this week in theater

FLEABAG

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s brings her television show Fleabag to life at SoHo Playhouse (photo by Joan Marcus)

SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Varick St. & Sixth Ave.
Wednesday – Monday through April 14, $125
212-691-1555
fleabagnyc.com
www.sohoplayhouse.com

Thirty-three-year-old London native Phoebe Waller-Bridge has rocketed to cult stardom in a short period of time; since 2016, she has created, written, and starred in two British television series, Crashing and Fleabag, created and wrote the Emmy-nominated BBC America crime drama Killing Eve, and played Lando Calrissian’s (Donald Glover) droid L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Her breakthrough came with the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe debut of her solo show, Fleabag (later developed into the television series), which earned her an Olivier nomination. Waller-Bridge has now brought the sexy, cringy comedy to SoHo Playhouse, where the sold-out coproduction with Annapurna Theatre continues through April 14. Waller-Bridge is the unnamed title character, a strong, defiant woman who doesn’t hide her sexual desires and says what’s on her mind, no matter how politically incorrect or unfeminist it may be. She owns a small guinea-pig-themed café that she started with her best friend, Boo, who has recently died in a bizarre, tragic accident. She flubs a job interview when she starts to take off her sweater, forgetting that she does not have a top on underneath, leading the male interviewer, who is heard in prerecorded voiceover, to demand that she leave immediately. But Waller-Bridge adds a subtle touch that underscores the situation brilliantly: The man says almost as an afterthought, “I’m sorry. That won’t get you very far here anymore.” It’s one of many clever counterbalances that portray the character’s tendency to pursue cringeworthy situations worthy of Lena Dunham and Larry David, all in the name of uncovering truths about daily life.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge makes her New York City stage debut in Fleabag (photo by Joan Marcus)

She also has run-ins with her maybe-boyfriend, Harry; Joe, the “cockney geezer” who comes into the café every morning at eleven; Tube Rodent, a man with a tiny mouth who flirts with her on the train; her father, who is not exactly thrilled when she arrives drunk at his doorstep; and her fashionable married sister, Claire, who meets her at a lecture entitled “Women Speak.” When the speaker says, “Please raise your hands if you would trade five years of your life for the so-called ‘perfect body,’” the sisters are the only ones in the auditorium who throw their hands in the air. “Four hundred women stare at the two of us horrified. We are bad feminists,” Waller-Bridge says. But are they? She is playing a brave woman who is not ashamed of the choices she makes — whether it’s masturbating to Barack Obama while in bed with a lover or wondering about the size of her naughty bits — and even when she knows she’s gone too far, she understands clearly why she’s done it, offering poignant perspective even as she can’t hold back. When her sister tells her “to stop talking to people like I’m doing a stand-up routine,” adding that “some things just aren’t fucking funny,” she tells the audience, “I laugh. And then I don’t laugh.” That exchange gets to the heart of Waller-Bridge’s humor and her unique storytelling ability.

However, Fleabag the play doesn’t work nearly as well as Fleabag the television series. Perhaps it’s partly because many of the episodes described in the play will already be familiar, and feel a bit stale, to fans at the SoHo Playhouse. Director Vicky Jones, the cofounder and co-artistic director of DryWrite with Waller-Bridge and who has worked with her on Fleabag and Killing Eve, keeps it all fairly simple; Waller-Bridge, wearing a red top and thick red lipstick, spends most of the sixty-five minutes sitting on a tall chair with red cushions, on a rectangular red rug. BAFTA winner Waller-Bridge performs the voices of some of the other characters, while a speaker to her right broadcasts the rest, along with various random sound effects, the inconsistency of which is off-putting. (Waller-Bridge’s sister, composer, artist, and musician Isobel Waller-Bridge, did the sound design; the bare set is by Holly Pigott and lighting by Elliot Griggs.) It’s all like a seriocomic confessional, except Waller-Bridge isn’t asking for the audience’s forgiveness, its sympathy, or its approval; she is merely detailing the life of a confident woman trying to maintain control in a complex, judgmental world, dealing with joys and tragedies, sex and love, glamor and ugliness. And that can be a beautiful thing, even when it’s far from perfect.

