this week in theater

THE SINGULARITY APPROACHES: DISRUPTION AT THE SIGNATURE

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Nick (John David Washington) offers “the opportunity of a lifetime” to a group of old friends in Disruption (photo by Emilio Madrid)

DISRUPTION
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 27, $99-$176
www.disruptionplay.com

“To this day, I remain convinced of this basic philosophy: no matter what quandaries we face — business problems, health issues, relationship difficulties, as well as the great scientific, social, and cultural challenges of our time — there is an idea that can enable us to prevail,” American computer scientist Ray Kurzweil wrote in his 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. “Furthermore, we can find that idea. And when we find it, we need to implement it.”

One of the great fears of this era is the implementation of artificial intelligence and our growing dependence on AI — in addition to grave concerns over the singularity, the potential for AI to develop beyond human control, take over our lives, and, perhaps, ultimately destroy us.

Numerous recent plays have considered where that can lead us, including Matthew Libby’s Data, Olivia Haller’s Loneliness Was a Pandemic, and Tjaša Ferme’s Bioadapted, none of which are comedies with particularly happy endings.

The latest to offer its take on the future of AI technology is Andrew Stein’s engrossing Disruption, making its American premiere at the Pershing Square Signature Center following its 2023 debut in London. But Stein and director Hersh Ellis don’t focus so much on the tech behind AI as on the entrepreneurs and computer scientists who keep expanding it — and the humans who use it. In many ways, it’s a contemporary domestic drama disguised as a high-tech thriller.

Successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur Nick (John David Washington) has gathered his three best friends and their wives for a dinner in a private room in an upscale Tribeca restaurant. Ben (Conrad Ricamora) is a Columbia professor married to Suzie (Shaunette Renée Wilson), a therapist on the Upper West Side; they have no children by choice and are deciding whether their next vacation should be to the Galápagos or Machu Picchu. Barry (Jason Ralph) is a surgeon married to Mia (Irene Sofia Lucio), a photographer; they also have no children and are contemplating buying a brownstone in Park Slope but he is not sure they can afford it. And Paul (Joe Tippett) is an art director at a print magazine married to Jill (Elizabeth Stanley), who believes she sold out by becoming a corporate lawyer; they have two young children they are hoping to get into Fieldston but are also short on funds.

The three women are worried that Nick has come for their husbands, seeking investments in whatever his latest venture is; the three men promise that they just want to see their old friend and hear him out, nothing more.

“Let’s not get seduced by Nick,” Mia says to Barry.

But seduction is the key part of Nick’s charm. And to up the ante, he has brought with him his gorgeous and brilliant new business partner, the younger Raven (Emma Kikue); she is twenty-seven while the others are in their late thirties and early forties.

Nick explains to his friends that he’s not after their money but is instead offering them “the opportunity of a lifetime.” He believes that their involvement will lead to easier, happier lives with fewer challenges. “The world is changing at a rate most people can’t comprehend. Computing capacity doubles every two years, you know what that means?” Nick asks. Raven responds, “People are fucked.” To which Nick adds, “Unless . . . they embrace technology.”

Suzie is having none of it, leading to an exchange with Ben that gets to the heart of the narrative.

Suzie: I hate how technology has made us so connected to everything except ourselves. This obsession with making everything faster and easier. As if that’s inherently better.
Ben: It’s called progress.
Suzie: No. It’s not. It’s not progress. It’s something else. Something insidious.
Ben: It’s life’s speeding up. That’s all.
Suzie: The new shiny object that replaces something tried and true isn’t necessarily better. Disruption for the sake of disruption can’t be the goal.
Ben: When you improve one thing, you eliminate another. That’s life. The herd gets trimmed. . . .
Suzie: Our souls are being gutted. Which isn’t progress. It’s programming. And I know I keep saying this, but no one seems to notice. Or give a shit.
Ben: Except you.
Suzie: I don’t think we have any idea how much we’re being manipulated.

Disruption takes place in a dark, high-tech oblong space with the audience on two sides (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Faust meets The Big Chill in Disruption, a kind of newfangled couples drama in which men and women contemplate their future — personal and professional, individual and as pairs — only this time through the lens of an AI algorithm that may be able to help guide them, or control them. But it deals with more than what Suzie refers to as Nick’s “God Machine” and free will; it’s about how each of us faces the daily trials and tribulations of life and how we go about trying to solve our problems, ignore them, blame them on others, or look for the easy way out. The algorithm is not just a technological advance but a metaphor for how everyone attempts to get a leg up at one time or another, sometimes compromising our ethics and ideals.

