this week in theater

EMMA AND MAX

Upper West Siders Jay (Matt Servitto) and Brooke (Ilana Becker) laugh as they fire their nanny, Britanny (Zonya Love), in Emma and Max (photo by Joan Marcus)

Flea Theater, the Sam
20 Thomas St. between Broadway & Church St.
Wednesday – Monday through November 11, $47-$102
866-811-4111
theflea.org

Eclectic auteur Todd Solondz, the creator of such offbeat, unusual indie films as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, and Storytelling, doesn’t disappoint with his first play, the dark, acerbic Emma and Max, which has been extended at the Flea through November 11. Solondz reveals the dark underbelly of suburbia in the ninety-minute show, which is wickedly funny and all too real. Wealthy white Upper West Siders Brooke (Ilana Becker) and Jay (Matt Servitto) are attempting to fire their black nanny, Britanny (Zonya Love), who has been taking care of their kids, three-year-old Emma and two-year-old Max (played by Sawyer Manning and Mason Goldstein, respectively, seen only briefly in video and photographs). “The children adore you,” Brooke tells Brittany, who looks at her blond boss stone-faced. “You’re more than we could ever have hoped for. So much more,” Jay adds. Brooke and Jay are acting like it is harder for them to get rid of her than it is for Brittany to get kicked out; they’re terrified of saying anything that can be construed as even the slightest bit politically incorrect. “What I do wrong?” Brittany asks. “Nothing,” Brooke replies, to which Brittany says, “Can’t be nothing. A person don’t get fired for nothing.” When Brooke explains that she is being replaced by an au pair from Holland, Brittany says, “What’s that? A white girl?” A disturbed Brooke answers, “Actually we don’t know her ethnicity. We didn’t ask,” as if a Dutch woman named Famke (Lacy Allen, also seen in video only) could be anything else.

Brooke (Ilana Becker) and Jay (Matt Servitto) discuss privilege and more in world premiere of Todd Solondz’s first play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Brooke takes an instant liking to Famke but feels guilty that she doesn’t feel guilty over firing Brittany, who spends most of her time in bed listening to Meryl Streep singing “The Winner Takes It All” from Mamma Mia! and not responding to Brooke’s constant phone calls and texts asking her to return her keys to their house. When she’s not at home, Brittany is making the set changes, as if she is a slave still working for Brooke and Jay, who watch her opening and closing doors and pushing and pulling furniture, occasionally making faces at her if they think she is taking too long. It’s an ingenious conceit that extends beyond the narrative world of the play, as if Solondz the director is also abusing Love the actress, who portrays Brittany with a steely, decidedly unglamorous demeanor. (The storage-like set with aluminum-siding-like covering and clever props are designed by Julia Noulin-Mérat.) Brooke and Jay go on vacation in Barbados, where Brittany is from, rubbing yet more salt in the wound without even realizing it. Complaining about certain aspects of her own childhood, Brooke says, “The point is, I know something about what it means to feel marginalized . . . My experience, my pain . . . I wish I’d been born black — then at least I could’ve shared the pain, the injustice of it all.”

Britanny (Zonya Love) finally gets to share her tragic story in Emma and Max at the Flea (photo by Joan Marcus)

Everything comes full circle as Brittany finally gets to share her own story, telling it to a woman named Padma (Rita Wolf, who also plays flight attendant Mira) who is recording the mostly one-sided conversation. “I believe in things I know and understand and see. I’m not good at make-believe. I’m not invisible,” Brittany explains. “White people see me. Black people see me. White people see my blackness. Black people see my blackness. That’s what they see. But I see water.” The concept of water is essential to Solondz, a New Jersey native who is married and has two young children; images of water are projected by Adam Thompson onto the set as well as forming the entrance to a resort swimming pool. Emma and Max is about how people see and judge one another, but primarily how whites see and judge blacks. Brooke and Jay get flustered by white people’s problems, reveling in their ingrained, unearned white privilege while believing the world owes them everything, from wealth and success to exceptional children and servants. The play is a sharply observant skewering of the status quo in a Trump America that continues to encounter racism, bigotry, and hatred every day and where the term “privilege” has become a dirty word to about half the country. It’s also a place where payback can be a bitch, where there are consequences for physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. It’s not a happy situation, but it’s damn funny and frighteningly realistic, a mirror brilliantly held up to a society in crisis.

