this week in broadway

CAROLINE, OR CHANGE

Caroline, or Change returns to Broadway in marvelous revival at Studio 54 (photo by Joan Marcus)

CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 9, $49-$250
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

A few days before seeing Michael Longhurst’s Broadway revival of Caroline, or Change at Studio 54, I was at another theater waiting for a play to begin when the two men next to me started talking about the show, saying that friends of theirs considered it the best musical of the young century. Who am I to disagree?

I was sucked in from the opening moments, when Black maid Caroline Thibodeaux, spectacularly portrayed by Sharon D Clarke, is downstairs in the basement of the Gellman home in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in late 1963. She’s doing the laundry and listening to the radio, explaining, “Nothing ever happen under ground in Louisiana / Cause they ain’t no under ground in Louisiana / There is only under water.” She is joined by the Washing Machine (Arica Jackson, in a bubbly costume), who tells her, “Consequences unforeseen. / Consequences unforeseen. / Put your faith and clothes in me, / a brand-new nineteen-sixty-three / seven-cycle wash machine,” and the Radio (a 1960s-style girl group consisting of Nasia Thomas, Nya, and Harper Miles in matching sparkling outfits and antennae), who agree, “Tough and dreary and all dishevel, / sixteen feet below sea level.” The demonic Dryer (a devilish Kevin S. McAllister) declares, “Laundry mine now! / You know the story: / Let’s make this basement a purgatory. / Time has come / Time has come / Time has come to suffer heat!”

Caroline is an unhappy single mother raising four kids on the thirty dollars a week she makes working tirelessly for the Gellmans, who are Jewish: The recently widowed Stuart Gellman (John Cariani), who prefers to play the clarinet rather than to say much or face reality; his new wife, Rose Stopnick Gellman (Caissie Levy), who can’t help feeling like an unloved replacement for the deceased, beloved Betty and who misses her old Upper West Side neighborhood; and Stuart’s eight-year-old son, Noah (alternately played by Gabriel Amoroso, Adam Makké, or Jaden Myles Waldman), who has developed a secret relationship with Caroline. He goes down to the basement to hang out with her, lighting her cigarettes and watching her work, even though, as she tells him, “I got no use for you. This basement too darn hot for two.”

Maid Caroline Thibodeaux (Sharon D Clarke) has some sharp words for Noah Gellman (Adam Makké) in poignant, prescient show (photo by Joan Marcus)

When Rose catches Noah leaving change in his pocket yet again, she chastises him and decides to let Caroline keep whatever she finds, to both punish Noah and supplement Caroline’s meager wages. But Caroline does not want any charity, instead collecting the money in a bleach cup and returning it to the boy — until she doesn’t, and things take a sharp turn.

Pulitzer and Tony-winning book writer Tony Kushner (Angels in America, Homebody / Kabul) references change in many ways throughout the show’s one hundred and fifty minutes (with intermission). As Caroline, three-time Olivier winner Clarke (Death of a Salesman, The Amen Corner) carries the weight of 1960s racism and inequality on her shoulders; Caroline is thirty-nine, while Clarke is fifty-five, and it’s easy to believe that the constant wear and tear on Caroline’s daily existence has aged her unfairly.

She is deeply unsatisfied with her position in life but also feels that there is no way out, that she has no choice but to play the role of the lowly black maid. While waiting for the bus (McAllister) with fellow maid Dotty Moffett (Tamika Lawrence), who is going to night school to better herself, Caroline says, “I don’t like the way you do. You change.” Dotty responds, “You the one that change! . . . Sorry you is sick and shame. Sorry you drinking misery tea. Sorry your life ain’t what it should be.”

As they continue to talk, the Moon (N’Kenge, in a dazzling round seat dangling from the rafters), a celestial presence watching from above, finally appears, promising, “Change come fast and change come slow / but change come, Caroline Thibodeaux.” Caroline replies, “Nothing ever changes under ground in Louisiana.”

At the Gellmans’ Chanukah party where Caroline, her sixteen-year-old daughter, Emmie (Samantha Williams), and Dotty are preparing dinner, Rose’s father, the progressive Mr. Stopnick (a scene-stealing Chip Zien), shouts, “The old world’s ending! Negroes marching! Change is coming! Down with the filthy capitalist chazzerim!” But Stuart’s parents (Joy Hermalyn and Stuart Zagnit) are having none of that, pleading, “Let’s not dwell on ugly things! Let’s thank God for the joys He brings! Watch the colored candles melt! Spin the dreidel for Chanukah gelt!”