STRANGERS IN THE WORLD

Axis Company’s Strangers in the World is set in a stark would-be paradise (photo by Pavel Antonov)

Axis Company
One Sheridan Sq. between West Fourth & Washington Sts.
Wednesday – Saturday through April 6, $20-$30
866-811-4111
www.axiscompany.org

In 1587, a small English colony of about 115 men, women, and children was established on Roanoke Island. Three years later, the settlement was gone; the only evidence Europeans had ever been there was the word “Croatoan” carved into a wooden post. Axis Company artistic director Randy Sharp uses the mysterious tale of the Lost Colony of Roanoke as inspiration for her dark, flummoxing new play, Strangers in the World, which opened last night at the company’s home on Sheridan Square, inaugurating Axis’s twentieth anniversary season. The play is set in 1623, but many of the Lost Colony elements are there as a group of starving, traumatized Puritans wander almost zombielike through scary woods of barren trees. The addled survivors consist of their selectman, Killsin Henry (Brian Barnhart), who mutters on about his murdered son and dead wife, Jane (Britt Genelin); William Chase (Andrew Dawson), the old teacher; John Coldweather (Jon McCormick), whose wife died on the ship, followed by their twin daughters; Distance (Spencer Aste), Killsin’s brother who is married to Honor (Katie Rose Summerfield); and Constance (Emily Kratter), the youngest, who arrived later on a ship bringing more Puritans and desperately needed supplies.

On a cold day, an odd young man is spotted in the woods. Olean (Phil Gillen) explains his cutter sank on a fishing expedition from its larger vessel, a big ship that should return shortly to give them all salvation. But the marooned castaways suspect he’s a thief come to rob and murder them or else in cahoots with the “savages” they claim have already stolen from them, leaving them with nothing but the ragged clothes on their backs and a few dozen apples. Filled with fear, the Puritans consider locking Olean in a makeshift cage that sports a sign that reads “The Wayward Child” and, curiously, a surreal picture of an eye. There are several clues as to who Olean might be, which lead only to more confusion as the crisis grows ever more discombobulated.

The arrival of an odd man (Phil Gillen) brings yet more fear to a colony of Puritans in Randy Sharp’s world premiere (photo by Pavel Antonov)

In Strangers in the World, writer-director Sharp (Last Man Club, Dead End, High Noon) has created a Beckett-like story of the settling of America, except in this case Godot may have shown up in the personage of Olean — although the characters don’t realize it. The seventy-five-minute show explores ideas of humanity’s puritanical nature, with numerous references to sin and salvation (such as their names themselves, which include Killsin and Honor); sex and childbirth loom large, as does child murder; they also debate whether Olean might be a Jonah come to reprimand them, not free them. But foraging for meaning in the play is like getting lost in the woods: Is it a parable about the Garden of Eden gone terribly wrong? (Olean begs for water but William only offers him a half-eaten apple.) The return of Jesus? Is it about the dangers of fundamentalist religious beliefs, then and now? Fear of the other, relating to the current battle over immigration? (At one point, they discuss a “godless southern city . . . with a wall round it.”) Or perhaps it’s a stark look at the future of the planet because of climate change? As with all Axis productions, Strangers in the World is technically adept, with solid acting, a compelling set (by Chad Yarborough), fab costumes (by Karl Ruckdeschel), and an appropriately creepy sound design (by Paul Carbonara). But the narrative is as cold and distant as the hellish land where the Puritans have been apparently sentenced to spend eternity. Over the last few years, archaeologists think they may have found what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke; maybe next they can turn their attention to the overly puzzling Strangers in the World.