KURT VONNEGUT’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE

Penelope (Kate MacCluggage) meets her husband-to-be (Jason O’Connell) in stellar revival of Kurt Vonnegut’s Wanda June

The Duke on 42nd Street
229 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Thursday – Tuesday through November 29, $49-$109
www.wheelhousetheater.org

Wheelhouse Theater Company is throwing quite a party eight times a week at the Duke on 42nd St., presenting its wickedly funny, devilishly clever adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s first play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June. The glorious production, which (re)opened last night following an earlier sold-out run at the Gene Frankel Theater, is everything a work by Vonnegut should be: surreal, unpredictable, laugh-out-loud hysterical, extraordinarily intelligent, bold, daring, and challenging while taking on such wholly contemporary themes as war, misogyny, racism, capitalism, religion, gun control, animal rights, white privilege, machismo, and feminism. Brittany Vasta’s urban-jungle set immerses the audience in the show from the very beginning, as ticket holders walk down a lobby with fake plants and real prints by Vonnegut, then go through a bamboo curtain to enter the main space, the same entrance the characters use to come in and leave. The walls are covered with animal-head trophies. The doorbells emit animal sounds instead of rings or chimes. “How do you do. My name is Penelope Ryan,” a woman (Kate MacCluggage) says, standing in a line with four male actors. “This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing — and those who don’t.”

The quartet slowly introduces itself: Harold Ryan (Jason O’Connell), a professional soldier and adventurer who is married to Penelope but has been missing for eight years; Dr. Norbert Woodly (Matt Harrington), a peacenik who believes in healing and is in love with Penelope; Col. Looseleaf Harper (Craig Wesley Divino), a pilot who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki and is missing with Harold in the Amazon rainforest; Paul Ryan (Finn Faulconer), Harold and Penelope’s twelve-year-old son, who is hoping his father will show up unexpectedly because it’s the father’s birthday; and Herb Shuttle (Kareem M. Lucas), a vacuum-cleaner salesman who also is in love with Penelope. The wonderfully absurdist story also involves a trio of heavenly ghosts: Mildred (MacCluggage), one of Harold’s previous wives; Major Siegfried von Konigswald (O’Connell), the “Beast of Yugoslavia” who was killed by Harold; and ten-year-old Wanda June (Charlotte Wise or Brie Zimmer), whose name is on Harold’s birthday cake. When Harold and Looseleaf do indeed return, the brutish Harold sniffs around his apartment like an animal come home to roost. He grunts and snorts (like a male chauvinist pig?) and even makes out with one of the trophy heads, reclaiming every inch of his territory. However, while he hasn’t changed much, Penelope has gone through a major transformation, attending college and learning that she can make her own decisions about what she wants out of life — and what she doesn’t. Harold may not consider Norbert and Herb legitimate threats, but he still has to contend with Penelope herself. Meanwhile, he is not the least bit frightened when he finds out that there’s been a series of murders in the park just outside; fear is never on his agenda.

