this week in theater

TWI-NY TALK: MARTÍN BONDONE / ODD MAN OUT

Martín Bondone and Teatro Ciego are bringing unique presentation to New York City (photo courtesy Odd Man Out)

ODD MAN OUT
Flea Theater
20 Thomas St. between Broadway & Church St.
Original run: Tuesday – Sunday, November 3 – December 4, general admission $50 ($35 November 3-8); VIP $90
Encore engagement: Tuesday – Sunday, January 18 – February 19, general admission $50 ($35 seniors and students); VIP $90
oddmanoutnyc.com
theflea.org

One of the most unusual theatrical experiences I had during the pandemic lockdown was Odd Man Out, which arrived at my apartment in a box. An international collaboration between TheaterC in New York and Teatro Ciego in Argentina, the package contained items that interacted with all five senses, including an eye mask that was to be worn while while listening to an audio stream through your own headphones.

The sixty-five-minute show, written by Martín Bondone, directed by Bondone, Carlos Armesto, and Facundo Bogarín, and featuring original music by Mirko Mescia and sound design by Nicolas Alvarez, was originally performed with an in-person cast and audience at Teatro Ciego in Buenos Aires, a company that specializes in productions in complete darkness. Nearly half the troupe is either blind or has low vision. Recorded using 360-degree binaural technology that makes it feel as if the characters are moving around in space, the play follows successful blind Argentine musician Alberto Rinaldi (Gonzalo Trigueros) as he flies on Pitchblack Airlines from New York City back to Buenos Aires. During the trip, his mind is flooded with memories of seminal moments from his life, involving his mother (Alejandra Buljevich) and father (Ignacio Borderes), his teacher (Buljevich), his music partner Jamal Jordan (Modesto Lacen), and his true love, Clara (Carmen Boria).

Delayed by the pandemic, Odd Man Out is making its New York premiere November 3 to December 4 at the Flea, where the blindfolded audience will put on headphones and experience the show together, as if they’re all on the same plane, sitting next to Rinaldi as he shares his tale. Preparing for the official opening on November 9, Bondone discussed theater, the coronavirus crisis, blind artists, and more with twi-ny. [Ed. note: The show is back for an encore engagement January 18 to February 19.]

twi-ny: What prompted the beginning of Teatro Ciego?

martín bondone: In 1991, there was an experimental theater course in my hometown, Cordoba, Argentina. The roots of theater in the dark are in Zen meditation: Darkness is used as a medium to find oneself. After years of development, in 2001, blind artists started getting involved in the company, and in 2008 the first Teatro Ciego space was founded in Buenos Aires. This will be the first space in the world that offers a complete repertoire of shows developed in complete darkness. Teatro Ciego develops experiences in the dark that range from dining experiences to kids shows. We have since then grown the brand to tour in Latin America, Spain, and, most recently, New York.

Odd Man Out offered a theatrical journey in a box to be experienced at home during the pandemic (photo by twi-ny/ees)

twi-ny: Odd Man Out was here just prior to the pandemic, with live actors; how did the idea to package the experience at home in a sensory box come about?

mb: When the quarantine mandates closed everything around the world, we were forced to put a stop to all planned productions in both Argentina and New York and the Latin American tour. We employ over one hundred people, which made the shock huge both financially and emotionally. We produce one hundred percent of our shows, but we also have a marketing division where we create experiences in the dark for companies and institutions.

The first few weeks we spent figuring out how to keep the story going, and the emerging feeling was “If people can’t go to the theater, we will bring the theater to the people.” We created a sensorial box with an eye mask and different elements that would allow the person to smell, taste, touch, and hear the experience from home. The audio was accessed through a QR code and heard from the person’s own headphones.

This alternative was a huge success and allowed us to keep our doors open and our employees working during those tough times.

twi-ny: I loved the at-home presentation. How do you anticipate that my experience in person will be different?

mb: There’s already a shift in energy when you go to a physical space and share an experience with others. That’s what makes the theater such a wonderful place. This experience is called “semi-live” since, despite listening to the experience with an individual device, we have staff members operating the rest of the devices that will allow you to feel the many sensorial moments throughout the story: wind, rain, various smells, etc. It’s a completely different experience when you can just surrender to things happening and enjoy the ride.