DYING IN BOULDER

A family gathers to prepare for the death of a loved one in Dying in Boulder at La MaMa (photo by Carlos Cardona)

Downstairs, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
66 East Fourth St.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 17, $25-$30
212-475-7710
lamama.org

When it comes time to meet your maker, a fine spot would be a place like Yu-Hsuan Chen’s lovely, welcoming set for the otherwise mundane Dying in Boulder, which is having its world premiere through March 17 at La MaMa Downstairs. Just a few feet from the seats are a rock garden consisting of three circles of cairns and sand, a wooden bench, a bedroom partially hidden by curtains, and an open sun room with a couch, chairs, a table, and a trio of spare, large-scale oil paintings of nude middle-aged women. It’s hard to resist the urge to sit on the bench or meditate among the stacked stones (but don’t, of course). However, the narrative doesn’t live up to the design. Written by Filipino American Linda Faigao-Hall, who was inspired by her involvement as a caretaker for her sister-in-law, Dying in Boulder is a fairly standard work about death and aging.

It’s the spring of 2001, and Jane (Bernadette Quigley) has chosen to die in Boulder, with the support of her husband, Tai chi teacher Bayani (Fenton Li); their pregnant daughter, Nikki (Mallory Ann Wu), who is waiting for her husband to arrive; and crunchy local monk Max (Michael Rabe). Jane has prepared several binders that detail the Buddhist rituals she wants, outlining specific chores for relatives and friends. Her sister, Lydia (Jan Leslie Harding), a successful television and movie actress going through a rough patch, arrives only to find out that Jane has made her the DC, the death coordinator, a role that includes some extremely detailed and difficult responsibilities that Lydia sees as punishment. Lydia also doesn’t understand how everyone can be so resigned to her sister’s condition, seemingly acting like it’s no big deal. As Jane’s time approaches, she and Lydia finally face issues that have been tearing at each of them for years, threatening Jane’s peaceful departure into the great unknown.

Sisters Lydia (Jan Leslie Harding) and Jane (Bernadette Quigley) finally let loose in Linda Faigao-Hall’s Dying in Boulder (photo by Carlos Cardona)

The play — which is subtitled “the perfect place to die if you have good karma!” — is as much about sisters as it is death, but neither Jane nor Lydia is a compelling character. Lydia is too shrill and disbelieving, while Jane is overly woo-woo. The story works significantly better when it focuses on the cheerful Bayani, sweetly played by Li, and the concerned Nikki, who is portrayed nicely by Wu; the likable Rabe, the son of David Rabe and Jill Clayburgh (and brother of Lily Rabe), is not given enough to do as Max, particularly in the second act. All three add needed humor, while Jen Hill’s lighting emits a gentle mystery. Director Ian Morgan (The Accomplices, Faigao-Hall’s Sparrow) is unable to grab hold of any significant conflict to drive the story until it’s too late; it would have benefited by being trimmed from two acts and two hours to about eighty minutes without intermission. “Death is a great adventure,” Nikki says at the beginning of Dying in Boulder. That might be the case, but you can’t tell from this overbaked melodrama.

THE MOTHER

Isabelle Huppert and Chris Noth star in US premiere of Florian Zeller’s The Mother at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 13, $101.50
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

In 2016, Frank Langella won a Tony as the title character in the US premiere of French playwright and novelist Florian Zeller’s The Father, a gripping tale of an elegant Parisian gentleman suffering from dementia. Now Oscar nominee Isabelle Huppert stars in the US premiere of Zeller’s The Mother, a less-successful work that opened last night at the Atlantic. Written in 2010, four years before The Father, The Mother is a companion piece that follows an empty nester’s descent into depression. As the audience enters the Linda Gross Theater, Anne (Huppert) is already seated on a ridiculously long, almost blindingly white sectional couch that runs the length of the stage. She is reading a book but seems to not be paying close attention to it. Under several cushions and a small table are bottles and bottles of pills, and a wine bottle rests on the floor by a mirror. Mark Wendland’s powerful set is backed by a brick wall, as if there is no escape for any of the characters in Anne’s closed-in world. Everything is black, white, and gray, like a dream, except for a red dress. When Anne’s husband, Peter (Chris Noth), comes home from work, she is cold and distant. He asks her how her day was, and she replies, “I stayed in, did nothing. Waited. . . . I’m aware of a great void.”