O’Connell is an accomplished actor who has played Bottom, Puck, and Egeus in the Pearl’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mr. Darcy in Primary Stages’ Pride and Prejudice, and Edward and Robert Ferrars in Bedlam’s Sense and Sensibility — the latter two adapted by his wife, Kate Hamill — as well as appearing as himself in the one-man show The Dork Knight, about his lifelong relationship with Batman. He is ferocious in Wanda June, a force of nature who moves across the stage like a caged animal waiting to pounce. He’s like a caveman, a person from another age, unwilling to accept that things have changed dramatically while he was away, that the old-fashioned white man is no longer in charge, but it’s hard not to like him despite his shenanigans. “Hello there, young man,” he says to an empty picture frame that apparently is a photo of him. “In case you’re wondering, I could beat the shit out of you. And any woman choosing between us — sorry, kid, she’d choose me. I must say, this room is very much as I left it.” The furniture and accoutrements might be the same, but nothing else is. As exceptional as O’Connell is as Harold, MacCluggage (The Farnsworth Invention, The 39 Steps) stands her ground, going toe-to-toe and face-to-face with him in an epic battle between old and new, male and female, forward-thinking and backward-living. Oh, and be sure to pay close attention to Christopher Metzger’s costumes, particularly the color of Penelope’s dress late in the second act.

Vacuum-cleaner salesman Herb Shuttle (Kareem M. Lucas) has the hots for Penelope Ryan (Kate MacCluggage) in Wheelhouse revival at the Duke

Homer’s Odyssey meets Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape by way of Ernest Hemingway in the seldom-revived Happy Birthday, Wanda June, which initially failed in its 1970 Broadway debut (with Kevin McCarthy as Harold, Marsha Mason as Penelope, and William Hickey as Looseleaf) and then the next year in Mark Robson’s big-screen version, with Rod Steiger as Harold, Susannah York as Penelope, and Hickey again as Looseleaf. Director Jeffrey Wise (DANNYKRISDONNAVERONICA), a founding member of Wheelhouse, has a firm grasp of the material, in total control of the chaos, with outstanding support from lighting designer Drew Florida and sound designer Mark Van Hare. It’s pure Vonnegut: a potent look at America — and how much it hasn’t changed in nearly fifty years. “I just have one more thing to say,” Shuttle tells Woodly as they argue about whether fighting is ever necessary, continuing, “If you elect a president, you support him, no matter what he does. That’s the only way you can have a country!” Woodly responds, “It’s the planet that’s in ghastly trouble now.” Happy Birthday, Wanda June is an all-around triumph, one of the best plays of the season, and a sharp reminder of Vonnegut’s immense legacy.

ONE-MAN SHOWS: JOHN KEVIN JONES / AASIF MANDVI / BILL IRWIN

John Kevin Jones pays tribute to Edgar Allan Poe at historic Merchant’s House Museum (photo by Joey Stocks)

KILLING AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE: MURDER AT THE MERCHANT’S HOUSE
Merchant’s House Museum
29 East Fourth St. between Lafayette St. and the Bowery
October 12-31, $18
212-777-1089
merchantshouse.org
www.summonersensemble.org

Purely by coincidence, I saw three one-man shows this week, on three successive nights, and all three have strong reasons for me to recommend them. On Tuesday, I was at the historic Merchant’s House Museum on East Fourth St. to see John Kevin Jones in Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe: Murder at the Merchant’s House. Jones has a kind of cult fan club for his annual one-man version of A Christmas Carol at the museum, a home built in 1831-32 that was occupied continuously by the Tredwell family from 1835 to 1933. The nineteenth century feels very present in the house, which was one of the first twenty buildings to gain landmark status under the city’s 1965 law and functions as a museum, preserving the Tredwell family’s furnishings as they would have appeared when Poe, coincidentally, lived nearby for a time at 85 West Third St. and later in a cottage in the Bronx. Dressed in nineteenth-century-style jacket, vest, top hat, and ascot, Jones celebrates Edgar Allan Poe with three of his most popular writings, preceded by short introductions about each work and Poe’s career.

Forty people are squeezed into the Tredwells’ candlelit double parlor — with a coffin at one end and a dining table at the other — and Jones walks up and down the narrow space between, where the audience is seated on three sides, boldly delivering two classic Poe tales of treachery and murder, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” both from memory. His deep, theatrical voice resonates through the room as he catches the eye of audience members, adding yet more chills and thrills to the mystery in the air. He then sits down with a book for the long poem “The Raven,” evoking the great Poe actor Vincent Price. Jones, director Dr. Rhonda Dodd, and stage manager Dan Renkin, the leaders of Summoners Ensemble Theatre, keep the focus on Poe’s remarkable narrative technique; you might be watching one man, but you’ll feel like you’re seeing each of Poe’s characters in vivid detail. The sold-out show continues October 22, 23, and 31; tickets for A Christmas Carol, however, are still available.