Zoë Hurwitz’s set is a dark oblong open on its two long sides, where the audience sits, making us feel complicit in what is happening onstage, as if we’re part of the algorithm. In between scenes, the actors wheel in chairs, tables, and other furniture items while electronic music softly drones and the floor of the oblong lights up with numbers, letters, circles that glow red, and synapses connecting like constellations. The lighting, by Reza Behjat, occasionally reveals a glass-fronted room where Raven operates the algorithm; the sound, which at one point includes creepy echoes, is by Caroline Eng, with contemporary costumes by Hurwitz, with one big surprise at the end.

The ensemble is terrific; each upper-middle-class couple is believable if not wholly unique, with Washington (The Piano Lesson) and Kikue (God Said This, Fruiting Bodies) as their advisers who may or may not have their best interest in mind.

About halfway through the show, Barry tells Nick how his shoelace broke in between patients and, as he was fixing it, he received an ad on his phone for a shoe repair store a block away. “I didn’t say anything. Didn’t search anything . . . it was like someone knew exactly what had happened.” Nick responds, “They probably did.”

Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?

Don’t be surprised if, after reading this review, you get an ad on your phone or on social media for the play, guiding you to get tickets.

Kurzweil also wrote in The Singularity Is Near, “The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.”

Be careful what you wish for, especially when it comes to AI.

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

FLY, ROBIN, FLY: THE LOVED ONES AT THE IRISH REP

Erica Murray’s The Loved Ones explores loss, grief, betrayal, and rebirth (photo by Carol Rosegg)

THE LOVED ONES
Irish Repertory Theatre, Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West 22nd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through August 2, $55-$125
irishrep.org

Erica Murray’s The Loved Ones, making its New York City premiere at the Irish Rep through August 2, has a terrific setup. It takes place in an open-plan kitchen/living room in a farmhouse in the Irish countryside, where Nell (Maryann Plunkett) lives alone following the tragic loss of her son, Robin. Although she values her privacy, Nell is in for a crowded, complicated weekend. A young, pregnant Englishwoman, Gabby (Alana Raquel Bowers), has shown up with a suitcase and a backpack, claiming she is having Robin’s baby, explaining that she was one of his students at university. Nell doesn’t believe her son would have done such a thing.

“Well, I don’t know you, do I? You just landed in here and could be a psychopath for all I know. You could be someone who does this all the time, tricking vulnerable mothers with dead sons into giving you money,” Nell says. Gabby, who has not told her family about the baby, responds, “I’m sorry to be ruining your perfect memory of him, really I am, but it’s not like I had a lot of other options. This is his mess as much as it is mine, and since he’s not around to deal with it . . .”

Nell tries to convince Gabby to stay somewhere else, as Robin’s widow, Orla (Clare O’Malley), is on her way to spend a few days at the house, bringing the urn with her late husband’s ashes so they can honor the six-month anniversary of his death. But before Nell can get rid of Gabby, Orla arrives, and Nell and Gabby decide not to tell Orla anything about Gabby’s connection to Robin.

Also, in order to make some extra money, Nell has converted part of the house into an Airbnb, currently occupied by a chatty American tourist, Cheryl-Ann (Donna Lynne Champlin), who keeps notes for her online review and has a penchant for insinuating herself into situations.

But as the melodrama unfurled across two hours and fifteen minutes (with intermission), I found myself predicting far too many lines of dialogue and plot twists; the show began feeling more like a Lifetime movie than a classic Irish tale with dark humor, secrets, and mystery. Directed by Nicola Murphy Dubey (Irishtown, Belfast Girls), the play felt tired and uninvolving, the acting inconsistent.

There were a few unexpected turns that I relished, but in the end it was too little too late. Murray (The Cat’s Mother, All Mod Cons) uses birds as metaphors throughout the show. “Birds can do what we all wish we could do:fly. Nine point nine times out of ten, when you ask someone what they’d like to be reincarnated as, they say a bird so they can fly,” avian enthusiast Cheryl-Ann tells Gabby.

Unfortunately, The Loved Ones never takes off.