During Chanukah, children often receive chocolate gelt, shaped like change: nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars. Earlier, when Caroline is considering keeping the money Noah has been leaving in his pocket, she opines that her ten-year-old son, Jackie (Alexander Bello or Richard Alexander Phillips), has to see the dentist, her eight-year-old son, Joe (Jayden Theophile), wants candy, and her oldest son, Larry, who is fighting in Vietnam, needs a care package with cookies. Chanukah gelt, both real and confectionary, is not going to solve their problems.

A Chanukah party leads to trouble in Caroline, or Change (photo by Joan Marcus)

The outstanding score by Tony-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Thoroughly Modern Millie), who previously teamed up with Kushner on the opera A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck for Glimmerglass, ranges from R&B, soul, and gospel to blues, klezmer, and folk, with orchestrations by Rick Bassett and Buryl Red that avoid treacly sentimentality. The multilevel set, by Fly Davis, who also designed the costumes, sometimes separates into two parts, creating a gap between Noah’s upstairs bedroom and the other half of the house, but the space it creates is often confusing and uncomfortable. However, the depiction of the washer/dryer and radio is hilarious, their playful movement choreographed by Ann Yee.

Longhurst (Constellations, Europe) keeps the action proceeding at an exciting pace that does not allow pauses for applause after songs, which works beautifully, although the audience can’t help but shower praise on Clarke after a showstopping solo in which Caroline finally asserts herself, proclaiming, “Ya’ll can’t do what I can do / ya’ll strong but you ain’t strong like me.”

Seventeen years after its debut, the semiautobiographical Caroline, or Change is both prescient and timely. Kushner — who grew up in a Jewish family in Lake Charles, with a father who played the clarinet, a mother who had cancer (but did not pass away when he was a child), and a Black maid named Maudie Lee Davis to whom the show is dedicated — makes references to the Spanish flu and a Confederate statue being torn down, and the repeated refrains about being underwater came just before Katrina struck Louisiana in 2005. The Covid-19 crisis and murder of George Floyd brought racial injustice and inequity to the forefront of America yet again, recalling the 1960s civil rights movement.

Caroline, or Change doesn’t provide any easy answers or celebrate any heroes; it is instead a potent reminder that while things have changed over the last sixty years, a whole lot more still needs to change. The best new musical of the twenty-first century? Who am I to disagree?

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY

The Lehman Trilogy takes place on Es Devlin’s stunning stage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY
Nederlander Theatre
208 West 41st St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 2, $59-$209
877-250-2929
thelehmantrilogy.com

“The prospect of sitting through a nearly three-and-a-half-hour play about the history of Lehman Brothers performed by a mere three actors might not necessarily be your idea of fun,” I wrote about the American premiere of The Lehman Trilogy at Park Avenue Armory in the spring of 2019. But it turned out to be what I called “an epic masterpiece, must-see theater at its finest.”

Still, the prospect of watching it two and a half years later, at the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway with two of the same actors amid a continuing pandemic, was not necessarily my idea of fun. But it turned out to once again be must-see theater at its finest.

Adapted by writer Ben Power and director Sam Mendes from Stefano Massini’s five-hour Italian original, the dazzling play relates the history of the men behind the business, siblings Henry (Simon Russell Beale), Mayer (Adam Godley), and Emanuel Lehman (Adrian Lester), who were born and raised in the small town of Rimpar in Bavaria and arrived, individually, in the United States between 1844 and 1850, operating a fabric store in Montgomery, Alabama. Over the years, they change with the times and the needs of the market, selling raw cotton, coffee, and coal and, eventually, trading money, building a vast empire that came crashing down in the 2008 financial crisis. Henry is considered the head, with the most business sense; Emanuel the arm, able to forcibly get things done; and Mayer the potato, an unequal partner who serves as the mediator. As the firm develops, the evolving name of the company is written and rewritten on glass walls, a constant reminder of where they were and where they are going.

Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale, and Adrian Lester play multiple roles in The Lehman Trilogy (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The story is told primarily in the third person, an ingenious decision that adds an extra dimension to the characters, giving them each a unique perspective on themselves and their family.

Henry: Every morning, like this morning, they get up at five in their three-room home.
Mayer: They light the lamps with whale oil and wash with one pail of water between them.
Emanuel: This is worse than Germany! Emanuel said on his third day in America.
Mayer: After the slap that Henry laid on his face he never said it again.
Henry: Every morning, like this morning, while Montgomery sleeps, they pray together before leaving.
Emanuel: Just as they did in Bavaria. They put on their hats and go out.
Mayer: Another day.