Audiences gather together to experience Odd Man Out in person (photo courtesy Odd Man Out)

twi-ny: Are there plans to eventually stage the show with live actors again?

mb: Yes, it’s our goal to be able to build an organization that trains and employs people to develop Teatro Ciego’s technique in New York. Once the situation changes and we can safely achieve our goal, we look forward to sharing this dream of ours with the New York theater scene.

twi-ny: Did you find yourself more or less productive during the pandemic?

mb: From a distance now, yes, maybe a bit less productive. It was hard to regroup and rebuild our team. This crisis forced us to think outside our comfort zone and face a tough situation. Luckily we came out stronger than before, and now we are able to offer the variety of shows we were offering before the pandemic. What sets us apart is that we never stopped working, training, and growing, and now we have new options to offer that we wouldn’t have if not faced by adversity.

twi-ny: Another touring show, Simon Stephens’s Blindness, involves headphones, binaural recording, and not-quite-total darkness, with no actors present. Do you see such shows as being a temporary by-product of the pandemic, or do you think it has a future of its own, especially since it can be available to people all over the world?

mb: No one really knows what the future holds, especially now. However, we have a history of successfully building this type of sensorial shows for over fifteen years in Argentina and the rest of the world. In fact, we developed a binaural sound show for a Disney event over ten years ago.

We are proud to say we are pioneers at utilizing this technology for theatrical experiences. We humans crave new experiences constantly; we need to be challenged and entertained from new perspectives. We hope to keep feeding this need for new experiences and challenging our senses for many years to come.

twi-ny: Since Teatro Ciego started, great strides have been made regarding the acceptance of creators and performers with different abilities in hearing, seeing, and body, although we still have a long way to go. Has that been a noticeable change with Teatro Ciego, either with the cast or the audience? What barriers need to be taken down next?

mb: One of the best things about working in darkness is that everyone involved in the experience, actors, technicians, audiences, are equals. By removing the visual stimuli, all the preconceived biases of color, gender, size, physical ability are removed.

We are in a moment in history where all social movements are facing that inclusive direction and we need to keep working together to finally have equal treatment for everyone regardless of their skin tone, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion, or physical condition.

Odd Man Out re-creates a flight taking a blind musician back home to Buenos Aires (photo courtesy Odd Man Out)

twi-ny: In school you studied social economics; has that had an impact on your approach to writing?

mb: Not so much for writing but definitely for producing. Argentina has a lot of incredibly beautiful, artistic ideas that usually die for the lack of a business mind. By developing Teatro Ciego as a social construct but also economically sustainable, we won the freedom to let our imagination soar. Writing comes more from my personal experiences and my life. From my own universe.

twi-ny: Care to share what you’re working on next?

mb: Right now we are focused on the opening of Odd Man Out at the Flea.

We are also working on developing the American version of our current kids experience, Mi Amiga la Oscuridad (“My Friend the Darkness”). We are also developing partnerships with various New York City restaurants for our dining experience “A Ciegas Gourmet” (“Blind Gourmet”). In the far distance, we dream of a live musical in complete darkness.

twi-ny: That sounds exciting. During the pandemic, New York City became a ghost town; what was Buenos Aires like during Covid?

mb: The pandemic was a big reminder that we are really all connected. Just like New York, Buenos Aires was a desert. Economically, we took a huge hit to an already damaged structure, and the cultural and touristic areas were gravely impacted. We feel super privileged to be able to return to what we love doing and having such a great response from our audience.

twi-ny: Finally, if you’re coming to New York City for the show, what else do you plan to do while you’re here, now that just about everything has reopened?

mb: We plan to travel to New York City again next year when we hope to be able to develop the full show, to hire and train a full company that can work in complete darkness. For this opportunity, we were lucky to have our lead producer and resident director, fellow Argentinian Lola Lopez Guardone, fly to Buenos Aires to train with us and bring the specifics to New York. Lola is a New York City resident and has ample experience in immersive theater. Between her, our partner Carlos Armesto, and the whole PITCHBLACK team in New York, we know our show is in good hands. However, we look forward to visiting the city again in 2022 and hopefully experience Sleep No More, which we couldn’t get to on our last trip.

