this week in theater

SEARCHING FOR BELONGING: THE HAIRY APE AT IRISH REP

Seven stokers are trapped in a hellish existence in Irish Rep revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (photo by Carol Rosegg)

THE HAIRY APE
Irish Repertory Theatre, Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West 22nd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through November 15, $55-$125
irishrep.org

“It takes a man to work in hell,” Yank (Jon Beavers) declares early on in the Irish Rep’s new production of Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 drama, The Hairy Ape.

Previously presented there in 2006, the ninety-minute play, again helmed by company producing artistic director Ciarán O’Reilly, is a fierce examination of class warfare, with a scintillating first half that loses some of its steam as it descends into didacticism in the latter scenes, although its subtitle is as relevant as ever: A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life in Eight Scenes.

The show opens in the firemen’s forecastle of a transatlantic liner, where seven men, their bodies covered in glistening sweat and black smears, sleep in bunk beds and shovel coal into furnaces to keep the ship running. They are led by Yank, the alpha male who is quick to berate the others, particularly when they fail to recognize the truth of their situation, animals trapped in cages. Several of the stokers ask Paddy (John Keating) to sing a drinking song, and the older man serenades them with “Whisky Johnny,” singing, “Whisky took away all my clothes / Whisky, Johnny! / Whisky gave me this big red nose! / Whisky for my Johnny O!”

Yank, who was born and raised on the Brooklyn waterfront, decries, “Aw hell! Nix on dat old sailing ship stuff! All dat bull’s dead, see? And you’re dead, too, yuh damned old Harp, on’y yuh don’t know it. Take it easy, see. Give us a rest. Nix on de loud noise. Can’t youse see I’m tryin’ to t’ink?”

When Long (Ariyan Kassam) starts quoting the Bible and arguing that the ship is their home, Yank delivers a brief speech that gets to the heart of the matter:

“Sit down before I knock yuh down! De Bible, huh? De Cap’tlist class, huh? Aw nix on dat Salvation Army–Socialist bull. Git a soapbox! Hire a hall! Come and be saved, huh? Jerk us to Jesus, huh? Aw g’wan! I’ve listened to lots of guys like you, see? You’re all wrong. Wanter know what I t’ink? Yuh ain’t no good for no one. Yuh’re de bunk. Yuh ain’t got no noive, get me? Yuh’re yellow, dat’s what. Yellow, dat’s you. Say! What’s dem slobs in de foist cabin got to do wit us? We’re better men dan dey are, ain’t we? Sure! One of us guys could clean up de whole mob wit one mit. Put one of ’em down here for one watch in de stokehole, what’d happen? Day’d carry him off on a stretcher. Dem boids don’t amount to nothin’. Dey’re just baggage. Who makes dis old tub run? Ain’t it us guys? Well den, we belong, don’t we? We belong and dey don’t. Dat’s all. As for dis bein’ hell — aw, nuts! Yuh lost your noive, dat’s what. Dis is a man’s job, get me? It belongs. It runs dis tub. No stiffs need apply. But yuh’re a stiff, see? Yuh’re yellow, dat’s you.”

The concept of belonging is central to the narrative; Yank utters some form of the word forty times as he tries to establish his place in a world that refuses to acknowledge his existence, that he matters.

As the first scene ends, the platform-ceiling above the forecastle starts moving downward, at first trapping the men, then nearly crushing them before they exit. On top of the platform, the well-dressed Mildred Douglas (Elizabeth Teeter) and her aunt (Joanna Glushak) are relaxing in deck chairs, enjoying the glorious day.

“How the black smoke swirls back against the sky! Is it not beautiful?” Mildred says dreamily. Mildred is a twenty-year-old college student studying sociology; her father is the president of Nazareth Steel, which his father founded, and chairman of the board of directors of the shipping line. When Mildred expresses her interest in seeing how the other half lives, her pompous, pretentious aunt is offended. Mildred want to help them but doesn’t know how, feeling as if she’s confined by her family’s immense wealth, a victim of their millions.

“Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque,” Mildred says. “Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy — only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a cage they make you conspicuous.”