The prodigal son (Justice Smith) returns in The Mother (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

In the morning, he’s scheduled for a four-day seminar in Buffalo, but she thinks he’s going away with another woman. “I’ve been had. That’s the truth of it,” she says accusingly. “I’ve been had. All the way down the line.” She is also deeply upset that her son, Nicolas (Justice Smith), never returns her calls or comes to visit, and she is intensely jealous of his girlfriend, Emily (Odessa Young). However, she doesn’t seem to care much about her daughter. “I realize now. I should never have had children. Especially with someone like you,” she tells her husband. “You’ve lost your mind, Anne,” he says. There’s a flash, and then the scene repeats, albeit with significant differences as the play explores alternate planes of reality in the mind of a woman living on the edge, leaving the audience unsure: Are we watching events unfold in a straight dramatic narrative or only in Anne’s imagination?

Anne (Isabelle Huppert) wants nothing to do with her son’s girlfriend (Odessa Young) in play about depression (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Although Huppert (Quartett, 4.48 Psychose) and Noth (Law & Order, Sex and the City) are excellent as the troubled couple, they don’t quite pass as being in their late forties, despite Huppert’s youthful elegance. (They are both in their mid-sixties.) The “redos” of the scenes, done so effectively in Nick Payne’s Constellations, present more of a conundrum here. Director Trip Cullman (Lobby Hero, Six Degrees of Separation) includes some deft touches, particularly involving the use of Emily and a bed later in the play, but a projection near the end is emblematic of the play’s insistence on keeping things confusing and its inability to get to the heart of the matter. Zeller (The Lie, The Truth) and translator Christopher Hampton (The Philanthropist, Appomattox), who refer to The Mother as “a black farce,” attempt to equate the two men in Anne’s life in sexual ways (pay attention to the black jacket and the red dress), but the attempt to capture Anne’s failing sanity ultimately gets lost. “I know how to tell the difference between dreams and reality,” Anne tells Peter. The play doesn’t, even though that’s part of the point.

IF PRETTY HURTS UGLY MUST BE A MUHFUCKA

Tori Sampson’s If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka investigates beauty through adult fairy tale (photo by Joan Marcus)

Playwrights Horizons, Mainstage Theater
416 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 5, $49-$89
www.playwrightshorizons.org

“There can only be one star. So why you hatin’?” Chorus (Rotimi Agbabiaka) asks at the beginning of Tori Sampson’s chaotic If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka, which opened tonight at Playwrights Horizons. The 110-minute play is a contemporary folktale investigating the concept of beauty, both inner and outer, as it relates to black women, a mashup of “Cinderella” and “Snow White” as seen through the lens of Beyoncé’s “Pretty Hurts” video. Akim (Níkẹ Uche Kadri), considered the most beautiful young woman in the village of Affreakah-Amirrorkah, is about to turn eighteen, but her overprotective parents (Maechi Aharanwa and Jason Bowen) have forbid her to attend a society party honoring the milestone. Three of her frenemies (think evil stepsisters), Massassi (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy), Adama (Mirirai Sithole), and Kaya (Phumzile Sitole), are going and lord it over her as they jealously plot.

Local beauty Akim (Níkẹ Uche Kadri) shimmies with her mother (Maechi Aharanwa) in world premiere at Playwrights Horizons (photo by Joan Marcus)

“She’s not afraid of us rubbing off on her. Akim’s scared if people see her too closely then we’ll notice that she’s flawed like the rest of us,” Kaya says, to which Akim responds, “Actually, I’d like that very much. Maybe you can discover a flaw I’ve tried but to no avail.” Massassi gets particularly perturbed when her supposed intended, local slacker Kasim (Leland Fowler), starts hanging out with Akim. Kaya says, “We have to find a way to make her ugly. ’Cause for real, that’s the only way Kasim will chill.” Massassi offers, “Oh! Let’s pour Nair in her shampoo! All her hair will fall out.” Adama adds, “She’ll just end up looking like a better version of Lupita N’yongo.” As the party approaches, the stakes grow higher, reminiscent of Jocelyn Bioh’s recent School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play, in which a group of students seek to be named Miss Ghana. (In fact, two members of the fine If Pretty Hurts ensemble, which also includes Carla R. Stewart as the Voice of the River and musicians Rona Siddiqui and Erikka Walsh, appeared in School Girls.)