Asaaf Mandvi brings back his Obie-winning (photo by Lisa Berg)

Aasif Mandvi brings back his Obie-winning Sakina’s Restaurant to the Minetta Lane (photo by Lisa Berg)

SAKINA’S RESTAURANT
Audible Theater at Minetta Lane Theatre
18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Ave. and MacDougal St.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 11, $57-$97
sakinasrestaurantplay.com

On Wednesday night I headed to the Minetta Lane Theatre, where Audible has been staging one-person shows that are also available as audios. First, Billy Crudup starred in David Cale’s modern noir Harry Clarke, then Carey Mulligan excelled in Dennis Kelly’s intense Girls & Boys, and now Aasif Mandvi has brought back his Obie-winning 1998 show, Sakina’s Restaurant. Born in India and raised in England, Mandvi studied with acting teacher Wynn Handman, whose students have also included solo specialists Eric Bogosian and John Leguizamo. In the slightly revamped autobiographical tale, directed by Kimberly Senior (Disgraced, The Niceties), Mandvi plays six characters, beginning with Agzi, an eager young man who is leaving his small, tight-knit Indian village to go to America, where he will be sponsored by Hakim (his father’s real name) and Farrida, who run Sakina’s Restaurant on, of course, East Sixth St. Before leaving, Agzi promises his mother he will write to her from all across the United States. “I will even write to you from Cleveland! Cleveland, Ma! Home of all the Indians!”

Mandvi (Disgraced, Halal in the Family) creatively slips into each character, adding glasses, a tie, a dress, or a Game Boy to delineate among Hakim, a serious man who wants only the best for his family; Farrida, who desires more out of her mundane life; their high-school-age daughter, Sakina, who has an American boyfriend and wants to immerse herself in Western culture but who has already been promised to an Indian man by their fathers; their younger son, Samir, who doesn’t really care about anything but his immediate enjoyment; Ali, Sakina’s nervous intended in the arranged marriage; and Agzi, who is not having as exciting a time as he imagined in America. Wilson Chin’s set looks just like several Sixth St. Indian restaurants I’ve been to. The story itself occasionally drags and has trouble skirting stereotypes, but Mandvi is superb, warm and likable, particularly when he talks directly to the audience as Agzi, sharing his hopes and dreams.

Bill Irwin shares his love of all things Samuel Beckett at the Irish Rep (photo by Carol Rosegg)

ON BECKETT
Irish Repertory Theatre
Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West 22nd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 4, $50-$70
212-727-2737
irishrep.org

On Thursday night I was at the Irish Rep to see On Beckett, Bill Irwin’s very personal exploration of the work of Samuel Beckett and, in many ways, a combination of the two previous one-man shows I saw, evoking John Kevin Jones’s mastery of Edgar Allan Poe’s texts and Aasif Mandvi’s expert handling of multiple characters. For eighty-seven minutes, Tony-winning actor and certified clown Irwin delves into his vast enthusiasm for Beckett’s writings without ever becoming professorial or pedantic. “I am not a ‘Beckett scholar’ — nooo. Nor am I a Beckett biographer,” he admits. “Mine is an actor’s relationship with this language. By which I mean the deep knowledge that comes from committing words to memory, and speaking them to audiences.” Irwin (Old Hats, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) performs selections from Beckett’s 1955 collection Texts for Nothing, his 1950s novels The Unnamable and Watt, and the Irish writer’s most famous play, Waiting for Godot, significantly altering his delivery style, voice, and rhythm for each work.

