Who: Gabriel Byrne, Sarah McNally What: Livestreamed discussion Where:McNally Jackson Books Zoom When: Thursday, February 25, $5, 7:00 Why: “How many times have I returned in my dreams to this hill. It is always summer as I look out over the gold and green fields, ditches foaming with hawthorn and lilac, river glinting under the sun like a blade. When I was young, I found sanctuary here and the memory of it deep in my soul ever after has brought me comfort. Once I believed it would never change, but that was before I came to know that all things must. It’s a car park now, a sightseers panorama.” So begins award-winning actor Gabriel Byrne’s widely hailed, poetic, soul-searching memoir, Walking with Ghosts (Grove Press, January 2021, $26).
The seventy-year-old Dublin native has appeared in such films as The Usual Suspects and Miller’s Crossing, such television series as In Treatment and Vikings, and such Broadway productions as A Moon for the Misbegotten and Long Day’s Journey into Night. On the book, he recounts his childhood in a working-class family, his discovery of the theater, and his battle with addiction with grace, humor, and bracing honesty. On February 25 at 7:00, he will speak with McNally Jackson Books founder Sarah McNally about the memoir and his career, live over Zoom. Admission is $5, but you can get those five bucks back if you buy a copy of the book when registering for the event and using discount code BYRNE5OFF.
Round House Theatre in Maryland and McCarter Theatre Center at Princeton have teamed up to deliver an extraordinary gift during the pandemic lockdown. Continuing through April 30, “The Work of Adrienne Kennedy: Inspiration & Influence” is a fabulous crash course in all things Adrienne Kennedy, consisting of staged readings of four of the eighty-nine-year-old Pittsburgh native’s avant-garde plays, filmed onstage at the Round House without an audience, along with four panel discussions. I am embarrassed to admit that I knew relatively little about Kennedy and had seen only two of her works, the Signature’s 2016 revival of her 1964 debut, Funnyhouse of a Negro, and TFANA’s 2018 world premiere of He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box. That last work is the shining star of the virtual program, which celebrates Kennedy’s uncompromising fierceness, her unique use of narrative, and her brilliant understanding of such issues as race, slavery, whiteness, and power in America.
Directed by Nicole A. Watson, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box is one of the best plays of the coronavirus crisis. Inspired by events in her own life and featuring snippets from Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet and Christopher Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris, the half-hour show, introduced by Jeremy O. Harris and with stage directions read by Agyeiwaa Asante, takes place during WWII, in the fictional town of Montefiore, Georgia. The white Christopher (Michael Sweeney Hammond), heir to a successful local business, is declaring his love for Kay (Juliana Canfield), the daughter of a white writer and a Black woman who died mysteriously shortly after Kay was born. Christopher doesn’t seem to fully comprehend the dilemma of their potential relationship, especially as Kay learns more about what happened to her mother.
At TFANA, you could check out a miniature model of the town; here Watson incorporates models presented to us in a person’s hands, a miniature house, graveyard, and train car and station onto and through which she projects images of racism in the Jim Crow south, ingenious stagecraft that could only be this effective onscreen, shot in close-up by cinematographer Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, with visual effects by Kelly Coburn and editing by Joshua Land of Mind in Motion. Canfield and Hammond, who also portrays the father, deliver most of their lines while at music stands, socially distanced but intrinsically tied together. Simply dazzling.
Kim James Bey and Deimoni Brewington play mother and son in Adrienne Kennedy’s Sleep Deprivation Chamber (photo courtesy Round House Theatre)
Original director Michael Kahn introduces Kennedy’s very personal 1996 play, the Obie-winning Sleep Deprivation Chamber, which she wrote with her son, Adam P. Kennedy, about something that actually happened to him. Driving home one day, just down the street from his father’s house, a Black man is pulled over by a white police officer and is brutally beaten. It’s winter, and the Antioch College Theatre Department is rehearsing Hamlet. “Ophelia, betrayal, disillusionment,” five students announce twice, establishing the tone of the play. Kim James Bey stars as Adrienne Kennedy alter ego Suzanne Alexander, mother of Teddy (Deimoni Brewington), who was visiting his dad, David Alexander (Craig Wallace), in Arlington, Virginia, where the incident occurred.