GOTHAM STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

FRIGID NEW YORK: GOTHAM STORYTELLING FESTIVAL
The Kraine Theater
85 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
November 2-14, $15-$20
www.frigid.nyc

Native New Yorker Michele Carlo titles her new solo show What a Difference a Year Makes, and what a year it has been. What a Difference a Year Makes will be performed live November 3 and 13 at the tenth annual Gotham Storytelling Festival, which takes place November 2-14 at the Kraine Theater in the East Village as well as online. Tickets for each of the eleven programs are sliding scales beginning at $20 in person (full price gets you a drink ticket) and $15 at home. The festival kicks off with a double bill of Jackson Sturkey’s work-in-progress, The Devil, about his private Christian high school and Lucifer, and Gastor Almonte’s The Sugar, in which the stand-up comedian discovers he has diabetes. On November 3 and 8, comedian Alexander Payne (not the film director) presents his autobiographical monologue Home Stories, about growing up in South Central. On November 4, Una Aya Osato and some of her friends share personal tales of contracting the coronavirus in Still Sick: Stories of Long Covid, while on November 4 and 10, Reilly Arena retells George Orwell’s Animal Farm using a pair of sticks.

On November 5, David Lawson hosts ACES: Storytelling Sets from Some of NYC’s Best, consisting of ten-minute monologues by David Perez, Annie Tan, Aditya Surendran, Courtney Antonioli, and others. On November 6, 7, 10, and 28, Kylie Vincent delves into childhood sexual abuse in Bird, while several participants contribute to Awkward Teenage Years on November 6. Keith Alessi’s Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me but Banjos Saved My Life, which was named Most Inspirational Show at the 2019 Frigid Fringe Festival, is back at the Kraine on November 7. Four-time Moth StorySLAM winner Jamie Brickhouse channels Joan Crawford, Joan Collins, Monica Lewinsky, Peggy Lee, Helen Gurley Brown, Elizabeth Warren, and others on November 7 and 12 in Stories in Heels: Tall Tales of the Glamorous Women Who Changed My Life. And on November 11 and 13, Mayflower descendant Trav SD celebrates the four hundredth anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in The Pilgrim’s Progress. In her piece, author, podcaster, and story coach Carlo searches for the silver lining in life during the pandemic, which is just what the Gotham Storytelling Festival is offering all of us for two weeks.

TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992

Karl Kenzler, Elena Hurst, Wesley T. Jones, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, and Francis Jue star in reimagining of Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight (photo by Joan Marcus)

TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday-Sunday through November 21, $35-$70
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Anna Deavere Smith has brilliantly reimagined her 1993 one-woman show, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, for this moment in time, for a cast of five portraying more than two dozen characters, all involved in some way in the LA riots that followed the Rodney King verdict nearly thirty years ago. Originally scheduled to premiere in the spring of 2020 as part of Smith’s residency at the Signature Theatre, which began in October 2019 with a superb remount of her 1992 solo show, Fires in the Mirror, about the Crown Heights riots, Twilight has been updated and expanded to include references to the murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.

In the nearly three decades since Deveare Smith created the work, a number of different productions have tackled it. In 2001, the play was turned into a film with Deavere Smith as part of PBS’s Great Performances series. During the pandemic, a virtual edition of the play was performed by twenty-one students at the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts, and a one-woman version starring Jazzma Pryor ran at Evanston’s Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre in September. The Signature released a short Zoom preview in July with a slightly different cast that failed to capture the scope and majesty of the final product, which opened at last on the Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center on November 1.

The play is exceptionally performed by Elena Hurst, Francis Jue, Wesley T. Jones, Karl Kenzler, and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, using verbatim dialogue accumulated by Smith from 320 interviews with subjects ranging from King’s aunt Angela, former LA police commissioner Stanley K. Sheinbaum, store owner and gunshot victim Walter Park, gang truce organizer Twilight Bey, and author and professor Elaine Kim to attorney Charles Lloyd, community activist Gina Rae aka Queen Malkah, semitruck driver and beating victim Reginald Denny, liquor store owner Jay Woong Yahng, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Taibi Magar directs with a captivating ferocity.