Mildred is soon led into the stokehole by the second engineer (Nayib Felix). Everything comes to a sudden halt when Mildred, a vision in glowing white, sees Yank, and he, not knowing what the other men are staring at, whirls around, ready to attack with his shovel, until he and Mildred lock eyes. It’s a potent moment when everything comes into focus: men vs. women, rich vs. poor, heaven vs. hell, cleanliness vs. filth, the cultured elite vs. the dirty animal.

“Take me away! Oh, the filthy beast!” she declares, then faints.

In the next scene, a furious Yank and the ever-calm Paddy are discussing the incident. Yank asks, “Say, is dat what she called me — a hairy ape?” Paddy answers, “She looked it at you if she didn’t say the word itself.” Yank replies, “Hairy ape, huh? Sure! Dat’s de way she looked at me, aw right. Hairy ape! So dat’s me, huh? Yuh skinny tart! Yuh white-faced bum, yuh! I’ll show yuh who’s a ape!”

Three weeks later, Yank and Long, on shore leave, are on Fifth Avenue in New York City, in front of Saks, as Yank explores how the other half lives. But Yank doesn’t belong in this world as he is arrested and put behind bars, visits the local headquarters of the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and goes to the monkey house at the zoo. There seems to be no escape for him from being treated like a caged beast, trapped by steel.

John Keating excels yet again as Paddy in The Hairy Ape (photo by Carol Rosegg)

The Hairy Ape was inspired by O’Neill’s experience as a merchant seaman and a stoker he met named Driscoll. “He was a giant of a man, and absurdly strong,” O’Neill explained. “He thought a whole lot of himself, was a determined individualist. He was very proud of his strength, his capacity for grueling work. It seemed to give him mental poise to be able to dominate the stokehole, do more work than any of his mates.” O’Neill was shocked when he heard that Driscoll had committed suicide by jumping off a ship.

O’Reilly’s (Ulster American, Philadelphia, Here I Come!) staging is powerful, with master set designer Charlie Corcoran literally reaching new levels with the moving platform, which is like a character unto itself; the jail scene is also clever with its use of two rows of cells with red bars. Michael Gottlieb’s lighting and Florian Staab’s sound, accompanied by Ryan Rumery’s original period music, emphasize the differences between the dark dense stokehole and the society above, which is furthered by Orla Long’s costumes, which range from the grimy work clothes of the stokers to the bright and fanciful suits and dresses worn by strolling New Yorkers.

Despite his lack of chest hair, Beavers is ferocious as Yank, a role previously performed onstage by Paul Robeson, Willem Dafoe, and Booby Cannavale and on film by William Bendix. Yank is a man out of time, unwilling to make compromises in a world that ignores him. He is constantly trying to think (or, as he says, “t’ink”), considering his options, occasionally evoking Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture The Thinker. It may be 1922, but it could just as well be 2026, as the wealth gap in America continues to increase while issues of gender and religion are still front and center.

Keating (Autumn Royal, The Naturalists), one of our finest character actors, is superb as Paddy, an old timer who adds welcome doses of charm and comedy as he hold on to a past that is quickly disappearing, much like the men themselves. Yank might be extra hard on Paddy, but, in his final monologue, it’s Paddy’s words that come to him.

O’Neill overplays his hand in the later scenes; Yank’s encounter with the IWW and the repetition of the concept of belonging feel stale today. But the first half of the show, with its testosterone seeping throughout every crevice of the theater, is one that I’ll remember for a long time.

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

A LOVE LETTER TO THE THEATER: GOOD TIME CHARLIE AT THE PUBLIC

Ryan J. Haddad pays tribute to his beloved uncle in Good Time Charlie at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

GOOD TIME CHARLIE
The Public Theater, Martinson Hall
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 25, $99
www.publictheater.org

Ryan J. Haddad has made his mark as the solo performer of such evocative, graphic, and compelling autobiographical shows as Dark Disabled Stories, Hold Me in the Water, and Hi, Are You Single? He reaches the next level with the evocative, graphic, and compelling Good Time Charlie, his first multicharacter, multigenerational play, one that offers audiences a damn good time.