Irwin adds fascinating insight to Beckett and his oeuvre, discussing the Nobel Prize winner’s punctuation and pronoun usage, his identity and heritage, the possible influence of vaudeville on his work, his detailed stage directions, and other intricacies. “Was Beckett a writer of the body, or of the intellect?” Irwin asks. “Smells like a question you could waste a lot of time on, but I think you can say that he was a writer acutely attuned to silhouette.” His appreciation of Beckett echoes that of Jones’s for Poe, while his simple but effective costume changes — switching among numerous bowlers, putting on baggy pants and clown shoes — work like Mandvi’s to distinguish individuals. Irwin spends a significant part of the show on Waiting for Godot, discussing the correct pronunciation of the title character’s name, examining the role of Lucky, and reminiscing about the production he appeared in with Robin Williams, John Goodman, Steve Martin, and Nathan Lane. Charlie Corcoran’s spare black set consists only of a podium and two rectangular boxes that Irwin can rearrange for various purposes. Irwin is a delight to watch, his passion for Beckett infectious. He occasionally goes off topic in comic ways, wrestling with a microphone and toying with the podium, but he eventually gets back on track for an enchanting piece of theater about theater.

The following evening, my string of one-man shows came to an end with the Wheelhouse Theater’s new adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Happy Birthday, Wanda June, opening Tuesday at the Duke. Bringing the theme full circle, Wanda June features a ferocious performance by Jason O’Connell, whom I saw last year in his own solo outing, The Dork Knight, about his lifelong affinity for Batman.

PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL

Andy Karl and Samantha Barks have some pretty big shoes to fill in Pretty Woman (photo by Matthew Murphy 2018)

Nederlander Theatre
208 West 41st St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 8, $99-$275
877-250-2929
prettywomanthemusical.com

The very enjoyable Broadway musical adaptation of Garry Marshall’s 1990 Cinderella story, Pretty Woman, is more about finding one’s place in the world, both geographically and psychologically, than merely the tale of a hooker with a heart of gold finding her Prince Charming. And speaking of place, Samantha Barks, who plays Vivian, the role that made Julia Roberts a star in the movie, has found where she belongs, center stage on Broadway, delivering an inspiring, Tony-worthy performance. The story is fairly straightforward: Vivian Ward (Barks), a broke prostitute, meets a wealthy financier, Edward Lewis (Andy Karl taking on the Richard Gere part), who treats her to the high life in order to pull off a major deal. As their public deception proceeds, both wonder whether something more is going on as they each search for somewhere to call home. (She lives in a walk-up rat trap, while he resides in a posh hotel.) “Tell me, what’s your dream? / I know you’ve got one / It’s like a map to your life / You’ll be lost until you’ve caught one,” sings a shabbily dressed Happy Man (Eric Anderson) on the seedier side of Hollywood Blvd., where he offers free maps to help people find their way.

Eric Anderson does double duty as the Happy Man and Mr. Thompson in Broadway adaptation of hit movie (photo by Matthew Murphy 2018)

“Don’t you want to get out of here?” Vivian asks her friend, fellow prostitute Kit De Luca (Orfeh, Karl’s real-life wife), who replies, “Get out of where? Where do you want to go?” A moment later Vivian sings, “I look around and what I see / Is I don’t belong here, this isn’t me. . . . I know where I’d choose to go / If I could disappear / Anywhere but here / Anywhere but here.” When Vivian meets Edward, he has taken a few wrong turns and does not know how to get back to his hotel. She asks him to pay ten dollars for her help and he says, “You can’t charge me for directions.” She smartly replies, “I can do anything I want to, baby. I ain’t lost.” But of course, they both are lost. “I can take you anywhere / ’Cause anything’s possible,” the Happy Man says as he dramatically changes into a regal concierge outfit and the set transforms into the exclusive Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where Edward lives on the top floor, even though he’s afraid of heights. Edward is working with his shifty lawyer, Phillip Stuckey (Jason Danieley), attempting a hostile takeover of a ship-building company owned by James Morse (Kingsley Leggs); it’s no accident that Edward has no real care for the business itself, which specializes in making vessels that take people to other places primarily for pleasure. As Vivian blossoms à la Eliza Doolittle, she and Edward grow very close, but they have a deal with an end date; at the start they were both in it for the money, but soon they’re thinking about the future in a different way.