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

NAMING NAMES: STIRRING REVIVAL TO CLOSE EARLY

Jason Babinsky, Michael McKean, and Adam Kantor play three HUAC committee members trying to root out communism in Hollywood in gripping docudrama (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN
New York City Center Stage I
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 2, $199
areyounowplay.com
www.nycitycenter.org

An unexpectedly timely subject. An all-star cast. Few other major plays opening at the same time. A superb, well-reviewed production.

So what went wrong?

Anna D. Shapiro’s sparkling revival of Eric Bentley’s 1972 Are You Now or Have You Ever Been began previews at New York City Center Stage I on June 2 and was scheduled to run until September 11, but it recently announced it was closing early, on August 2. And that’s too bad, because it’s a gripping show that deserves a large audience. Maybe it never had a chance, billing itself as “An American Docudrama,” which sounds like something one would see on the History Channel. It could be that it attracted only older folks who are more familiar with the figures involved in serious events that shook the country in the late 1940s and 1950s. Maybe some people were turned off because the dialogue is taken verbatim from actual transcripts.

The play, the original full title of which is Are You Now or Have You Ever Been: The Investigations of Show-Business by the Un-American Activities Committee 1947–1958, takes place between 1947 and 1956, as the House Committee on Un-American Activities interviews Hollywood writers, actors, directors, and producers, grilling them on their ties to communism and the Soviet Union during the second Red Scare and the rise of McCarthyism. The chairman (Michael McKean) and two aides (Jason Babinsky and Adam Kantor) famously ask each of them, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” and insist that they name names. Some were only too happy to turn in colleagues, either because they were trying to save their careers or were loyal to the cause — Sam G. Wood (Frederick Weller), Elia Kazan (Weller), and, in his follow-up appearance, Martin Berkeley (Brooks Ashmanskas, though I saw understudy Bill Timoney) — while others stood tall in the face of the questioning, defending their rights as American citizens to not succumb to the threats, some ridiculing the proceedings themselves.

When the chairman asks Abe Burrows (Norbert Leo Butz), “Would you call yourself a Communist?,” the playwright, director, and lyricist responds, “Not in my own heart, sir. But I’m here to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and there’s an element of truth in the statement that I was a Communist. There’s also an element of untruth.” The answer cost him the Pulitzer Prize for Guys and Dolls.

Lionel Stander (Bob Odenkirk) has some sharp words for HUAC in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

“My conscience will not permit me to use the name of another person,” Arthur Miller (Weller) tells the committee in no uncertain terms, while Jerome Robbins (Steven Boyer), when asked why he risked being a Hollywood outcast by naming names, explains, “I did it according to my conscience.”

Lionel Stander (Bob Odenkirk) rejects the existence of the committee, arguing, “I have knowledge of subversive action! I know of a group of fanatics who are trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States by depriving artists of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without due process of law! I can cite instances! I can tell names. I am one of the first victims, if you are interested. A group of ex-Bundists, America Firsters, and anti-Semites, people who hate everybody, Negroes, minority groups, and most likely themselves —”

The sergeant-at-arms has to be called to remove Ring Lardner Jr. (Boyer) from the proceedings after he mocks the committee’s purpose. Smoking a cigarette, Lillian Hellman (Molly Ringwald) reads a brilliant statement on why she will talk to HUAC but not name names.

Paul Robeson (Harry Lennix) declares, “In 1946 I testified under oath I was not a member of the Communist Party. Since then I have refused to give testimony to that fact. There is no mystery in this. I have made it a matter of principle to refuse to comply with any demand that infringes upon the constitutional rights of all Americans.”

The most moving part of the show is the interrogation of Larry Parks (T. R. Knight), who was famous for having played Al Jolson in two films but whose career essentially ended after his testimony first in 1951, then in 1953. Emmy nominee Knight portrays Parks with a heartbreaking sincerity, squirming in his chair as he desperately tries to not name names, his voice and body trembling in fear. He believes that his flirtation with communism when he was younger was brief and irrelevant, skirting questions as the chairman attempts to break him.

“On naming names, it is my opinion that the few people I could name, these names would not be of service to the committee: I am sure you know who they are. These people are like myself, and I have done nothing wrong,” Parks insists. “I also feel that to be asked to name names like this is not American justice. We as Americans have all been brought up to believe it’s a bad thing to force a man to do this.”