Elvira Evers (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) is one of dozens of characters who share their thoughts about the Rodney King riots in Smith play (photo by Joan Marcus)

LAPD officer Ted Briseno, one of four cops accused of beating Rodney King, laments that his children might not look up to him as a hero anymore. An anonymous juror in the King trial says that members of the jury have received letters from the KKK asking them to join after they acquitted the officers. Real estate agent Elaine Young talks about how she was safe and sound in Beverly Hills and explains how she “was such a victim” because of all her cosmetic facial surgeries.

Sgt. Charles Duke of the LAPD’s special weapons and tactics unit, testifying for the defense, supports the use of control holds, or chokeholds, despite evidence that it kills suspects, primarily Black men. Discussing his own run-in with bigoted policemen, sculptor and painter Rudy Salas Sr. says, “I grew up with the idea that whites, are . . . Physically . . . I still got that, see that’s a prejudice that whites are physically . . . inferior, physically afraid of minorities. People of color, Blacks, and Mexicans. It’s a physical thing,
It’s a mental, mental thing that they’re physically afraid. But you see I still have that prejudice against whites. (But.) I’m not a racist!”

Reginald Denny co-assailant Keith Watson declares, “You got to realize the not guilty verdicts was heavy on everybody’s mind. I followed the trial cause I wanted to see if justice works and on that particular day justice didn’t work.” Free the LA Four Plus defense committee chairperson Paul Parker exclaims, “Basically, it’s that you as Black people ain’t takin’ this shit no more. Even back in slavery. ’Cause I saw Roots when I was young. My dad made sure. He sat us down in front of that TV when Roots came on, so it’s embedded in me since then. And just to see that, eh, eh! This is for Kunta! This is for Kizzy! This is for Chicken George! Now we got some weapons, we got our pride, we holdin’ our heads up and our chest out. We like, yeah, brother, we did this!” Former LA Times journalist Hector Tobar returns for a 2021 interview that places the events of 1992 in a contemporary context.

The actors perform on a central platform, occasionally using a chair or table. They change clothing quickly, either in the wings or right onstage. At one point, dozens of costumes are dumped on the floor, evoking the disarray during the riots. Often, as one monologue is finishing, the actor for the next segment walks up to the platform in silhouette. (The effective set is by Riccardo Hernández, with costumes by Linda Cho, lighting by Alan C. Edwards, sound by Darron L West, and projections by David Bengali.)

Each character is identified by accompanying text, along with the title of that segment; for example, “The words of Elaine Brown, former chairwoman of the Black Panther Party, ‘Bad’” and “The words of Daryl Gates, former chief of Los Angeles Police Department, ‘It’s awful hard to break away.’” Archival video footage of the riots, including the beatings of King and Denny, are shown on a pair of video monitors at the right and left as well as the back screen, immersing the audience in the horrific events of 1992–93, which look all too familiar in 2021.

Francis Jue is one of five actors portraying multiple characters in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 at the Signature (photo by Joan Marcus)

I was deeply moved by Deavere Smith’s solo Broadway version, which ran at the Cort Theatre in 1994, but this new Signature iteration blew me away. Running more than two hours with an intermission, Twilight flies by at a relentless, furious pace, a nonstop parade of individuals directly and indirectly discussing systemic racism, police brutality, anti-Asian hate, classism, journalistic biases, government indifference, and looting. “Oh yes, I am angry! It is all right to be angry!” Congresswoman Maxine Waters proclaims. “The fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, riot is the voice of the unheard,” echoing what Waters and others have said about the rash of Black men killed by white police officers this century.

In a program note, Deavere Smith explains that the play is very much about gathering, about diverse people coming to the table despite their differences, ready to talk — and to listen. In the play’s most theatrical and involving scene, “A Dinner Party That Never Happened,” Brown, Parker, Rev. Tom Choi of the Westwood Presbyterian Church, Asian American man Jin Ho Lee, Chez Panisse chef Alice Waters, and former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley sit down at a table, eating and drinking while appearing to speak to one another. (At the performance I attended, one of the actors accidentally knocked over a glass of wine, and as several other cast members wiped it up, staying in character, it made me think of a ritual spilling of wine, an apt metaphor for what was happening onstage.)