Adama (Mirirai Sithole), Massassi (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy), and Kaya (Phumzile Sitole) are like the three stepsisters in Cinderella in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (photo by Joan Marcus)

Directed by Obie winner Leah C. Gardiner (Born Bad, The Ruins of Civilization) and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly (The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Everybody), If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka is all over the place, with a scattershot, choppy narrative that often feels unfocused. However, it makes some smart observations about beauty, self-esteem, and envy in both poignant and humorous ways. “Beauty is neither your accomplishment nor your failure,” Akim points out, while Chorus, a living cellphone who is a wildly fashionable mix of the stage manager from Our Town, the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella, and Flavor Flav from Public Enemy, tells the audience, “Hierarchy makes the world go round, folks. And if given the chance, we’d all covet that number one spot.” Louisa Thompson’s bright set feels like a game show, with a round central platform surrounded by a semicircle of dozens of rows of lightbulbs that turn on and off to create frames and doorways while often evoking the feeling of a giant makeup mirror as the characters look at themselves and at us, letting us all know that each one of us is a star. (The lighting is by Matt Frey.) The bittersweet finale firmly situates the fable in the real world, reminding us of the struggle so many women face every day.

THE PROM / THE CAKE

Broadway stars Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel) and Barry Glickman (Brooks Ashmanskas) find a common cause after their Eleanor Roosevelt musical gets panned in The Prom (photo by Deen van Meer)

THE PROM
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 20, $49-$169
212-239-6200
theprommusical.com

In 2012, Colorado baker Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple because of his religious beliefs, leading to a Supreme Court case and a battle with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In 2010, a Mississippi high school canceled its prom after being sued for barring a lesbian student from attending with her girlfriend. These two ripped-from-the-headlines situations have inspired a pair of shows currently running in the city that deal with issues of faith, prejudice, and LGBTQ rights in very different ways, both sparked by the struggle of gay couples to celebrate happy milestone events just like straight culture does. They also both explore the possibility of changing people’s minds, asking for tolerance of the intolerant. In The Prom, a musical comedy at the Longacre, the setup is theatrical: Great White Way veterans Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel) and Barry Glickman (Brooks Ashmanskas) are looking for a quick way to rebound from their instant flop Eleanor! — The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical by finding a cause they can support to get them some positive press attention. “People need to know it’s possible to change the world, whether you are a homely middle-aged first lady or a Broadway star,” Dee Dee, who played Eleanor, says. Barry adds, “The moment I first stepped into FDR’s shoes, and by shoes I mean wheelchair, I had an epiphany. I realized there is no difference between the president of the United States and a celebrity. We both have power. The power to change the world.”

They are joined by lesser-known minor actors Trent Oliver (Christopher Sieber) and Angie (Angie Schworer) and producer Sheldon Saperstein (Josh Lamon) and decide their best opportunity is to head to Edgewater, Indiana, where high school student Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen) is being harassed by the other students because Mrs. Greene (Courtenay Collins), the head of the PTA, has canceled the prom since Emma was going to go with another girl. Little does Mrs. Greene know that Emma is dating her daughter, Alyssa (Isabelle McCalla), who is understandably terrified of coming out to her mother. As this self-centered crackpot Justice League demands equal rights (“We’re all lesbians!”), Dee Dee unexpectedly falls for the soft-hearted, clear-sighted principal, Mr. Hawkins (Michael Potts), who takes the case to the state attorney’s office. He’s also none too happy when he begins thinking that the city folk might be in it only for the publicity, not the cause.