Parks could be any one of us, in the 1950s or today.

In the past month, President Donald Trump has brought back the Red Scare, accusing many of those whose views deviate from his, especially but not limited to Democratic Socialists, of being communists.

“There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty,” Trump said in a July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore. “It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11. Uh, we’re not gonna let this happen to us. Believe me, we’re not letting it happen. Because communism is the enemy of free people everywhere, everywhere in the world. Never works. It’s the enemy of the Constitution.”

One of Trump’s mentors was Roy Cohn, the lawyer who sat beside Joseph McCarthy as the Wisconsin senator went after communists and homosexuals in a series of public hearings on Capitol Hill.

“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump asked during his first term when he was dissatisfied with several of his administration officials.

Lillian Hellman (Molly Ringwald) shares her thoughts on HUAC in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

Skillfully directed by Anna D. Shapiro (Eureka Day, This Is Our Youth) as if it’s a political thriller with the very future of America at stake, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been makes the audience feel like they are in the chair, facing invasive and accusatory questions about their loyalty to a nation that is supposedly built on freedom. As each figure takes the stand, images of newspaper headlines are projected on a scrim, emphasizing the seriousness and immediacy of the situation. The three interlocutors sit stage left at an angle, while the subjects, once finished with their testimony, sit behind the scrim, as if reduced to shadows. The set is by Andrew Boyce, with sharp costumes by Johanna Pan, noirish lighting by Donald Holder, threatening sound by Milbo Music, and important projections by Brittany Bland.

The cast is outstanding, with Babinsky, Boyer, Kantor, Weller, and McKean in the regular ensemble and Butz, Knight, Lennix, Odenkirk, and Ringwald rotating in for the previous lineups of Billy Eugene Jones, David Krumholtz, Andrew McCarthy, Sally Murphy, and Jay O. Sanders and Jones, Scott Adsit, Sally Murphy, Ben Rappaport, and Thomas Sadoski. Unfortunately, Santino Fontana, Steven Pasquale, and others won’t get the chance to testify.

Winner of an Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement, Bentley (The Red, White, and Black; Good Woman of Setzuan), a British-born longtime New Yorker who was a theater critic for The New Republic, taught at Harvard, extensively translated works by Bertolt Brecht, and died in 2020 at the age of 103, captured the zeitgeist of the time in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, a question that could now end with more than just “a member of the Communist Party.” The powerful play puts you in the chair, wondering what you would do if asked, under oath by an out-of-control administration, about your political beliefs.

So, again, what went wrong?

Brecht famously wrote, “The one tribute we can pay the audience is to treat it as thoroughly intelligent.”

Perhaps, in this case, it all hits too close to home, and it’s all too real for a swift summer entertainment.

And that’s a genuine shame.

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

A CURE FOR WHAT AILS YOU: A POISONOUS GIULIA AT PAC NYC

Jennifer Nettles wrote the book, music and lyrics for Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo and stars as the title character (photo by Andy Henderson)

GIULIA: THE POISON QUEEN OF PALERMO
Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)
251 Fulton St.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 2, $88-$226
pacnyc.org

Jennifer Nettles’s Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo is a cleverly staged, rousing feminist fantasia about shame and sin, hypocrisy and justice, faith and grrl power. It’s a tasty concoction filled with fantastic period costumes and a beguiling set, playful choreography and soaring orchestrations, and far too many clichés and anachronisms; it will need significant work before achieving its Broadway aspirations, but in the meantime it is thrilling audiences at PAC NYC through August 2.

Nettles, a multiple Grammy and Country Music Association award winner, is a singer-songwriter, actress, and producer who has released such solo records as That Girl and a half-dozen albums as part of the duo Sugarland, starred on Broadway in Waitress and Chicago, and has appeared in such streaming series as The Righteous Gemstones and The Bondsman in addition to two Dolly Parton television biopics. Inspired by the story of seventeenth-century Italian apothecary and cosmetician Giulia Tofana, Nettles wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the show and takes on the title role. Not many details are known about the real-life Giulia, who might have been the world’s first female serial killer; regardless, she’s the center of a legitimate crowd pleaser.