Director Raymond O. Caldwell cuts between Suzanne reading letters she has sent in defense of her son; Teddy on the stand, describing what happened in detail; his older brother, March (Marty Lamar), speaking on a terrace; Teddy’s lawyer, Mr. Edelstein (David Schlumpf), trying to convince the prosecutor, Ms. Wagner (Jjana Valentiner), that they can come to an agreement without going to trial; David Alexander testifying about what he saw; flashbacks from Suzanne’s life, with other actors playing a younger version of her and other characters (Imani Branch, Sophia Early, Janelle Odom, Moses Princien, and Kayla Alexis Warren); and Officer Holzer (Rex Daugherty) giving his side of the story of the encounter. The constant shifting in time and space, along with dream scenes and surreal touches, furthers the confusion surrounding the event, one that is all too representative of what the Black Lives Matter movement is battling against. It’s a powerful if familiar story, handled with grace and anger.
“I was asked to talk about the violent imagery in my work, bloodied heads, severed limbs, dead father, dead Nazis, dying Jesus,” Suzanne (Lynda Gravatt) says at the beginning of Ohio State Murders, repeating words she stated in Sleep Deprivation Chamber. Introduced by Awoye Timpo and Arminda Thomas of Classics, Ohio State Murders, published in 1992, offers a different perspective on Suzanne, who is played in flashbacks by Billie Krishawn set between 1949 and 1952. The modern-day Suzanne is in the library at Ohio State, delivering a speech about what occurred when she was a student there, involving her English teacher, Robert Hampshire (Daugherty).
It’s a sordid tale of racism, sex, and murder that brings to life earlier episodes from her time at college, filmed in black-and-white, as the younger Suzanne faces her complicated situation with her aunt Louise (Andrea Harris Smith), her ex-boyfriend Val (Yao Dogbe), her new friend David Alexander (Dogbe), and her roommate, violinist Iris Ann (Heather Gibson). Along the way she learns about Sergei Eisenstein, Thomas Hardy, and the importance of symbols. Directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, the hourlong work is poignant and sharp, the flashback scenes like a kind of noir mystery. Unfortunately, Gravatt, who tells the story from start to finish, never quite finds the right rhythm in her narration, emphasizing the wrong words and reading too obviously, which is a shame, because the language is powerful and poetic. But Krishawn is mesmerizing as Kennedy’s young alter ego.
Caroline Clay gives a dazzling solo performance in Adrienne Kennedy’s Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side (photo courtesy Round House Theatre)
Caroline Clay is exquisite as the narrator in the world premiere of Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side, hitting all the right notes. The play, directed by Timothy Douglas, is like an interwoven short story, set in Manhattan, as two sisters, Ella and Etta Harrison, fight over men, writing, and hairdos. Sitting at a table in front of the brick wall at the back of the stage, Clay discusses musician and writer Troupe, the Vanishing Literary Club, and murder — yes, another reference to Ohio State Murders and Sleep Deprivation Chamber — in a captivating matter-of-fact way while her eyes search the space and notes appear on the screen. (For example, “sometimes he walks to the roof of the brownstone and looks to the Harlem” and “suddenly Etta stood up.”)
About ten minutes in, the narrator gets to the heart of the dilemma. “‘Ella, I’ve asked my editor, can I stop you from writing articles about me?’ He told me to leave you alone. I told him you’re making me sick. ‘I think if you leave her alone, she’ll stop. I don’t want to upset you, Etta, but I saw parts of manuscript she submitted to Grove on you. Do you want to see it? I took a look to see if she’s violating your legal rights. I feel this is leading to something terrible between you.’” Who has the right to tell whose story has become a major issue over the last few years.
Kennedy’s words sing as the narrator describes characters’ clothing, their quirks, and their desires as they meander through New York City, from the Upper West Side and the Hudson River to the Strand and the East Village, and lament what happened to old, treasured movie theaters like the Thalia and the New Yorker. Kennedy draws a pretty picture of the metropolis as she focuses in on the relationship between two sisters who are practically clones of each other.
Kennedy — the first syllable of her first name is pronounced “ah,” not “ay” — deserves to be more famous than she is, her acclaim currently relegated to the inner circle of theater people, but this program should go a long way to spreading the word about just how important she is to the canon. “The Work of Adrienne Kennedy: Inspiration & Influence” is a fitting tribute to one of America’s most talented playwrights, a fearless woman who has taken on the status quo for five decades, tackling difficult subjects with elegance and beauty, revealing the dark underbelly of a nation unable, and unwilling, to reckon with its past. After experiencing these four tales, you’ll never miss another Adrienne Kennedy play when it comes to your town.