Samantha Barks busts out in rip-roaring performance in Pretty Woman (photo by Matthew Murphy 2018)

One of my regular theater companions refused to join me, concerned that the show would be offensive, that it would celebrate outdated, antifeminist views about women as decorative possessions, to the point that a woman realizes survival means selling herself — and her love — like a product. But the book, by Garry Marshall and the film’s screenwriter, J. F. Lawton, and the music and lyrics, by Bryan Adams (yes, the Canadian pop star) and Jim Vallance, often put Vivian in charge, or at least have her and Edward on equal footing, although it occasionally teeters on the edge. “Don’t want this feelin’ to go away / When I think about where I was yesterday / It’s so amazing — I can’t believe / That a billionaire would care about a girl like me / I’ve got money to spend / I’ve got champagne on ice / There’s a smile on my face / I’m getting’ treated real nice,” she sings like a classic golddigger before reevaluating what she wants out of life. Barks (Les Misérables, Chicago) and three-time Tony nominee Karl (Groundhog Day, Rocky) have an instant chemistry together, with solid support from Tony nominee Orfeh (Legally Blonde, Footloose) and Anderson (Waitress, Kinky Boots), who nearly steals the show as both the Happy Man and Mr. Thompson. (Keep a watch out for Tommy Bracco, who purloins some moments of his own as Giulio, the hotel bellman.) David Rockwell’s set design rockets between wealth and poverty, while Gregg Barnes’s costumes, particularly for Barks, are fab. Gleefully directed and choreographed by Tony winner Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde), Pretty Woman turns out to be a rather pleasant surprise — led by a breakout performance by Barks.

ME & MR. JONES: MY INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH DAVID BOWIE

Raquel Cion brings her deeply personal David Bowie tribute to Pangea on May 11 & 12 (photo by Jody Christopherson)

Raquel Cion continues her fall residency at Pangea in October and November (photo by Jody Christopherson)

Pangea NYC
178 Second Ave. between Eleventh & Twelfth Sts.
Friday, October 19, and Saturday, October 20, $20 in advance, $25 at the door, $20 food/beverage minimum, 9:30
Friday, November 16, and Saturday, November 17, $20 in advance, $25 at the door, $20 food/beverage minimum, 9:30
212-995-0900
www.meandmrjonesshow.com
www.pangeanyc.com

In a November 2015 twi-ny talk, Raquel Cion said, “Isn’t it great to be amidst a flurry of Bowie activity?” referring to Bowie’s sudden resurgence with an off-Broadway musical, new album, and various other new songs. “Oh, I have so much to say,” she added. Cion continues to have much to say as the show keeps evolving, especially following Bowie’s death in January 2016 at the age of sixty-nine; the massive success of the immensely popular “David Bowie is” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, for which you need to get timed tickets in advance; and Cion’s own battle with breast cancer, which she bravely documented on social media.

In Me & Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie, librarian and chanteuse Cion reflects on her life through her worship of Bowie — who was born David Jones — singing Bowie songs and sharing deeply personal anecdotes that are both moving and funny. She is not a Bowie impersonator; she interprets Bowie’s extraordinary music with intelligence, verve, and love. She continues the fall residency of her glittery multimedia performance, which was nominated for a 2015 New York Cabaret Award for Best Musical Comedy or Alt Cabaret Show, at Pangea October 19-20 and November 16-17, joined by Jeremy Bass on guitar, Daniel Shuman on bass, Michael Ryan Morales on drums, and music director Karl Saint Lucy on piano. If you’ve seen it before, Cion is promising significant ch-ch-ch-changes for this iteration. The show is directed by Cynthia Cahill, and Cion’s glam outfits are by David Quinn. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door, with a $20 food and beverage minimum.