It’s 1653, and Giulia runs an apothecary with her young daughter, Vitoria (Naomi Serrano), now that her former employee, Renata (Aubrey Matalon), is engaged to one of the Gambino twins. Giulia’s second husband, the wayward, unemployed drunkard Carlo (Matthew Amira), is incensed that Vitoria is now working and decides he has other plans for her, which sets Giulia in motion, prepared to do anything she can to protect her daughter.

Giulia caters to a wide range of women, including the pregnant Maria (Emily Fink), the Duchessa (Didi Romero), who always gets what she wants, and others who are experiencing various man troubles and marital oppression. They come to Giulia and beg, “Help me, sister.” With a potion brought to her by the mysterious conjurer La Capitana (Bre Jackson), Giulia knows how to cure what ails her customers, and herself.

“There’s a poor parade of women coming in my door / I can tell you what each of them is here for / Sophia comes on Tuesdays / She doesn’t have much time to waste / And it’s the first time Isabell’s been hit / I can tell by the sad look on her face / Angelina knows the hurting on both sides of birthing / And Theresa is so desperate for a baby / She’s just starting a journey,” Giulia sings. “They will come to heal their wounds / They will come to hear the stars / They will come to fill or empty their wombs / Cover their bruises / Mend their broken hearts / All of them come in an hour of need / Looking for a glimmer of hope / And I try but I know / It’s never enough.”

Meanwhile, there is a power struggle going on between the Cardinale (Quentin Earl Darrington), who follows the precepts of the church, and the slimy new Governatore (Christopher M. Ramirez), who is instantly attracted to Vitoria.

As the body count rises, so do Giulia’s chances of getting caught.

Men better watch out in world premiere musical inspired by a somewhat true story (photo by Andy Henderson)

Evoking such films as Kill Bill, Thelma & Louise, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and Black Widow, Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo feels fresh and relevant to what is happening today, particularly in the neverending saga of the Epstein Files. Giulia is a heroic figure, albeit one who wrestles with her conscience.

Daniel Ostling’s gorgeous set features a large staircase stage left and a wall of doors and windows stage right that open up to reveal changing scenery behind them, from the apothecary to a church to a nunnery. Ana Kuzmanić’s end-of-the-Renaissance costumes are a delight, swirling amid Austin McCormick’s appropriately unextravagant choreography. The unseen eight-piece band is conducted by arranger, music director, and keyboardist Adam Rothenberg.

Nettles is magnetic as Giulia; you just can’t get enough of her, even with a probably unnecessary encore number during the curtain call. She practically glows throughout the show, her eyes shining at the audience like she’s wrapping her arms around us. The entire cast is terrific, with a special nod to Sam Simahk as Father Paolo, the only male character with any sense of decency and fairness, up to a point.

Songs such as “What Happens Next?,” “Next Time,” and “Fly Away” are too general; they could fit into many musicals without making any tweaks to the lyrics. “Happily Ever After” veers too close to Fiddler’s “Matchmaker.” Ramirez scores with “Bones,” Darrington’s baritone rattles the theater in “Original Sin,” and the women come together for a sparkling “Power.”

Water streams through the show as a metaphor for life, purification, resilience, and hope in a changing world. “You are the river / You are unstoppable / You’ll flow around every obstruction and break through / Every obstacle / You are as soft and humble as a single drop of rain / Or you can make canyons out of cliffs / With just the power of your rage / They don’t know you / Or the power that flows through. . . . Because water is the only / thing they cannot break,” Giulia sings in “The River,” a song that encapsulates what is both right and wrong about the lively and spirited production as a whole.

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

ZOUNDS! OTHELLO RECLAIMS HIS TITLE IN HARLEM

Iago (Nick Westrate) embroils Othello (James Udom) in a devious plot in stirring CTH production (photo by Richard Termine)

UPTOWN SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: OTHELLO
Classical Theatre of Harlem
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park
18 Mt. Morris Park W.
Through July 27, free (advance RSVP recommended), 8:30
www.cthnyc.org

The night I saw the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s stirring adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello, the projections weren’t working, but I found that to be a bonus, as this stripped-down version gave the audience the opportunity to investigate the misogyny and racism that’s inherent in the story, told here with a militaristic edge as well as some unexpected comic relief and sexiness.