Angie (Angie Schworer) gets a leg up speaking with gay teen Emma Greene (Caitlin Kinnunen) (photo by Deen van Meer)

Directed and choreographed by Tony winner Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon, Something Rotten!), The Prom features a book by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, with music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Beguielin, who have a blast skewering not only the concept of narcissistic celebrities but musical theater itself. It’s loaded with inside jokes; for example, when Barry says to Angie, “I thought you were in Chicago,” she replies, “I just quit. Twenty years in the chorus and they still wouldn’t let me play Roxie Hart.” Schworer played Go to Hell Kitty for three years in a tour of Chicago while also understudying the Hart role. At nearly two and a half hours, The Prom is too long and overly repetitive, and it’s pretty easy to see where it’s going as it uses a sledgehammer to bring home its sociological perspective.

Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel) seeks good publicity in Indiana fighting for an inclusive prom (photo by Deen van Meer)

Before leaving for Indiana, the five New Yorkers sing, “We’re gonna teach them to be more P.C. / the minute our group arrives. That’s right! Those / fist pumping / Bible thumping / Spam eating / cousin humping / cow tipping / shoulder slumping / tea bagging / Jesus jumping / losers and their inbred wives / They’ll learn compassion / and better fashion / once we at last start changing lives!” Mrs. Greene sticks to her guns, declaring, “You and your friends know nothing about us, about our town, about our people. And yet, you feel justified in telling us what to do.” It’s the privileged elitists against the deplorables, each side proclaiming that the other is the villain. The show inadvertently shoots itself in the foot by having a multiracial, color-blind cast at the school; if the town is so bigoted against gays and lesbians, it’s unlikely to be so accepting of blacks, Latinx, and Asians, so the homosexual fear/hatred feels like a plot device, which it is. Of course, the producers would have taken a different kind of hit if they had indeed hired only white actors to portray the children and adults of Edgewater. The Prom can be wacky and poignant, but it also can be preachy and predictable, whether to liberal theatergoers from the blue states or conservative tourists from red states. Nobody loses!

Della (Debra Jo Rupp) is a sweet baker who opts not to make a cake for a gay wedding in MTC production at City Center (photo © Joan Marcus, 2019)

THE CAKE
Manhattan Theatre Club
MTC at New York City Center – Stage I
Tuesday – Sunday through March 31, $89
212-581-1212
thecakeplay.com

Meanwhile, Bekah Brunstetter’s The Cake, which opened this week at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I at City Center, takes place in a small, tight-knit community in North Carolina, where the delightful Della (Debra Jo Rupp) runs a bakery specializing in extraordinary cakes for special occasions. Della, who is scheduled to be a contestant on The Great American Baking Show, is visited by Jen (Genevieve Angelson), the daughter of her late best friend, who has come to tell her that she is getting married and wants her to make the cake for the special event. But when Della finds out that Jen’s fiancée is Macy (Marinda Anderson), a black gluten-free Brooklynite, she changes her mind and claims that she is too busy to bake for her. While Macy is furious, Jen wants to give Della the benefit of the doubt.

When it seems that Della might be rethinking her decision (which is based on sexual orientation, not race, as Bella notes, “I don’t see color”), her husband, Tim (Dan Daily), demands that she not bake the cake because of their religion. “We know we can’t pick and choose the Bible, honey,” he explains. “That’s when the edges start to blur. Fabric starts to fray. We can be sad for her, though. We can love her, still.” Later, he says, “It’s — it’s just not natural.” Della responds, “Well, neither is confectioner’s sugar!” Tim: “You’re not making that cake.” Della: “I’ll make it if I want to.” Tim: “What’s that?” Della: “Nothing.” Tim and Della are quite a couple; she bakes delicious items that go in people’s mouths, while he, a plumber, fixes problems involving what comes out the other end.