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY

Mare Winningham and Stephen Bogardus play a married couple facing multiple dilemmas in Girl from the North Country (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Public Theater, Newman Theater
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 23, $120
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org

Conor McPherson’s Girl from the North Country is like a grand, epic Bob Dylan song brought to life — think “Desolation Row,” “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts,” and “Brownsville Girl” (which he wrote with playwright Sam Shepard). It’s long (about two and a half hours), it has multiple key characters and subplots, and it’s not always clear exactly what’s going on. The show, which has been extended through December 23 at the Public’s Newman Theater, is also deeply involving, honest, and poetic. The elegiac story is a flashback to the iron-ore shipping town of Duluth, Minnesota, in the winter of 1934, where Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman seven years later. It’s set in a failing guesthouse run by Nick Laine (Stephen Bogardus), a kind soul who is taking care of his mentally ill wife, Elizabeth (Mare Winningham), and their troubled twenty-year-old biological son, Gene (Colton Ryan), who can’t commit to a job or his ex-girlfriend, Kate Draper (Caitlin Houlahan). The white couple also has a bright and lovely nineteen-year-old adopted black daughter, Marianne (Kimber Sprawl), who is pregnant.

Among those staying at the guesthouse — skillfully designed by Rae Smith, who also did the period costumes — are stalwart businessman Frank Burke (Marc Kudisch), his wife, Laura (Luba Mason), and their on-the-spectrum grown son, Elias (Todd Almond); Mrs. Neilsen (Jeannette Bayardelle), a recent widow who is having an affair with Nick and waiting on money from her late husband’s estate; and Bible salesman Reverend Marlowe (David Pittu) and formerly incarcerated boxer Joe Scott (Sydney James Harcourt), who arrive together. Determined to find a spouse for Marianne, Nick has invited sixty-nine-year-old shoe mender Mr. Perry (Tom Nelis) to come over and offer his hand to her. Dr. Walker (Robert Joy) serves as an Our Town–like narrator. “My name is George Arthur Walker. I’m a doctor. Least I was. Back when this was our world,” he says at the beginning. “I healed some bodies in pain. But as we know pain comes in all kinds. Physical, spiritual. Indescribable.”

Elias Burke (Todd Almond) takes center stage for a surreal version of “Duquesne Whistle” in Dylan musical at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

Two-time Tony nominee McPherson (Shining City, The Seafarer), who wrote and directed the production, does a marvelous job incorporating songs from throughout Dylan’s wide-ranging fifty-plus-year career, selecting well-known favorites (“Like a Rolling Stone,” “Idiot Wind”) along with lesser-known gems (“Went to See the Gypsy,” “Tight Connection to My Heart [Has Anyone Seen My Love?”], “True Love Tends to Forget”). The characters and plot elements are not taken directly from Dylan songs; instead, they add depth to each other, creating a compelling mood and atmosphere of 1930s America, a time when many a dream died hard. (It’s actually a little disappointing when Scott starts singing “Hurricane,” Dylan’s ode to wrongly imprisoned black boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, as it’s the only predictable musical moment of the show.) The music also exists in a different period of time and space than the narrative; the songs are sung by the actors out of character, at a microphone, as the rest of the cast carries on in the background.

Kimber Sprawl and Sydney James Harcourt team up for a duet in Conor McPherson’s Girl from the North Country (photo by Joan Marcus)

Among the musical highlights are Winningham delivering a stunning reimagining of “I Want You”; several performers joining in for a soulful medley of “Slow Train” and “Jokerman”; and a rousing rendition of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” that brings the house down to start the second act. Nearly every song has been significantly rearranged by orchestrator and music supervisor Simon Hale with McPherson, which works exceptionally well and makes sense, since Dylan has been reinventing his tunes for decades, often rendering them nearly unrecognizable (which you can hear for yourself when Dylan and his band come to the Beacon Theatre November 23 to December 1). It’s all played with heart by a four-piece band situated in a far corner, consisting of music director Marco Paguia on piano and harmonium, Ross Martin on guitar, Martha McDonnell on violin and mandolin, and Mary Ann McSweeney on bass (with various actors occasionally sitting at the drum kit at the front of the stage). The ensemble also features Matthew Frederick Harris, John Schiappa, Rachel Stern, and Chelsea Lee Williams, who play minor characters and sing. Girl from the North Country is a haunting look at America’s past — and future, perhaps? — from two extraordinary storytellers.