Last year, Kenny Leon’s Broadway version of Othello starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal gained more recognition for its ticket prices, which reached $921, than for its quality, earning mixed reviews and zero Tony nominations. However, over the last decade, I’ve seen five other Othellos, each of which shined new light on the classic tragedy of jealousy and deceit without breaking the bank: Sam Gold’s captivating and intense iteration at New York Theatre Workshop in 2016, with Daniel Craig, David Oyelowo, and Rachel Brosnahan; Satoshi Miyagi’s hypnotic Mugen Noh Othello at Japan Society in 2018; Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s gripping, emotional Shakespeare in the Park production in 2018; the New Place Players’ immersive, clear, and concise show in 2023; and
Bedlam’s three-hour, four-actor sparer-than-spare work this past spring, celebrating every word.

Continuing at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park through July 27, CTH’s Othello, adroitly directed by Carl Cofield (Memnon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), is trimmed down to a lean 105 minutes on a gray set that resembles the inside of a castle; the characters wear contemporary clothing, linking the past and the present.

Distilled to its essence; the plot zeroes in on Othello (James Udom), a Moor and military hero who has secretly married Desdemona (Isabel Arraiza). Othello’s ensign, Iago (Nick Westrate), furious that he was not promoted to lieutenant, which went to the stalwart Cassio (Orlando Grant) instead, concocts a devious plan to ruin Othello by convincing him that the ever-faithful Desdemona has been cheating on him with Cassio. With Roderigo (Hiram Delgado), who loves Desdemona, in tow, Iago goes to extreme lengths to pull the wool over Othello’s eyes and heart, unwittingly involving his own wife, Emilia (Karen Lugo), Desdemona’s maid; Bianca (Rebecca Pena), Cassio’s lover; Desdemona’s father, Brabantio (Gilbert Cruz), a powerful senator; and others.

Desdemona (Isabel Arraiza) attempts to hold her ground and defend herself in Othello (photo by Richard Termine)

Race is central throughout the play. Speaking to Brabantio early on, Iago tells him, “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!” The Duke of Venice (Collin McConnell) says to Brabantio in Othello’s presence, “Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.” While duping Cassio, Iago can’t help but refer to the Moor as “black Othello.” And near the conclusion, Emilia calls him “the blacker devil!” These lines pierced me more than they usually do, in part because they take a more prominent place in this significantly shortened adaptation.

There is also added pungency when Othello strikes Desdemona across the face in front of her cousin Lodovico (McConnell); she responds, “I have not deserved this,” standing tall, not about to back down and just take it. This is indeed a twenty-first-century Desdemona.

Despite the many cuts, the key lines are left intact: “I am not what I am.” “If after every tempest come such calms, / May the winds blow till they have wakened death.” “Reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!” “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.” “Farewell content!” “And think it no addition, nor my wish, / To have him see me womaned.”

However, Bard purists might not like some of the key changes Cofield has employed, including a different, more exciting ending. Zounds!

Westrate (The Wild Duck, A Delicate Ship) is a conniving Iago, filled with vitriol and venom. Arraiza (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar) is one of the strongest, most well defined Desdemonas I’ve ever seen. Recent NYU grad Grant (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, GIRLBOSS) is staunch as the brave but confused Cassio.

But the center of the play is Udom (The Rolling Stone, Mies Julie), who gives a complex, riveting performance. He commands the stage with a building fury; most productions are organized around Iago, but CTH shows why Shakespeare called it Othello, not Iago.

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

NO MORE KINGS? HUNGRY WOMEN AT SOHO PLAYHOUSE

Melissa Maney’s Hungry Women looks at what happens when all the males in a small town suddenly die (photo by Rebecca J Michelson)

HUNGRY WOMEN
SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Varick St. & Sixth Ave.
Thursday – Sunday through August 30, $50-$75.50
www.sohoplayhouse.com
hungrywomenplay.com

Melissa Maney’s Hungry Women makes no bones about where it’s heading well before it starts. First, there is the title, which on the program is accompanied by a grisly image of a woman’s fist squeezing a strawberry, red liquid dripping from the palm. And second, the entrance music includes Dove Cameron’s “Breakfast” (“I eat boys like you for breakfast”), Chloe Moriondo’s “I Eat Boys” (“Yeah, I eat boys and I get them bloody”), and Florence + the Machine’s “Just a Girl,” the theme from the cable series Yellowjackets, in which a high school girls soccer team makes some tough choices in order to survive a plane crash in the mountains and must eventually face the consequences decades later.