Two-time Tony nominee and Pulitzer finalist Deavere Smith (House Arrest, Let Me Down Easy) and Obie winner Magar (Blue Ridge, Is God Is) have woven together a pseudo-conversation from the individual transcripts, in which the participants discuss responsibility, roots, justice, Saddam Hussein, commitment, and community. “I’m saying that these are the long haul,” Brown explains. “We just be thrown back and we will be twenty more years trying to figure out what happened to Martin, Malcolm, and the Black Panther Party.” It’s now nearly thirty years later and, sadly, as Twilight reveals, we are still trying to figure that out.

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.

THIS IS ME EATING___

Et Alia Theater’s This Is Me Eating___ has been turned into an immersive, in-person experience (photo courtesy Et Alia Theater)

THIS IS ME EATING___
The Alchemical Studios
104 West 14th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Saturday, October 30, free with advance RSVP, 4:00 – 9:00
www.etaliatheater.com

“I like my body,” Maria Müller says at the beginning of her video This Is Me Eating Those Stupid Comments. “Or at least I’ve grown to like it.” The short is one of five made by members of the two-year-old New York City–based Et Alia Theater as part of This Is Me Eating___, in which women share their personal thoughts about food and body image.

In This Is Me Eating My Taste Buddies, Ana Moioli explains, “Life can get pretty shitty. You can’t trust anyone. People betray you. But you can trust food. Even in the darkest times, food will always be there for you. Now, what if, suddenly, you weren’t there for food anymore?” The online project, which was an official selection of the NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival, also features Giorgia Valenti’s This Is Me Eating My Eating Disorder, Luísa Galatti’s This Is Me Eating My Weight, and Deniz Bulat’s This Is Me Eating Alone Thinking About Eating Together in addition to public submissions from around the world, which you can watch here.

Et Alia, which “strives to foster an accepting community that provides a safe space where people can take risks, push themselves outside of their comfort zones, and collide with an array of international voices which may be culturally unfamiliar,” is now presenting a live version of This Is Me Eating___, taking place October 30 at the Alchemical Studios on West Fourteenth St. There will be four forty-five-minute cycles, starting at 4:00, followed by an open discussion at 8:00. The immersive sessions, directed by Debora Balardini, designed by Dave Morrissey, and conceived by Valenti after Moioli received a City Artist Corps Grant, combine projection, sound, and movement that expand off the videos but are wholly new. Admission is limited to twenty to twenty-five audience members per cycle as people are encouraged to consider how they would fill in the blank in the title; among the virtual submissions were Thais Fernandes’s This Is Me Eating My Anxiety, Ana Carolina’s This Is Me Eating the Time We (Don’t) Have, Bianca Waechter’s This Is Me Eating My Anger, Kendall DuPre’s This Is Me Eating My Words, and Bruna da Matta’s This Is Me Eating and Being Eaten.

“Come ready to be part of these women’s inner and outer explorations of their eating habits, traditions, and mental reflections,” co-artistic director Valenti said in a statement. “Come ready to feel part of a creative process and absorb this global process. You might just discover you are not so alone.”

Et Alia has previously staged Hasnain Shaikh’s Running in Place at Dixon Place, Müller’s On How to Be a Monster at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò and the Tank, and None of the Above at Rattlestick’s Global Forms Theater Festival. “Do you eat for pleasure or survival?” Galatti asks in This Is Me Eating My Weight. The same can be asked about live theater, especially as we come out of a pandemic lockdown.

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.”

THREE SHORT PLAYS BY TRACY LETTS

NIGHT SAFARI / THE OLD COUNTRY / THE STRETCH
Steppenwolf NOW
Through October 24, $20
www.steppenwolf.org

During the pandemic lockdown, Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company has presented a series of outstanding online presentations, including the Christmas audio play Wally World, the illustrated fairy tale Red Folder, the sizzling two-character drama What Is Left, Burns, and the royal chatfest Duchess! Duchess! Duchess! In preparation for its return to live, in-person theater next month with a revival of longtime company member Tracy Letts’s 2006 play, Bug, in which two people meet in an Oklahoma motel room, Steppenwolf NOW is giving us a tasty apéritif with a trio of three virtual works by Letts, available on demand through October 24. Here in New York City, the three online plays whet our appetite for the Broadway debut of Letts’s The Minutes, which begins previews at Studio 54 in March.