You can take a deeper dive by watching the four talks, which are available for free: “Influence & Imagination,” with Eisa Davis, Zakiyyah Alexander, and Haruna Lee; “Acting Adrienne Kennedy,” with Watson, Clay, Crystal Dickinson, and Mikéah Ernest Jennings; “Critical Reflections,” with Jill Dolan, Rohan Preston, and Regina Victor; and “The Black Avant Garde,” with Caldwell, Daniel Alexander Jones, and Holly Bass.
San Francisco Playhouse
Mondays at 10:00 through March 1, free with RSVP (available on demand for an extended period of time) www.sfplayhouse.org
San Francisco Playhouse has been busy during the pandemic lockdown with its Zoomlet series, new and classic short works premiering at 10:00 EST on Monday nights, bookended by an introduction and an in-depth discussion often featuring the playwright in addition to the actors, director, and SFP cofounder and artistic director Bill English. Up next is Perfect Numbers by Diana Burbano, about a homeless woman and a philosophical octopus, with Stacy Ross and Michelle Talgarow, directed by Katja Rivera, streaming live February 22, followed March 1 by the final winter presentation, River’s Message by Conrad A. Panganiban, directed by Jeffrey Lo.
After the initial livestream, most of the works can still be seen on demand on the company’s website. A handful of the early entries are no longer available, and you’re likely to kick yourself for missing them: The Logic by Will Arbery with Jesse Vaughn and E. J. Gibson, directed by Michael Torres; Night Vision by Dominique Morriseau with Joseph Pendleton and Tristan Cunningham, directed by Margo Hall; Great to See You by Theresa Rebeck, with Susi Damilano, John Walker, and Pamela Walker; and The Forgotten Place by Jeff Locker, with James Seol and Jomar Tagatac, directed by Lo.
However, you can still catch eighteen works, including Walls Come Tumbling Down by Genevieve Jessee, with Leigh Rondon-Davis, Kenny Scott, and Dwayne Clay, directed by Darryl V. Jones; Two Pigeons Talk Politics by Lauren Gunderson, with Nic A. Sommerfeld and El Beh, directed by Tracy Ward; an excerpt from The Bacchae by Euripides, with Anthony Fusco and John Douglas Thompson, directed by Carey Perloff; Flight by DeLanna Studi, with Eileen DeSandre, Brent Florendo, and Tanis Parenteau, directed by Marie-Claire Erdynast; Cashed Out by Claude Jackson Jr., with Rainbow Dickerson, Carolyn Dunn, and Lulu Goodfox, directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, which has been commissioned for a full-length production; and an excerpt from Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, with Steven Anthony Jones and Thompson, directed by Perloff, in addition to works by Ian August, Lee Cataluna, Candrice Jones, Dipika Guha, Lynne Kaufman, Geetha Reddy, and Aaron Loeb. Most of the programs run more than an hour, but the plays themselves are between ten and forty-five minutes. The introductions and postshow talks reveal a fun camaraderie among the participants, who are truly enjoying the experience, even if it is over Zoom, with everyone chiming in from wherever they are sheltering in place.
SFP has also been hosting live Fireside Chats with some of the best playwrights and directors in the business, including Simon Stephens, Pam MacKinnon, Rajiv Joseph, Lauren Yee, Aaron Posner, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Luis Alfaro, and several of the Zoomlet writers, moderated by English, which you can watch here. In addition, SF Playhouse was among the first companies to get permission to stage works in their theater, without an audience and adhering to all Covid-19 protocols. Last season included Yasmina Reza’s Art, Brian Copeland’s solo show The Jewelry Box, and Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World. “Act II: Adjusting Mid-Air” consists of Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [Hieroglyph] March 13 through April 3, Julia Brothers’s one-woman show I Was Right Here March 27 to April 17, and Ruben Grijalva’s Shoot Me When . . . May 1 to 22.