SUDDENLY

John Baron (Drew Allen) talks to a crony while a terrified Ellen Benson (Phoebe Dunn) watches in Suddenly (photo by Victor Llorente)

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Tuesday – Saturday through October 20, $35, 8:30
212-647-0202
www.here.org
www.live-source.org

Live Source Theatre Group’s Suddenly is a taut if clumsily rendered adaptation of Lewis Allen’s 1954 thriller, with adroit changes to Richard Sale’s screenplay that add contemporary relevance. Adapted by Gianfranco Settecasi and directed by Tyler Mercer, the play, which continues at HERE through October 20, takes place on a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1954, in a suburban house overlooking the train station. Living in the home is Ellen Benson (Phoebe Dunn), who has a hatred of guns ever since her husband was killed in the war; her young son, Pidge (Henry Fin Berry), who wants to be a sheriff when he grows up; and her father, Pop (Joseph J. Menino), a former Secret Service agent who once took a bullet for President Calvin Coolidge. Local sheriff Tod Shaw (Brendan Walsh) has a habit of stopping by, as he’s in love with Ellen, who is not ready to move on from her husband’s death. Ellen is furious when Pidge comes home with a toy gun Tod bought him, one that looks very much like the real thing. As the family waits for Jud Kelly (Sean A. Kaufman) to arrive to fix the busted television, three other men unexpectedly show up, identifying themselves as federal agents: John Baron (Drew Allen), Bart Wheeler (Chris Dieman), and Benny Conklin (Ariel Estrada). Baron claims that they are there because the president will be making a train stop in Suddenly later that afternoon and the Benson house provides a perfect vantage point for someone to attempt an assassination. However, it turns out that Baron and his cronies are the assassins, and the depraved Baron threatens to slice Pidge’s throat if anyone tries to stop them.

John Baron (Drew Allen) takes over the Benson household in theatrical adaptation of 1954 thriller Suddenly (photo by Victor Llorente)

While the original, which evoked such claustrophobic classics as The Petrified Forest and Key Largo, focuses on the demonic character of Baron, Mercer (Bohemian Lights, The Incredible Fox Sisters) and Settecasi’s update (Uncle Gifff’s Christmas Special) concentrates on the 1950s sensibility of a traditional American family, seen through a lens more than sixty years later, with an important twist: Instead of being proud that her husband died for his country, Ellen is angry. And she doesn’t want her son to follow in his father’s footsteps — nor does she want Pidge to have even a toy gun. The gun plays a pivotal role in this adaptation, given the current furor over gun control in America and police shootings of people, including children, holding fake pistols or other objects. The acting is stylized: midcentury plain with a touch of noir. Mercer wisely chooses not to have Allen, Walsh, and Menino compete with Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, and James Gleason, who played their respective parts in the film. However, Dunn brings a modern edge to Ellen, portrayed by Nancy Gates in movie, giving her more strength and a deeper texture. Where Gates’s Ellen faints, Dunn’s takes action. The cast stumbles over some lines, Allen removes his hat way too much, the video projections are relatively unimaginative (except for the opening credits sequence), Pop says he wants to watch the White Sox-Cubs game but it’s a Pittsburgh-New York matchup that ultimately comes on, and the climactic scene in which Jud and Pop try to electrocute Baron using the broken television is completely botched — what’s with those black wires running across the stage through the whole show anyway? But there’s still enough to enjoy in this straightforward adaptation, which includes an in-your-face ending that differs greatly from the film’s conclusion.