Baker Della (Debra Jo Rupp) and plumber Tim (Dan Daily) discuss sex and religion in The Cake (photo © Joan Marcus, 2019)

Much like the Broadway elitists want to change the mind of Edgewater, Indiana, Macy feels that Jen can help Della avoid making the wrong choice. “You could change her,” Macy says. “Della? No thank you,” Jen replies. Macy: “But if you don’t push her to change, then they never will. “Jen: “They?” Macy: “All of them.” . . . Jen: All I ask is that you just try and be respectful of the people down here.” Macy: “I don’t respect these people.” Jen: “But I’m one of them.” Macy: “No you’re not.” Brunstetter, a writer and producer on the first three seasons of This Is Us who identifies as a straight white woman, was raised in a conservative North Carolina household; she loves and respects her family even though she disagrees with them on many social issues, and The Cake might her attempt to convince theatergoers who are not fond of bigots and homophobes to have more compassion and empathy for these down-home plain folk.

Della (Debra Jo Rupp) is happy for Jen (Genevieve Angelson) and Macy (Marinda Anderson) despite her religious beliefs in Bekah Brunstetter play (photo © Joan Marcus, 2019)

But it’s not that easy; no matter how cute and adorable Della is — and she’s portrayed wonderfully by Rupp, the mother on That ’70s Show and Linda on This Is Us; in fact, all four actors are terrific — it’s a lot for Brunstetter to ask of the audience. At the beginning of the play, which is engagingly directed by three-time Tony nominee Lynne Meadow (The Assembled Parties, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife) and boasts an attractive set by John Lee Beatty that consists of ever-shifting ingredients, Della says, “See, what you have to do is really, truly follow the directions. That’s what people don’t understand.” She’s talking not only about baking but about her religion, following kitchen directions like she follows the Bible. Della also occasionally speaks with a disembodied voice from The Great American Baking Show, booming down from above as if God himself, judging if she’s worthy of being on the program. Each of the characters gets at least a little bit woke about something, resulting in a story that has tasty icing but too much fluff. “Ambivalence is just as evil as violence,” Macy argues after Della says she is not a political person, as if that excuses her from addressing the hot-button topics of the day. It’s also an excuse for Brunstetter to try to get us to accept her own family’s insensitivity to certain types of people. But being tolerant of the intolerant is not going to change things the way they need to be changed.

“DADDY”

Franklin (Ronald Peet) has some slippery father issues in New Group / Vineyard Theatre world premiere (photo by Matt Saunders)

The New Group/Vineyard Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 31, $40-$135
www.thenewgroup.org
www.vineyardtheatre.org

Jeremy O. Harris’s “Daddy” is a monumental work of bold genius, a searing, audacious investigation into the creation and ownership of both art and people, constructed around the sins of the father. The play, a joint production of the New Group and the Vineyard that opened tonight at the Signature Center’s Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, takes place in and around an infinity pool in a Bel Air mansion; Matt Saunders’s delightful set prominently features several chaise longues on a deck and a gleaming blue pool in the front that was inspired by David Hockney paintings, particularly Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which sold at auction for more than ninety million dollars this past November, as well as A Bigger Splash, Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool, and Portrait of Nick Wilder. (In 1966-67, a twenty-nine-year-old Hockney lived with Wilder, an older art dealer, in the latter’s Hollywood home, although this is not their story.)

Ronald Peet stars as Franklin, a twentysomething black artist who has recently moved to Los Angeles. Following an opening at a hot new gallery, Franklin has come home with Andre (Alan Cumming), an absurdly wealthy fiftysomething white art collector. Andre worships Franklin’s lithe body, comparing his legs to Naomi Campbell’s, while a very high Franklin, who is preparing for his first gallery show, expounds on the intrinsic value of art, arguing that “art loses its worth the minute it can be bought. . . . It becomes worthless once its owned.” He’s not referring merely to Andre’s holdings — which includes works by Cy Twombly, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, and Alexander Calder and a room of Basquiats — but also colonialism and slavery. Andre and Franklin debate the artistic value of Kara Walker’s A Subtlety installation of a giant white “mammy” figure in the old Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, and it’s no coincidence that Andre purchases Basquiats, a black artist who gained fame through his close association with the white Andy Warhol.