The narrative is divided into three chapters, “Three Brothers,” “Fathers & Sons,” and “The Immortal,” as their fame and fortune rises through the next generations, which include Emanuel’s ruthless son, Philip (Beale); Mayer’s son, Herbert (Lester), who believes in fairness, stability, and security, not the Lehman tradition of risk taking; and Philip’s son, “Bobby” (Godley), who loves the limelight and becomes the very public face of the company. “No one outside this family can ever truly understand. What we’ve done. Why we did it. What we plan to do next,” Philip says. Bobby answers, “At Yale they teach us that nothing is more outdated as betting on industry. The times are changing, Father. The new century will wipe everything away.” He doesn’t know how right he is.

The play takes place on Es Devlin’s gorgeous set, a large, revolving transparent cube with several office-like rooms. Video designer Luke Halls projects geographic scenes onto the huge semicircle at the back of the stage and onto the floor around the cube, from the vast sea and plantation estates to cotton fields and the New York City skyline. As good as it all looks, the set lacks the magic and power it had in the armory’s massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall; it feels too cramped on the Nederlander stage, where, depending on where you’re sitting, you’re unlikely to get its full impact.

The history of the Lehman brothers is told by three actors in sensational production (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Beale (Candide, Uncle Vanya), Godley (Rain Man, Anything Goes), and Olivier winner Lester (Red Velvet, Company), who replaces Ben Miles as Emanuel, are majestic, an absolute marvel. The three men have a commanding presence, balancing humor and gravitas as they move about the cube, using office packing boxes as furniture, arranging them into steps, furniture, and even a piano. (A real piano is played offstage by Candida Caldicot.)

Oscar, Tony, and Olivier winner Mendes (The Ferryman, American Beauty) and Power (Emperor and Galiean, Husbands and Sons) have made a few tweaks to the show in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis and the George Floyd protests. When Mayer discusses how the company benefits from plantations and slaves, Henry notes, “Doctor Beauchamp, who once treated the children of those slaves for chickenpox, now shakes his head the way he once did about yellow fever: ‘Surely you knew it could not last, Mr. Mayer? Everything that was built here was built on a crime. The roots run so deep you cannot see them but the ground beneath our feet is poisoned. It had to end this way.’” But “Mayer doesn’t want to hear. So day and night, he tries to convince himself that, although the war is lost, the South if you look hard enough still stands, is not dead.”

Later, in a Greek diner in Nebraska, Henry relates the story of its owner, Georgios Petropoulos: “He crossed the country in 1918 when the soldiers brought the influenza back from Europe and half a million Americans died. He saw the priests collecting the bodies off the street in Philadelphia, and the protests in San Francisco, against the wearing of masks.” At the Nederlander, employees walk up and down the aisles, making sure all audience members are wearing their masks correctly, over their mouth and nose.

Despite running more than three hours with two intermissions, The Lehman Trilogy flies by, moving faster than the Dow Jones stock ticker. It’s also a whole lot more satisfying, with Power, Mendes, and the outstanding cast taking all the risks and leaving all the rewards for the audience.

TROUBLE IN MIND

Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind finally makes it to Broadway after sixty-six years (photo by Joan Marcus)

TROUBLE IN MIND
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 9, $39-$250
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

In 1955, Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind was destined to be the first play by a Black woman writer to be staged on Broadway. However, when the white producers insisted that Childress use a rewritten happy ending instead of her original one, she adamantly refused. Four years later, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and became a much-revived classic while Trouble in Mind languished in relative obscurity, occasionally performed by small companies and schools.

The play has finally made its Broadway debut, in an uneven Roundabout production at the American Airlines Theatre. Right before it begins, an announcement explains that it is being presented exactly as Childress wrote it, without one word being changed. In the hands of director Charles Randolph-Wright, that might not have been the best idea, as this Trouble in Mind, which can be laugh-out-loud funny and sharply poignant and prescient, too often feels stilted and repetitive as Childress reveals the systemic racism and misogyny baked into the theater, which is still all too relevant today.

It’s the fall of 1957, and a group of actors are arriving at a Broadway theater to start rehearsals for Chaos in Belleville, a play by an unseen white man named Melton about racism, sharecropping, and lynching. The cast consists of the bitter Wiletta Mayer (LaChanze), a middle-aged Black actress who has grown sick and tired of playing mammies, maids, and slaves; Millie Davis (Jessica Frances Dukes), a younger Black actress who loves fancy outfits and likes to sting Wiletta about her advanced age; Sheldon Forrester (Chuck Cooper), an elderly Black character actor who usually doesn’t stir the pot but is concerned about certain aspects of Chaos; John Nevins (Brandon Micheal Hall), a young Black actor with dreams of success; Judy Sears (Danielle Campbell), a white Yale woke grad; and Bill O’Wray (Don Stephenson), an established white actor who declines to have lunch with his Black colleagues. Al Manners (Michael Zegen) is the white director who is so determined to have a hit that he fails to understand the inherent racism of the script and the needs of his cast; Eddie Fenton (Alex Mickiewicz) is the white stage manager and Manners’s right-hand man, and Henry (Simon Jones) is an elderly white doorman who has seen it all.