Red Bull will delve into Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem, in latest benefit reading and Bull Session
Who:Red Bull Theater company What: Livestreamed benefit reading of Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem Where:Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live When: Monday, February 22, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 7:30 (available on demand through February 26 at 7:00); Bull Session, February 25, free with RSVP, 7:30 Why: In her plan “Staging the 18th-Century Prostitute for the 21st-Century: A Dramaturgical Approach to Teaching Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem,” professor Melinda C. Finberg wrote of Hannah Cowley’s 1780 work, “While The Belle’s Stratagem is set firmly in the fashionable society of late-eighteenth-century London, and its style is reminiscent of Cowley’s Restoration and Augustan predecessors, Cowley’s comedy demonstrates concerns about the laboring classes and their relationship to the moneyed elite. The title of Cowley’s comedy pays homage to one of her favorite Augustan playwrights, George Farquhar (1677-1707), and his The Beaux’s Stratagem (1707), and like many of these earlier comedies, The Belle’s Stratagem juxtaposes two story lines: Letitia Hardy’s ingenious plot to win the heart of her betrothed, Doricourt, against the marital problems of jealous Sir George Touchwood and his wife, the naïve Lady Frances. Both plots concern men learning to respect the women in their lives both before and after marriage, and are further connected by questions regarding the nature and fluidity of identity. Interwoven with these plots are transitional scenes among servants, tradesmen, and con artists who make their livings off the excesses of fashionable life.”
You can find out how relevant the play still is when Red Bull presents a benefit reading of The Belle’s Stratagem on February 22 at 7:30, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch and starring Cecil Baldwin, Jasmine Batchelor, Mark Bedard, Neal Bledsoe, Lilli Cooper, Peter Jay Fernandez, Santino Fontana, Tony Jenkins, Lauren Karaman, Aaron Krohn, Heather Alicia Simms, and Chauncy Thomas. The reading will be available on demand through February 26 at 7:00. On February 25 at 7:30, a live Bull Session on the play, which was advertised back in the day as “A Variety of Serious and Comic Songs,” will feature Upchurch, scholar Dustin D. Stewart, and members of the cast discussing the work and Cowley, who decided to take up playwrighting after a “dull night at the theater” and was involved in a professional rivalry with Hannah More (Percy, The Search after Happiness).
Purim is one of the most joyous of holidays of the year, when Jews around the world gather together to celebrate the defeat of the evil Haman and the saving of the Jewish people in the Persian city of Shushan in the fifth century BCE. Temples host “spiels,” humorous sketches telling the story of Queen Vashti, King Ahasuerus, Mordecai, Esther, and Haman; congregants arrive in costume and use noisemakers known as groggers every time Haman’s name is mentioned; the traditional fruit-filled three-cornered pastry known as hamantaschen is served; plenty of alcohol is mandated; and the whole Megillah, the Book of Esther, is read. With synagogues shuttered because of the pandemic lockdown, the party has gone virtual, with festivities zooming in from all over for you to enjoy from the confines of your home. All of the below events are free; some require advance registration.
On February 21 at 2:30, the Congress for Jewish Culture is presenting Itzik Manger’s Megillah Cycle, an adaptation of the 1968 Broadway musical The Megilla of Itzik Manger, conceived and directed by Mike Burstyn, who will reprise his original roles of the Interlocuter and the master tailor Fanfosso in addition to playing King Ahasuerus, previously portrayed by his father, Pesach Burstein. The international cast also includes Shane Baker, Eli Batalion, Jamie Elman, Daniel Kahn, Lia Koenig, Noah Mitchel, Eleanor Reissa, Joshua Reuben, Suzanne Toren, Allen Lewis Rickman, Yelena Shmulenson, and Avi Hoffman (as Haman), many of whom should be familiar to fans of Yiddish theater here in New York City. The free show, which will be performed in Yiddish with English subtitles, with commentary written by the late Joe Darion, artwork by Adam Whiteman, and music by Uri Schreter, will be broadcast on YouTube, where it will be available for an unlimited amount of time.
As you can tell, Purim is supposed to be a party, and the funniest party of them all is likely to be Met Council’s appropriately titled “Funny Story,” a free virtual table read of the Megillah with an all-star cast of comedians: Elon Gold, Howie Mandel, Bob Saget, Jeff Garlin, Judy Gold, Jeff Ross, Russell Peters, Susie Essman, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Bari Weiss, Claudia Oshry, Violet Benson, Montana Tucker, and Eli Leonard, benefiting the organization’s Covid-19 Emergency Fund.
The National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene will be livestreaming its Purim blowout February 22 to 25, with a fifteen-minute Yiddish lesson with Motl Didner on Monday at 1:00; Zalmen Mlotek’s Purim-themed “Living Room Concert” on Tuesday at 1:00; the Hava Tequila Cabaret with Adam B. Shapiro, Dani Apple, Stephanie Lynne Mason, Daniella Rabbani, Lauren Jeanne Thomas, Bobby Underwood, Mikhl Yashinksy, and Michael Winograd on Wednesday at 7:00; and “The Megillah in Yiddish” reading, followed by a performance by the Brooklyn klezmer band Litvakus, on Thursday at 7:00.
