of Bronx Bomber legend Derek Jeter, tells his teammates. “I mean, don’t expect the free flow of information. Don’t expect the daily update. I’m just here to play ball. I’m just here to have a good time. That’s no different. . . . And if, incidentally, there’s any kid out there who’s struggling with his identity, I hope this sends a message that it’s okay. They can follow their dream, no matter what. Any young man, creed, whatever, can go out there and become a ballplayer. Or an interior decorator.”

But he also tells Kippy, “You think you know me? You think you know my secret? Shit, that wasn’t a secret — that was an omission. I’ve got a secret — but that’s not it.” Even his last name, Lemming, is a warning for others not to follow him.

Friends and rivals Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams) and Davey Battle (Brandon J. Dirden) sit down for a chat in Take Me Out (photo by Joan Marcus)

As one would expect, his declaration creates significant problems in the locker room. Emerging from the shower to find a naked Darren, Toddy Koovitz (Carl Lundstedt) complains, “So now I gotta go around worrying that every time I’m naked or dressed or whatever you’re checking out my ass.” Because, of course, every gay man immediately wants to sleep with every male he sees. But Darren always gives better than he gets, telling Toddy, “Why’re ya lookin’ at it’s the question.” As the quippy Kippy noted earlier, after Darren confirmed, “I don’t want to fuck any of you,” he responded, “It’s not about that, Darren. It’s about us wanting to fuck you.”

When their ace pitcher, Takeshi Kawabata (Julian Cihi), slumps, they call up hard-throwing closer Shane Mungitt (Michael Oberholtzer) from Double A, who leads them back on track until he opens his mouth one day and spews forth bigoted remarks that would make even former Braves reliever John Rocker wince.

The tension in the locker room grows to epic proportions as no one can have a civil conversation, exacerbated by Kawabata’s, Martinez’s (Hiram Delgado), and Rodriguez’s (Eduardo Ramos) inability to speak English, a sports trope that enrages more conservative fans who believe that if you play ball in America, you need to speak the language — and the same fans are likely to have problems with a gay player.

“We were Men,” Kippy slyly philosophizes to his teammates. “This meant we could be girlish. We could pat fannies, snap towels; hug. Now . . . What do we do with our stray homosexual impulses?” After not-too-bright new catcher Jason Chenier (Tyler Lansing Weaks) asks if he was talking specifically to him and then turns red out of embarrassment because of the topic, Kippy adds, “We’ve lost a kind of paradise. We see that we are naked.” It’s as if they have taken a bite out of that apple and are being cast out of the garden.

Meanwhile, Darren keeps meeting with his new business manager, Mason Marzac (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a gay accountant who at first knows nothing about baseball except that Darren is also gay, which makes him fall in love with the sport and worship his client. “A couple of weeks earlier I would have barely recognized the name! Then the announcement — that incredible act of elective heroism — and it was as if I’d known him my whole life — as if he’d been something latent in my subconscious.”

As the Empires prepare for a big game against the club that Darren’s best friend, Davey Battle (Brandon J. Dirden), is on, the world around Darren and the Empires turns into a lot more than just “the mess” Kippy alluded to at the start of the show.

Shane Mungitt (Michael Oberholtzer) has a rude awakening in store in Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Take Me Out is an exceptional drama that uses baseball as an apt analogy for the state of the country. “I have come (with no little excitement) to understand that baseball is a perfect metaphor for hope in a Democratic society,” Mason says. “It has to do with the rules of play. It has to do with the mode of enforcement of these rules. It has to do with certain nuances and grace notes of the game. . . . Everyone is given exactly the same chance. . . . And baseball is better than Democracy — or at least than Democracy as it’s practiced in this country — because unlike Democracy, baseball acknowledges loss.”

In the history of the four major sports leagues, only one NBA player and one NFL player have revealed they were gay and kept playing: Brooklyn Nets center Jason Paul Collins in 2013 and current LA Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib in 2021. The revelation that a baseball superstar in his prime is gay would be a major deal today, but in the twenty years since Take Me Out premiered at the Public, no MLB player and only one umpire, Dale Scott, has come out and stayed on the diamond. Greenberg’s (The Assembled Parties, Three Days of Rain, The Perplexed) play feels fresh and alive in 2022, like it could have been written yesterday, save for the lack of cellphones onstage (and, thanks to strict rules, in the audience as well).

The two-hour play (plus intermission) moves much faster and more smoothly than baseball games. Ellis (On the 20th Century, The Elephant Man) is a superb manager, guiding the actors through David Rockwell’s splendid sets, which range from the ballpark and the locker room to a lounge and actual showers. Linda Cho’s costumes, primarily baseball uniforms, spend nearly as much time off the actors as on. (The nudity is the reason audience members must have their phones sealed in a Yondr pouch that the staff will open for you during intermission and then upon exiting.)

In their Broadway debuts, Adams (Suits, Equivocation) displays an easygoing, likable charm as Kippy, earning the audience’s devoted attention from his very first words, while Williams (Grey’s Anatomy, The Sandbox) shows off his numerous tools as the secretive hotshot Darren. (He will reprise the role in an upcoming television series, according to Deadline.) Dirden (Skeleton Crew, Jitney) excels in his supporting role, like a solid, dependable DH who always gets good wood on the ball and comes through in the clutch.

But the MVP might just be Ferguson (Modern Family, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), who knocks it out of the park every chance he gets. Mason is the glue that holds it all together, the only one who seems to really understand Darren as both a wealthy athlete and a gay man. Ferguson’s growing enthusiasm is infectious, spreading throughout the theater; he’s just the kind of person every locker room needs.