Unfortunately, the night I went, the Black Watch Theatre production, which opened this evening at SoHo Playhouse, had some lighting difficulties that became representative of the narrative as a whole.

Hungry Women begins in a small town in Massachusetts in 1890, shortly after all the males have dropped dead in their tracks. Initially, the ladies are hungry for food, as, without men, there are no butchers, no markets, no shops, only, it seems, potatoes. Ruth (Julia Lester), her sister, Mary (Zoe Dean), Eden (Mariyea), and her sister, Victoria (Sophie Zmorrod), have gathered to discuss their growing dilemma. Ruth is prim and proper, believing that women need men, who must be around somewhere else in the country. Mary feels lost, explaining that her husband was her entire world. The more independent-minded Eden is mourning the loss of her sons while trying to feed her daughters. And Victoria, who now wants to be known as Vic, donning some of her husband’s clothing, is ready to move on, apparently thrilled that her husband is now dead. It’s no coincidence that three of the women’s names refer to the Old Testament, while Vic’s comes from the mythical Roman goddess of victory.

“I’m not a sentimental person. Wearing George’s clothes doesn’t make me feel closer to him. They make me feel closer to me,” she tells the audience in a short monologue. “My late husband viewed life as a presentation. If there was a speck of dirt, a utensil askew, a hair astray, uproar would follow. So, when the maid told George I’d been wearing his clothes around the house, his punishment was unyielding. Each time she’d lace up my corset, he’d demand, ‘Tighter. Tighter. Tighter.’ Until my waist became as small as he wanted me to feel. But now, he’s gone. And I’m much more handsome than he ever was.”

When Vic serves the ladies sandwiches and, eventually, admits what they’re made of, the other women are not prepared at first to partake as each of them also gets their moment in the spotlight, delivering revealing mini-speeches addressed directly to the audience. “She may think she holds the power now, but the kings return. They always return,” Ruth says about Vic. Suddenly having sexual thoughts about Vic, Mary admits, “The danger of it all feels oh so delicious.” And Eden, recalling going hunting with her father, proclaims, “I despise motherhood.”

Aside from the spotlights unable to properly shine on the actors during their monologues, which is distracting, the first act works beautifully, setting up an engaging and fascinating premise. But as the action moves to 1991 (“Curious Women”), which takes place in an AP class, and 2091 (“Scared Women”), the story runs off the rails as it explores the whitewashing of history (or herstory), holds an improbable séance, and turns to global surveillance and control.

Be careful what you wish for.

Melissa Maney’s Hungry Women moves from 1890 to 1991 and 2091 (photo by Rebecca J Michelson)

Directed by Daniella Caggiano, Hungry Women promises an exciting and unique feast but ends up serving unsatisfying grub. Jokes fall flat, and portraits of famous women(?) on either side of the stage are impossible to identify.

The always excellent, Tony-nominated Lester (Into the Woods, All Nighter) might have her name above the title, but Zmorrod (The Kite Runner, Odyssey) steals the show as Vic (1890), Valerie (1991), and Violet (2091), the three meatiest roles. Dean (The Trouble with Dead Boyfriends) and Mariyea (Miss Bushwig 2025, On Sugarland) offer strong support even as things descend into the maelstrom.

In one interstitial scene, Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” blasts through the space, reminding me in the end that what was missing was more of a sense of rebellion or revolution. Perhaps that was the point, that women have been too tamed and domesticated by men, unable to grab sex, power, individuality, and independence, but, if so, it makes for a much less tasty and insightful meal.

Maybe I just thought that a world without men would be a lot more fun, at least for a little while.

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

MELODRAMATIC MOLLUSKS: WET, SALTY CAMP AT THE TANK

Not Keith (Queen-Tiye Akamefula) and Not Charlotte (Annie Hoeg) hide in noirish shadows in What a World! What a World! (photo by Maria Baranova)

WHAT A WORLD! WHAT A WORLD!
The Tank
312 West Thirty-Sixth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through August 2, $28-$53
thetanknyc.org

“Oh, what a world! What a world!” the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) cries out after Dorothy (Judy Garland) accidentally throws water on her while trying to put out the burning scarecrow (Ray Bolger), whom the witch had just set on fire.