On February 25 at 7:00, the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is putting on “The Masked Megillah,” a spiel inspired by the popular television program The Masked Singer. While the shul is not divulging the secret identities of who will be sharing the story of Purim in song and dance, the teaser features the one and only Tovah Feldshuh, from Golda’s Balcony and The Walking Dead.
And from February 25 to 28, the Yiddishkayt Initiative is offering a Purim edition of the International Virtual Yiddish Fest, consisting of “Bright Lights . . . Big Shushan: A Musical Megillah” with Cantor Shira Ginsburg on Thursday at 8:00; “Shmoozing with Avi,” featuring Phillip Namanworth the Boogie Woogie Mystic, on Thursday at 10:00; Aelita’s “Songs from the Heart” concert on Friday at 4:00; Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Gimpel Tam (Gimpel the Fool) starring Dori Engel on Friday at 8:00; a “PurimShpiel” concert with the Chorny-Ghergus Duo on Saturday at 2:00; the multimedia “KhapLop,” beloved children’s stories translated into Yiddish by Miriam Hoffman and read by her son, actor Avi Hoffman, on Sunday at noon; and a watch party of Itzik Manger’s Megillah Cycle on February 28 at 2:00.
Atlanta-born, San Francisco-based playwright Lauren Gunderson’s two favorite topics are science and theater. At only thirty-nine, she is the most produced living American playwright. She’s written works about mathematician Ada Lovelace and polymath Charles Babbage (Ada and the Engine), scientist and intellectual Émilie du Châtelet (Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight), a young Isaac Newton (Leap), astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (Silent Sky), and physicist and chemist Marie Curie (The Half-Life of Marie Curie) in addition to several twists on Shakespeare (The Book of Will, The Heath, The Taming, and Toil & Trouble). She did not have to look very far for her latest play, which cleverly combines the two: The protagonist has been sleeping next to her for more than a decade, her husband, virologist Nathan Wolfe.
Written during the pandemic, The Catastrophist is a one-man show set in 2016 as Wolfe (portrayed by William DeMeritt), a self-described “virus hunter” and the author of The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age, the founder and former CEO of Metabiota, and the founder and former board chair of Global Viral, combats the Ebola outbreak with his team. “I try to predict pandemics, because, if you can predict pandemics, you just might be able to prevent them,” he explains. “How does the futurist not see his own future? How does the catastrophist not plan for his own catastrophe?” he asks.
This play may be specifically about Ebola, but it clearly relates to what we’re going through now with Covid-19, which has shuttered theaters around the world, impacting Gunderson’s livelihood. “Theater is not science,” Wolfe says. “That I know. It’s the opposite. [The playwright] makes the ending whatever she wants it to be. I can’t do that. In fact that would be scientific fraud. Is there theatrical fraud? Isn’t that what theater is? Very nice, well-lit fraud?”
William DeMeritt portrays Nathan Wolfe in Lauren Gunderson’s pandemic play The Catastrophist (photo courtesy Marin Theatre Company)
The story is intensely personal as well, as Wolfe discusses how many of his close male relatives died in their forties; in 2016, he is forty-six and worried about his own health, especially now that he is married and starting a family. As he details his relationship with his father, he considers what kind of a dad he will be, in a world that can be so quickly devastated by an epidemic. “First we have to address our general scientific illiteracy as a species,” he points out. “Everyone has to read Shakespeare in order to be considered well educated, right? But we’re not required to fully understand our place in the tree of life? Shakespeare’s more important than that? Than all of life as we know it! I have a feeling my wife is going to object to this line of thinking. I like plays, but fuck plays! Why focus on fiction when we can’t seem to handle what’s real?”
The Catastrophist was filmed live onstage at the Marin Theatre in San Francisco (coproduced with Round House Theatre in DC), with no audience. When the play deals with Wolfe’s professional life, DeMeritt delivers his lines like he’s giving a TED Talk, determined but not very theatrical as he walks about the empty stage. In fact, Wolfe is a TED Talk veteran, with such scientific monologues as “Why We Have Virus Outbreaks & How We Can Prevent Them” and “What’s Left to Explore?” under his belt. The play is much more intimate and moving when Wolfe digs down deep into his private fears and desires; DeMeritt gets more emotional, displaying a heartfelt vulnerability as director Jasson Minadakis (The Whipping Man,Equivocation) and cinematographer Peter Ruocco bring the camera closer to him, focusing on his eyes, his slumped body, so different from his straight, stalwart stance as the brilliant, successful scientist giving a lecture.