Wiletta (LaChanze) teaches John (Brandon Micheal Hall) a thing or two about the business as Sheldon (Chuck Cooper) looks on (photo by Joan Marcus)

“I think the theater is the grandest place in the world, and I plan to go right to the top,” John tells Wiletta, who tries to set him straight. “Show business, it’s just a business. Colored folks ain’t in no theater,” she says, explaining how he should act in front of white people, pretending to laugh at their jokes. “White folks can’t stand unhappy Negroes . . . so laugh, laugh when it ain’t funny at all,” she strongly advises.

John and Millie believe Chaos is an important work. “I hope I can do a good job and that people learn something from this play,” Millie says naively. Sheldon just hopes that everything goes smoothly, regardless of the content of the play. “Do, Lord, let’s keep the peace,” he says. “Last thing I was in, the folks fought and argued so, the man said he’d never do a colored show again . . . and he didn’t!”

Manners claims he is seeking authenticity, espousing, “I want truth. What is truth? Truth is simply whatever you can bring yourself to believe, that is all.” But his idea of truth is more about financial success than the inherent racism in the play, which starts to come out as some of the actors can’t hold back their thoughts any longer, including Judy, who shouts, “Oh, I get so mad about this prejudice nonsense! It’s a wonder colored people don’t go out and kill somebody, I mean actually, really do it . . . bloody murder, you know?”

Henry (Simon Jones) makes a point to Wiletta (LaChanze) in Trouble in Mind (photo by Joan Marcus)

Childress, who grew up in Charleston and Harlem and wrote such other plays as Florence and Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White (being revived in the spring by TFANA) in addition to the young adult novels A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated A Short Walk, cuts to the heart of racism in theater in Trouble in Mind; she was inspired to write it after appearing with Georgia Burke in the 1944 Broadway show Anna Lucasta, basing the character of Wiletta on Burke. She also references the idea of being forced to make script changes. “Melton is so stubborn, won’t change a line,” Eddie tells Manners, who replies “But he did.” Eddie adds, “Yes, but so stubborn.” Manners concludes, “A genius should be stubborn.”

Tony winner LaChanze (The Color Purple, The Secret Life of Bees) is radiant as Wiletta, who is bold and strong, caught in between wanting to continue her career but no longer able to hold back what she thinks. (As a bonus, LaChanze gets to belt out a song too.) In her Broadway debut, Dukes (Is God Is; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark) excels as Wiletta’s nemesis, each costume (by Emilio Sosa) making statements of their own.

Zegen (Bad Jews, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) overplays his hand as Manners, while Tony winner Cooper (The Life, Avenue X) is cooped up by Randolph-Wright’s (Motown the Musical, Ruined) often stagnant direction, not making enough use of Arnulfo Maldonado’s long, deep set. At one point Manners says, “I definitely know what I want and however unorthodox my methods, I promise never to bore you.” Unfortunately, that’s just what happens, especially in the second act. It’s as if Randolph-Wright has such reverence for Childress’s stand to make no revisions that he lets the pace drag as every word she wrote is delivered with the same emphasis, leaving the production feeling more like a historical document than the gripping drama it should be.

LACKAWANNA BLUES

LACKAWANNA BLUES
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 12, $59
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

In 2006, the HBO film of Lackawanna Blues earned John Papsidera an Emmy for Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special and S. Epatha Merkerson won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Rachel “Nanny” Crosby. But in the Broadway debut of Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s one-man show, which premiered at the Public in 2001 and continues at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through November 12, Santiago-Hudson proves once again that he can do it all by himself.

In the ninety-minute play, Santiago-Hudson, serving as actor, writer, and director, portrays more than two dozen characters that were part of his childhood growing up in the steel town of Lackawanna in upstate New York, focusing on his five-year-old self and the woman left in charge of his care, the beloved Miss Rachel, also known to the tight-knit community as Nanny. Ruben’s mother had financial problems stemming from drug abuse, and his father did not live with them. Through the age of eleven, he often lived with Miss Rachel, who ran a pair of boardinghouses, one at 32 Wasson Ave., where young Ruben met such fanciful figures as Numb Finger Pete, Sweet Tooth Sam, Ol’ Po’ Carl, Small Paul, Mr. Lucious, Freddie Cobbs, and Mr. Lemuel Taylor; Santiago-Hudson embodies each of them with shifts in his voice and physical movement as he relates funny and poignant anecdotes about fishing, baseball, and domestic violence.