Rainn Wilson plays an unhappy tour guide in online Night Safari (photo by Robert Benavides)

Night Safari stars Rainn Wilson as Gary, a guide leading an evening tour at a zoo. Introducing the first animal, he notes, “In captivity, the Panamanian night monkey is monogamous and lives about twenty years. In the wild, they are not monogamous, and their life span is cut roughly in half. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but you’re going to have to figure it out for yourself. The Night Safari frowns on editorializing.” But that’s exactly what he does as he takes the visitors to see the aardwolf, the boreal owl, the slow loris, and the paradoxical frog, discussing aspects of their lives that relate to his own failed existence as he slowly grows more ornery, harried, and withdrawn. “What’s so great about sociable animals, anyway?” he asks.

Wilson is a hoot (cue the boreal owl), delivering the monologue, which was first performed by John Gawlik in 2018, in black-and-white, standing in front of a bare wall where his shadow lurks; he is part stand-up comic, part criminal posing for his mug shot. Director Patrick Zakem and DP Robert Benavides photograph him from multiple angles, zooming in on his face or scanning the side of his body, intercutting color photos of the animals along with home movie footage. The thirteen-minute film is a reminder that humans are part of the animal kingdom, subject to the same trials and tribulations as other living creatures, except we tend to be more aware of our triumphs — and failures.

Tracy Letts’s The Old Country is reimagined as a virtual puppet show (photo by Christopher Rejano)

The Old Country, from 2019, begins with atmospheric establishing shots that situate us inside a diner made of papier-mâché and clay, from a spinning dessert tray to ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles to a pile of dirty dishes. Two old men sit at a table, clearly puppets controlled by visible black cords. “That was a damn good sandwich,” Ted (William Petersen) tells a soup-slurping Landy (ninety-seven-year-old Mike Nussbaum), who shortly replies, “I’ll feel safer when we’ve left this deadly place.”

Over the course of ten minutes, they share memories and complain about how things are today. “This isn’t grumpy old man talk,” Ted says. “There’s a principle, right? A scientific principle that explains why everything turns to shit.” Of course, it is grumpy old man talk, but he’s not necessarily wrong, either. Zakem makes you forget you’re watching puppets as they discuss food, sex, the waitress (Karen Rodriguez), and mold spores, their lives now dominated by their aging, death taunting them with every cup of coffee.

Tracy Letts keeps a lookout for life’s twists and turns in The Stretch (photo by Anna D. Shapiro)

Pulitzer and Tony winner Letts takes the acting reins in The Stretch, a fifteen-minute monologue from 2016, directed by Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro and set at the 108th running of the $1 million El Dorado Stakes; Shapiro has helmed several of Letts’s plays, including August: Osage County, Mary Page Marlowe, and Man from Nebraska. The hotly contested race becomes a metaphor for life as Letts, playing the announcer, calls the event, featuring such horses as My Enormous Ego, Bold Defender, a Horse Called Man, Wudjacudja, Hold My Beer, Fata Morgana, and Canadian Navy, leading to such exclamations as “A Horse Called Man appears angry and confused, then retreats in impotent rage,” “Whistlin’ Pete seems completely focused on Sweet Sweet Sue,” and “Here comes My Enormous Ego!”

Something wholly unexpected happens at the finish line, and soon the announcer is delving into humanity’s failings, sharing doom and gloom about the future of all living creatures, prognosticating on interdependence and impermanence while a lullaby plays on the soundtrack. Letts, who has appeared in such television series as Homeland and The Sinner, such Broadway plays as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and All My Sons, and such Oscar-nominated films as Lady Bird and Ford v. Ferrari, goes from hyped up and excited to measured and foreboding as he essentially turns his binoculars on himself and the human race.

“These plays share at least one thread: a world off-kilter,” he explains in a program note. “But since I wrote these pieces, the actual world has undergone some hair-raising transformations, which have cast mysterious new light on these plays. They feel very much like stories for 2021.” The Stretch feels particularly relevant now, a gripping accounting of what our lives have been like since March 2020, with no finish line in sight.