The Catastrophist is very much a work of its time, from subject matter to execution, currently available only over the internet. “Viruses depend on other life to survive. But don’t we all?” Wolfe asks. “All life depends on other life. No one exists in isolation.” Ultimately, though, Wolfe sums everything up when he admits, “It’s a risk being married to a playwright. They usually get the last word.” And The Catastrophist is no different.
One man’s obsession with death and fear of the end threaten to overwhelm his sanity in the Cherry Artists’ Collective’s offbeat, entertaining adaptation of Mexican playwright Alejandro Ricaño’s existential, seriocomic Hotel Good Luck, streaming live through February 20 from the historic State Theatre in Ithaca, where it is being performed without an audience, following all Covid-19 protocols. Although the Spanish-language original premiered in 2015 and Jacqueline Bixler’s astute translation dates from 2019, the play feels fresh and timely, dealing with the eternal themes of loss, loneliness, and disconnection that are so prominent in the current pandemic.
Seth Soulstein stars as Bobby, a grown man living in his father’s basement, where he broadcasts a radio show to four listeners. It’s November 5, and he shares with us on a slide projector screen how his four grandparents died of absurd circumstances, all on November 6 in successive years. Bobby opines that there are “four undeniable truths: 1. Everyone dies. Everyone. 2. Death can be fucking amusing. 3. The world is full of ridiculous coincidences. 4. I fucking hate the sixth of November.”
Terrified of what the next day may bring, Bobby enters what might be a dream or a nightmare, opening the refrigerator and floating into a parallel universe at the Hotel Good Luck where the dead are alive, including his beloved pet, Miller the melancholic dog, and maybe, just maybe, his ex-girlfriend, Lily, may take him back. He meets an alternate version of his best friend, Dr. Larry Torcino (musician and composer Desmond Bratton), his psychoanalyst who, when not at work, plays his double bass in the far corner. He tells Bobby what might be going on with him:
Larry: You don’t need a psychologist, Bobby. What you need is a physicist.
Bobby: A physicist?
Larry: A physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics.
Bobby: Where am I gonna find a physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics?
Larry: It just so happens that I’m a physicist and a specialist in quantum mechanics. It’s my night job. Do you mind if I change my jacket? . . .
A DJ (Seth Soulstein) gets caught up in multiple universes in Hotel Good Luck
Larry goes on to explain, “According to the principle of dimensional simultaneity, two or more realities can coexist in the same space and time. . . . Every little movement we make, Bobby, splits our universe into an infinite series of possibilities. Every little movement instantly opens up an adjacent universe that we can’t see, just an inch away. You’ve apparently discovered in your dreams, Bobby, a portal between one parallel universe and another.”
Soulstein has an irresistible charm as Bobby, a pathetic schlemiel who is not the most thoughtful and caring of men. He wanders across the stage, followed by cameraman Jules Holynski, searching for answers that may never come. However, some elements are within his grasp, such as letters from his mother and father that he magically plucks out of the air, offering new information about his parents’ relationship. Director Samuel Buggeln, who also designed the set — the bold lighting is by Chris Brusberg, with sound by Don Tindall and live video mixing by Noah Elman — takes us behind the scenes as Soulstein moves around the space.
Copresented by New Ohio Theatre, Hotel Good Luck is the second livestreamed, translated play the Cherry has done at the State Theatre, following Josephine George’s English-language adaptation of Gabrielle Chapdelaine’s A Day. While A Day was notable for how it revealed the technology behind the production, which involved Zoom boxes and green screens, Hotel Good Luck is a more standard presentation onstage, but with a more compelling narrative, particularly while we’re sheltering in place, hiding from a deadly virus.
It’s a comforting thought that, especially in these troubling times, we might be able to find what we’re looking for in the magical Narnia looming in the back of our fridge, but it’s not exactly practical in real life. It might not be quite what we need, either, as Bobby discovers. And when it comes right down to it, if you’re a schmuck in one universe, you’re probably a schmuck in another as well. “One has to keep believing, during this brief moment, that nothing is lost,” he says to Lily over the phone. If only.