He wanders across Michael Carnahan’s intimate set, consisting of a few chairs, a small table, the front door of 32 Wasson Ave., a hanging window, and a back wall that evokes the boardinghouse, beautifully lit by Jen Schriever (with several cool surprises). Sitting in one corner is New York Blues Hall of Fame guitarist and Grammy nominee Junior Mack, playing music composed and originally performed onstage by Bill Sims Jr.; Mack previously performed in Sims’s band, so it is a natural hand-off. He interacts well with Santiago-Hudson, sometimes coming to the forefront, other times whispering under Santiago-Hudson’s dialogue. Occasionally, Santiago-Hudson whips out a harmonica and blasts away with verve. (The warm sound design is by Darron L West.)

Lackawanna Blues is a celebration of a town that was enjoying the fruits of prosperity, not a dirge about marginalized people suffering hard times. The play begins with Santiago-Hudson declaring, “Nineteen fifty-six. Lackawanna, New York, like all Great Lakes cities, was thriving! Jobs everywhere, money everywhere. Steel plants, grain mills, railroads, the docks. Everybody had a new car and a conk. Restaurants, bars, stores, everybody made money. The smell of fried fish, chicken, and pork chops floating in the air every weekend. In every bar the aroma of a newly tapped keg of Black Label, Iroquois, or Genesee beer, to complement that hot roast beef-on-weck with just a touch of horseradish. . . . You could get to town on a Monday and by Wednesday have more jobs than one man can take. These were fertile times.” There were problems, but the people knew how to take care of one another, with Miss Rachel at the center. “Nanny was like the government if it really worked,” Santiago-Hudson says.

Santiago-Hudson is no stranger to one-man shows; in 2013 at the Signature, he portrayed his mentor and friend, the late August Wilson, in How I Learned What I Learned. He has directed and/or starred in numerous Wilson works, winning a Tony for his role as Cantwell in Seven Guitars and earning a Drama Desk Award for directing Jitney and an Obie for helming The Piano Lesson. He won an Obie Special Citation for the original production of Lackawanna Blues, while Sims earned an Obie for his music.

On Broadway, Santiago-Hudson makes you think you see every character, smell every smell, witness minute details of every scene even though he never changes his costume or introduces props. It’s a compelling, deeply personal performance that feels right at home in the 622-capacity theater as he marvelously succeeds in inviting the audience into his past. When asked at a talkback about what happened to his mother, he said that would be a show unto itself while sharing some of the specifics of her tragic yet hope-filled life. Sounds like a heckuva sequel.

SIX

Six queens battle it out to see who has it worst in Six (photo by Joan Marcus)

SIX
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
256 West Forty-Seventh St. Between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Thursday – Tuesday through September 4, $99-$279
sixonbroadway.com

The premise of the new Broadway musical Six is as simple as its title: The six wives of Henry VIII battle it out in an American Idol–like competition to determine which of them had it worst, a riotous twist on the old game show Queen for a Day, in which women shared their personal problems on television, with the most heart-wrenching tale earning its forlorn teller a crown and various sponsored prizes.

Fighting it out in Six, which premiered at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and made its way across the UK and to Australia, Canada, Chicago, and Massachusetts before landing at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, are the divorced Catherine of Aragon (Adrianna Hicks); the beheaded Anne Boleyn (Andrea Macasaet); Jane Seymour (Abby Mueller), who died shortly after giving birth; the divorced Anna of Cleves (Brittney Mack); the beheaded Katherine Howard (Samantha Pauly); and Catherine Parr (Anna Uzele), who survived Henry. Each woman makes her case in a spotlighted solo, set to music that ranges from pop to hip-hop to R&B and techno, performed onstage by the Ladies in Waiting: conductor and keyboardist Julia Schade, bassist Michelle Osbourne, guitarist Kimi Hayes, and drummer Elena Bonomo. The playful orchestrations are by Tom Curran, with flashy choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, the music and movement referencing Adele, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, the Spice Girls, and other pop faves.

Each former wife of Henry VIII takes center stage in Six (photo by Joan Marcus)

Wearing dark, glittering spikey costumes bordering on futuristic S&M, designed by Gabriella Slade, the women take center stage one by one as Tim Deiling’s frenetic lighting evokes a medieval discotheque. Each woman details her unique relationship with Henry in such songs as “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” “Heart of Stone,” and “I Don’t Need Your Love”; don’t be surprised if people near you are singing along, because the 2018 cast album has been streamed more than a hundred million times prior to the show’s Broadway opening. A woman sitting in front of me even knew specific gestures made by the performers, moving and grooving to every tune and nearly jumping out of her chair for the grand finale.