Inspired by the 2019 Met Gala, the theme of which was “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” The Wizard of Oz, which has its fair share of camp, and Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on Camp,” playwright Eric Marlin wrote What a World! What a World!, making its world premiere at the Tank through August 2.

“As a taste in persons, Camp responds particularly to the markedly attenuated and to the strongly exaggerated. The androgyne is certainly one of the great images of Camp sensibility,” Sontag writes in the highly influential piece. “What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine. . . . Allied to the Camp taste for the androgynous is something that seems quite different but isn’t: a relish for the exaggeration of sexual characteristics and personality mannerisms.”

What a World! What a World! is a deconstruction of 1940s melodrama — specifically, the fictional 1943 film The Pearl of My Oyster and its two leads, Keith and Charlotte — exploring issues of camp, parody, eroticism, romance, drag, and, mostly, gender and how things have changed, or haven’t, over the last eighty-plus years.

The majority of the sixty-five-minute play takes place on a gray, dank, empty stage where Not Keith (Queen-Tiye Akamefula) and Not Charlotte (Annie Hoeg) re-create scenes from the film using minimal set decoration, primarily microphones and film lights. Their costumes, by Megan Rutherford Murray, start out simple but morph into something more, well, campy, while Skye Mahaffie’s lighting incorporates elements of 1940s cinema, both romance and noir. The actors switch between four pairs of characters: Keith and Charlotte from The Pearl of My Oyster, a drag king and drag queen portraying Keith and Charlotte, a queer couple sitting on the floor commenting on the movie, and a queer couple watching a recording of the drag performance. It’s not always clear who they are at any given moment, resulting in some bumpy transitions.

“Don’t worry about keeping it all straight,” Marlin notes in the script. “Nothing about this should be straight.”

What a World! What a World! explores camp, parody, gender, and more at the Tank (photo by Maria Baranova)

Not Keith and Not Charlotte occasionally break out into experimental movement, discuss love and legacy, and talk about Hollywood stereotyping. “I want to be hideous. I want you to love me hideous. I don’t want you to love me beautiful. Loving me beautiful is easy,” Not Charlotte says. Not Keith channels Humphrey Bogart when he declares, “Now you listen here and you listen good. There are two kinds of dames in this godforsaken world. The kind who plays tricks and the kind who shoots straight. So tell me, which kinda dame are you gonna be?”

They argue over the quality of The Pearl of My Oyster itself, with Not Charlotte calling it “a dumb old movie” and Not Keith arguing that it’s “a fucking epistemology of fabulousness.”

Salt, a mineral used in many religious rituals, and water, which is to sustain life, figure prominently throughout the heart-tugging Oyster narrative, from salty Altoids and Keith’s being a fisherman (but not quite an old salt) to breathing in salty air and drinking salty water, evoking potential doom, though not necessarily like the Wicked Witch of the West faced as she screamed, “I’m melting! Melting!” right before “Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would’ve thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness.” (As a bonus side fact, several of the later books in the Oz series, written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, feature a pirate named Captain Salt.)

In addition, when Not Keith and Not Charlotte are fighting over what camp is, the latter explains, “Without camp the world is so serious, it is wickedly serious. . . . Only with true inanity is there a flicker of joy in the world. I need the flicker.”

What a World! What a World! evokes the work of Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland (A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First, And Then the Rodeo Burned Down) and Emma Horwitz and Bailey Williams (Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods), although it lacks some of the innate cleverness and sociopolitical depth, as well as camp. Not every melodrama can be Casablanca, Imitation of Life, or Magnificent Obsession.

Akamefula (Black Girl Magic Show) and Hoeg (Slow Field) have a playful chemistry, but even at sixty-five minutes, there are slow gaps, and the dialogue occasionally feels like it has been taken straight from a master’s thesis. Marlin (there will come a time for vengeance, bad things happen here), whose Brooklyn theater company is known as the Healthy Oyster Collective, and director Ilana Khanin (Shot List, I Was Unbecoming Then) do save some playful surprises for the latter part of the show, including one utterly delightful and hilarious scene involving a toy that is layered with meaning (but also just plain funny).

In “Notes on Camp,” Sontag writes, “True, the Camp eye has the power to transform experience. But not everything can be seen as Camp. It’s not all in the eye of the beholder.”

What a World! What a World! might not be the pearl in an oyster, but it’s worth its salt, more than just a mere flicker of joy.

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