Franklin (Ronald Peet) explains his art to his gallerist, Alessia (Hari Nef), in “Daddy” at the Signature (photo by Monique Carboni)

Franklin is soon at home in Andre’s place, inviting over his crew: fashion-obsessed Bellamy (Kahyun Kim) and struggling white actor Max (Tommy Dorfman), who supply comic relief through their jealousy of Franklin; each of them would love to have a “sugar daddy” too, although Franklin bristles at the term. He believes his relationship with Andre is something other than a clichéd fling. Nevertheless, Franklin has taken to calling Andre “Daddy” during sex, which occurs often throughout the play — there is ample nudity and graphic simulations. Absent fathers are everywhere: While Franklin never met his father, which haunts him, Andre’s father got him started collecting art, giving him a Degas. Franklin’s gallerist, the young, white Alessia (Hari Nef), also hails from a wealthy family (she took over the gallery from her father) and believes Franklin’s upcoming show will help put her on the map; it’s yet another example of a rich white person “owning” a black person, made all the more clear when we see the tiny soft-sculpture dolls Franklin is making for the exhibition. When Franklin’s Bible-thumping mother, Zora (Charlayne Woodard), arrives, she is not exactly thrilled about her son’s living situation or artwork. As Franklin tries to find his place in this superficial Hollywood world, he is accompanied by a kind of Greek chorus in the form of a three-woman gospel choir (Carrie Compere, Denise Manning, and Onyie Nwachukwu) that represents his heart and soul, which are up for grabs.

Andre (Alan Cumming) looks on as Max (Tommy Dorfman) moves closer to Bellamy (Kahyun Kim) in Jeremy O. Harris’s “Daddy” (photo by Monique Carboni)

In the script, Harris (Xander Xyst, Dragon: 1, WATER SPORTS; or insignificant white boys) explains, “When lost look to melodrama for direction (see: [Peter] Brooks’s Melodramatic Imagination), because this play moves from melodrama’s dream to melodrama’s nightmare.” Director Danya Taymor (Familiar, Pass Over) has no such problem delivering the melodrama, from dream to nightmare; it’s a phenomenal staging, with vibrant, colorful costumes by Montana Levi Blanco, glistening lighting by Isabella Byrd (especially when the reflection of the pool’s waves dance across the walls), lovely original music adapted from a standard ring tone by Lee Kinney, and inspirational vocal music and arrangements by Darius Smith and Brett Macias. Peet (Spill, Kentucky) makes a major breakthrough as Franklin, giving a brave performance in which he lets it all hang out, emotionally and physically, combining sex appeal with an overt neediness and a major father complex. Tony and Olivier winner Cumming (Cabaret, The Good Wife) is utterly charming as Andre, a commanding, cultured man who loves collecting pretty things. “Beauty is beauty is beauty, Franklin. No matter whose eyes are seeing it,” he tells his lover. And two-time Obie winner and Tony nominee Woodard (Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Witch of Edmonton) ratchets it up as Zora, especially in the third act, when Kim and Dorfman get to strut their stuff while the masterful Cumming unfortunately has a lot less to do.

Harris’s fierce, polarizing Slave Play recently ran at New York Theater Workshop, and the three-act, 165-minute “Daddy” (with two intermissions) deals with some of the same topics (race, sex, power) but takes them to a whole new level, exploring the concept of a father as reality and fantasy, metaphor and obsession, presence and absence: Andre spanks Franklin like he’s a child, Zora prays to the Lord for guidance, Franklin discusses the origin of his dolls, the choir sings, “Daddy won’t nothing but a ‘shhhhhhh,’” and several characters get in the pool and blast out a hysterically relevant George Michael song. The pool is more than a cool part of the set; it also serves as a baptismal font, making us all believe in the power of art and theater, which becomes even more palpable when the first few rows get splashed. Even though the ending is muddy, “Daddy” is an extraordinary piece of storytelling, a masterful work of art that demands to be seen.