In between songs, each of the queens explains why she should be ruled the ultimate champion. Catherine of Aragon declares, “Who lasted longest was the strongest.” Boleyn claims, “The biggest sinner is obvs the winner.” Seymour opines, “Who had the son takes number one.” Cleves states, “Who was most chaste shall be first-placed.” Howard demands, “The most inglorious is victorious.” And Parr concludes, “The winning contestant was the most ProTESTant . . . Protestant.”

The divas also throw plenty of shade at one another in their quest to prove that they had it worst. When Seymour admits, “You know, people say Henry was stone-hearted. Uncaring. And I’m not sure he was?” Boleyn replies, “Yeah, actually, come to think of it, there was this one really cute time where I had a daughter and he chopped my head off.” When Catherine of Aragon says, “How about this: When my one and only child had a raging fever, Henry wouldn’t even let me, her mother, see her,” Seymour responds, “Oh, boo hoo, baby Mary had the chicken pox and you weren’t there to hold her hand; you know, it’s funny, because when I wanted to hold my newborn son, I died!!!!!!”

Cleverly cowritten with sheer glee by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, who previously collaborated on Hot Tub Time Machine, and codirected by Moss (Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, Fisk) and Jamie Armitage (And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens, Love Me Now), Six knows exactly what it is, not trying to be anything else; it’s an immensely crowd-pleasing show that doesn’t overwhelm you with history but does make mention of Hans Holbein, the C of E (Church of England), the Tudors, the Bubonic Plague, Thomas Cromwell, Henry Mannox, and the Holy Roman Empire. “Let’s get in Reformation,” Cleves orders in one song. (If you’re afraid you’ve missed something, you can most likely find it at this Wiki fan page.) Marlow and Moss also inject a powerful dose of female empowerment, although it leads to a too-easy, politically correct finish. As Parr says, “Every Tudor rose has its thorns.”

The cast is passionate and exuberant, making tons of eye contact with audience members in order to gain their vote. I saw understudy Courtney Mack as Boleyn, replacing Macasaet, and she more than held her own with Hicks, Mueller, Brittney Mack, Pauly, and Uzele, who form a strong team that often repeats the familiar refrain, “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” but want to be known for something more in this exhilarating “histo-remix.”

CHICKEN & BISCUITS

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Through January 2, $69.50
chickenandbiscuitsbway.com

I was in serious need of some unabashed laughter when I entered Circle in the Square last week, and that’s precisely what writer Douglas Lyons, director Zhailon Levingston, and a fab cast of eight delivered with the madcap comedy Chicken & Biscuits. It’s a divine stew of familiar plot points stirred together in an appealing way, set in a vibrant Black church community, a throwback to the popular crowd pleasers of the 1930s to 1960s that have been popularized more recently by Tyler Perry onstage and onscreen.

Much of the cast and crew are making their Broadway debuts, so the play gets a bit ragged and repetitive at times and is too long at more than two hours, but it’s a ton of fun nonetheless. Set designer Lawrence E. Moten III has transformed the intimate space into St. Luke’s Church in New Haven, with four mobile pews, stained-glass windows, and a pair of kitschy religious portraits. The patriarch of the Jenkins family, Father Bernard, has passed on, and his relatives are gathering to send him off to his beloved late wife in style. Well, kind of.

New pastor Reginald Mabry (Norm Lewis), the husband of Bernard’s oldest daughter, the God-fearing Baneatta (Cleo King), is worried about the eulogy he is preparing, while Baneatta is not looking forward to seeing her sister, the hard-partying, loud, and demonstrative Beverly (Ebony Marshall-Oliver), who arrives with her soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old, glued-to-her-smartphone daughter, the sarcastic La’Trice Franklin (Aigner Mizzelle).

Baneatta is none-too-happy that her son, Kenny (Devere Isaac Rogers), has brought his boyfriend, the white, Jewish nerd Logan (Michael Urie), who has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. Kenny’s older sister, Simone (Alana Raquel Bowers), shows up solo.

“Lord . . . please give me your strength on today,” Baneatta says at the beginning. “Bless me with your patience to deal with my family, for they know not what they do. Lord, help me keep my eyeballs rolled forward, as they have a tendency to roll backwards around foolishness. And Lord, keep me from strangling my baby sister, no matter how much she tests me. For you and I both know . . . she’ll try it. Keep all things unlike you at bay.”

A hilarious farce ensues, as the funeral attendees cut one another down and their private aspirations pop out all over. Wearing a glittering, tight outfit more appropriate for a sleazy nightclub, Beverly tells La’Trice, “They say the best place to find a husband is inside God’s house, and that’s exactly what Beverly will be doing. ’Cause your triflin’ daddy ain’t good for nothing but his child support check, so every new day is an opportunitay.” La’Trice asks, “Even at Grandpa’s funeral?” Beverly responds, “It ain’t a funeral, it’s a celebration! That’s the problem with Black folk, our mindset, always stuck in tradition. Why we gotta wear black, huh? We already Black! We should be honoring my daddy in style, color! Hell, canary yellow was his favorite, and he wore it like a pimp. Shit, he taught me good fashion!”

Logan, a kind of onstage representative of the white theatergoing audience that suddenly finds themselves inside a Black church, says to Kenny, “I’m penetrating a private cultural tradition.” Kenny asks, “Why penetrating?” Logan answers, “It’s like a reverse Get Out, and we all know how that ended.”

The plot thickens when a mysterious woman (NaTasha Yvette Williams) steps up to the pulpit to share her thoughts about Bernard, and all hell breaks loose.

Dede Ayite’s ebullient costumes and Nikiya Mathis’s spectacular wig, hair, and makeup design are key ingredients in Chicken & Biscuits, adding plenty of sweetness and spice. The cast, led by Lewis (Porgy and Bess, The Phantom of the Opera) in his first Broadway nonmusical and King (Jelly’s Last Jam, Beau) in her Great White Way bow, is clearly having a ball, keeping the audience howling with laughter and breaking into spontaneous applause — as well as shouts as if we were all at Sunday service. “Why is everyone screaming at him?” Logan asks Kenny during a call-and-response part of Reginald’s sermon. Sure, it can get too sitcomy, but so what? Not all of the courses are delicious, but there are more than enough savory moments to make the show worthy of a very favorable Yelp review.

The last time I was at Circle in the Square was for Daniel Fish’s controversial Oklahoma!, which included free chili for everyone at intermission. Alas, there are no chicken and biscuits for the audience in Chicken & Biscuits, but there are plenty of tasty treats to satisfy the soul.

PASS OVER / SANCTUARY CITY

Moses (Jon Michael Hill) and Kitch (Namir Smallwood) are startled by the arrival of a white man (Gabriel Ebert) in Pass Over (photo by Joan Marcus)

PASS OVER
August Wilson Theatre
245 West Fifty-Second St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 10, $39-$199
www.passoverbroadway.com

A pair of three-actor plays dealing with contemporary social issues, with spare sets and unique staging but curious endings, were among the first to open following the pandemic lockdown. Following earlier versions at Steppenwolf in Chicago in 2017 (which was filmed by Spike Lee) and at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater in the summer of 2018, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over, which deals with police brutality and the dreams of young Black men, made its Broadway debut at the August Wilson Theatre in August. Meanwhile, Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City, a New York Theatre Workshop production at the Lucille Lortel, looks into the lives of DREAMers trying to stay in America.

Pass Over is a reimagination of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot filtered through the biblical story of the exodus of Jewish slaves from Egypt along with the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood.” Kitch (Namir Smallwood) and Moses (Jon Michael Hill) are like brothers, two men hanging out on a ghetto street, rambling on about life. Wilson Chin’s set is a slightly raised sidewalk with a few pieces of detritus and a central lamppost evoking Beckett’s tree. The script explains that the time is “the (future) present / but also 2021 CE / but also 1855 CE / but also 1440 BCE,” identifying Moses as “a tramp / a n*gga on the block / but also a slave driver / but also the prophesied leader of God’s chosen” and Kitch as “a tramp / a n*gga on the block / but also a slave / but also one of God’s chosen.” Moses, the wiser of the two, tells his best friend, “yo ass gon rise up to yo full potential too / gon git up off dis block / matter fact / man / i’m gon lead you.” Kitch replies, “Amen!”

Moses (Jon Michael Hill) searches for the promised land in Pass Over (photo by Joan Marcus)

They are surprised when a white man (Gabriel Ebert), dressed in a white suit like a plantation owner, suddenly arrives out of nowhere, holding a picnic basket and telling them his name is Master. “What da fuck,” Kitch says upon hearing that. Master, who uses such trite language as “gosh golly gee” and “salutations,” offers them food from the basket he was going to bring to his mother before getting lost, but while Kitch wants to dig in, Moses is suspicious of this unexpected largesse.

Shortly after Master departs, Kitch and Moses are visited by Ossifer (Ebert), a uniformed police officer who says he will protect them but soon pulls out his gun and commands that they put their hands behind their heads. When the cop leaves, Moses is furious, but Kitch philosophizes, “damn man / we still here / sun comin up yeah / iss a new day / and we still on dis block / but damn n*gga / it cud be worse / we cud be dead / we still here / mean we still livin / so tomorrow / tomorrow.”

Fluently directed by Danya Taymor and featuring three all-star performances, Pass Over is riding smoothly until the final scenes. Nwandu significantly changed the ending for Broadway, and not necessarily for the better. It now attempts to make a grander statement about the times we live in and a possible future, with an added dash of stagecraft that is beautiful but feels out of place. It might be more hopeful, but it’s head-scratchingly confusing and strays too far from the tight, succinct narrative that led up to it. In the script, Nwandu writes, “This play should NOT have an intermission. If Moses and Kitch cannot leave, neither can you. (And if, by the end, the magic has worked, you shouldn’t want to.)” The same should have gone for the finale.

Childhood friends B (Jasai Chase-Owens) and G (Sharlene Cruz) encounter immigration issues in Sanctuary City (photo by Joan Marcus)

SANCTUARY CITY
New York Theatre Workshop at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher St.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 17, $30 (20% off with code FRIEND)
www.nytw.org/show

Sanctuary City takes a head-scratching turn as well as the ending approaches, detracting from everything that came before it, which was powerful and moving, as is the case with Pass Over. The play takes place in Newark between 2001 and 2006, as childhood friends B (Jasai Chase-Owens) and G (Sharlene Cruz) contemplate their immigration status, wondering whether they should stay in the United States or move back to their native countries. They walk across Tom Scutt’s spare stage, a cantilevered platform that more than hints at unease. Isabella Byrd has filled the Lucille Lortel with standard and unusual varieties of lighting, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, and in unexpected places. Various lights flash on and off after short scenes that sometimes repeat themselves and travel through time, reminiscent of Nick Payne’s Constellations on Broadway, which also had a set by Scutt (and lighting by Lee Curran).

“She’s goin back,” B says about his mother. “She’s afraid of stayin in the country. There’s some shit at work, she said. Boss keeps takin money from her tips cuz, y’know, he can, what’s she gonna do? report it? to who? And she’s afraid what happened to Jorge’s gonna happen to her and so she’s goin back. And cuz of September. Cuz of the towers.”

G spends a lot of time at B’s apartment, often sleeping over in order to avoid repeated beatings by her stepfather. She skips school, pretending to be sick, but she is running out of excuses. “She’s scared they’ll send us back if they find out what’s goin on at home. She’s scared they’d separate us,” she says about her mother. “Who would send you back?” B asks. G: “America. If they wanted to investigate. If they like — checked. She worked with a fake social security for years. He’s threatened to report her before. Everyone’s more, y’know—” B: “Yeah.” G: “—cuz of September. Cuz of the towers. Or maybe they’d put me in some kind of — some place for kids — separate us. I don’t know if she even knows specifically what to be afraid of but she is. She’s scared.”

Sharlene Cruz and Jasai Chase-Owens star in new play by Martyna Majok (photo by Joan Marcus)

Without the DREAM Act, they are always in danger of being deported, so they can’t apply for student aid or other benefits. Since she sleeps over so much, G offers to pay rent to help B out, but he refuses to accept it. They grow closer and closer and soon are asking each other personal questions about their lives, preparing to get married strictly so B can get a green card. While G looks like she might be interested in something more, B stands back, keeping things platonic. A few years later, Henry (Austin Smith) enters the picture, creating an entirely new dynamic.

Pulitzer Prize winner Majok (Cost of Living, Ironbound), who was born in Poland and contributed short works to A Dozen Dreams and the Homebound Project during the pandemic, and director Rebecca Frecknall (Summer and Smoke, Three Sisters) have our full attention for two-thirds of the play, maintaining a compelling mystery about B and G as well as numerous plot intricacies, and Chase-Owens (The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Cruz (Mac Beth, The Climb) are appealing as the two leads.

It all comes to a screeching halt when Henry arrives, through no fault of Smith (An Octoroon, Socrates). “Did I just fuck everything up?” Henry asks. Till then, the play had avoided theatrical clichés, challenging the audience to keep pace. But from this point on, it all becomes standard, losing the edge that had made it so compelling. The flash lighting is gone, and instead of quick, staccato scenes with cut-off, incomplete dialogue, the scenes become longer and more drawn out, crossing every T and dotting every I. As with Pass Over, Sanctuary City pulls us into its claustrophobic, carefully built world but then, when opening up, leaves us behind, no longer trusting its own dialectic.