Haddad is still at the center of it all, even though it’s about his real-life relation, Uncle Charlie (Jonathan Raviv), who actually is his father’s first cousin. At the beginning, Haddad says to us, “Hello, all you beautiful people out there in the dark. My name is Ryan J. Haddad. Thank you for coming out to the Public Theater and our production of Good Time Charlie. If you know my work, you probably know me as an autobiographical performer, usually a solo performer. But I’ve been putting my family in plays for decades. From the ages of five to thirteen, I was the artistic director of the Haddad Theater, and together with my family, we put on plays of my favorite movies and musicals. We started in the living room, then moved to the backyard.”

It’s a smart way to start the show; not only does it introduce Haddad to audience members who might not know much about him, but it also lets everyone see that he uses a metallic reverse posture-control walker; he later explains that he has cerebral palsy. The premise of Good Time Charlie is that Ryan is now putting on a play about and starring his family in an expensive re-creation of the Japanese-inspired garden at the home of Charlie and his longtime partner, Lou (Timothy Bagley). In addition, it sets up an ongoing subplot in which writer-actor Haddad battles for control with Charlie, who is not always fond of where Haddad takes the narrative.

Charlie: Remember, doll, it’s my play.
Ryan: Our play.
Charlie: They’re here to see me. My name is in the title.
Ryan: They don’t know who you are.
Charlie: They’re about to find out!

Throughout the 135-minute production (including intermission), there are constant interruptions in which the characters ask Ryan questions about their parts and suggest changes to the script, none of which makes Ryan happy. It’s a wonderfully multilayered meta as the actors portray characters portraying their younger selves, who remember certain things differently or don’t want to relive painful memories.

The deeply personal tale travels between 1976 and the present, with stops in 1976 Ohio, where Charlie is attending Heidelberg College, to 1983, when he meets Lou in a gay bar in Cleveland, to 1998, when Ryan is six and is staging his third show, an adaptation of the TV movie Cinderella starring Brandy. Ryan is the prince, of course; his cool lesbian aunt, Janice (Beth Malone), is Cinderella; his great-aunt Joan (Artemis Pebdani), Charlie’s mother, is the evil stepmother; and Charlie Sr. (Nael Nacer) is the king. Their repartee helps establish the characters’ relationship with one another as well as the pacing of Good Time Charlie itself.

Haddad introduces his own parents, Bob (Nacer) and Judy (Pebdani), when they all start arguing over who got Ryan interested in theater in the first place. Bob and Judy let their son know that they’re not thrilled that the play is not about them.

Bob: We’re the ones who clothed you, fed you, wiped your ass.
Janice: Hey, I did that, too.
Judy: It really is better to write about your parents before we die.
Bob: He can’t. He’s always writing about gay people.

Ryan furthers his love of theater and especially old movies under the tutelage of Sheldon (Michael Cristofer), the artistic director of a local repertory movie house and a close friend of Lou’s; they talk about Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, Tennessee Williams, and other gay icons.

There are also critical and insightful discussions about coming out, loneliness, and aging as several of the older characters fall ill.

A terrific cast becomes a second family for Ryan J. Haddad in autobiographical play (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Lebanese American Haddad is a fierce storyteller, driven by a brutal honesty that is central to his shows. In Hold Me in the Water, his descriptions of his first sexual encounters with men are the most graphically specific I’ve heard in theater, whether gay or straight. In Hi, Are You Single?, he is so in need of companionship and closeness that he brings up a volunteer from the audience to dance with, despite a disability that requires him to keep his walker within arm’s reach at all times. And in Dark Disabled Stories, which focuses on his fraught relationship with public transportation, he tells the audience early on, “I try to make disability funny so that nondisabled people can understand it and open themselves to it and realize that it’s not so scary, so dark. And make it more accessible for them. Not tonight. I don’t feel like it. I’m not saying I won’t make you laugh at all. I’ll probably make you laugh a lot. I’m a naturally comedic person, but . . . not everything is accessible to us, so why should we try to make our experiences accessible to you?”

In Good Time Charlie, Haddad is not afraid to share his intense theatrical ambition. In one of the play’s most powerful scenes, Haddad gets angry when Charlie, who became a dentist instead of pursuing his artistic dreams, starts tearing pages out of the script. “Like it or not, this is the material we have. Either you want to play it or you don’t,” Ryan tells his beloved uncle, who replies, “Honey, I know what a good script looks like. I’ve been seeing theater my entire life.” Ryan shoots back, “And I’m the one who’s actually doing it.”

When one of the characters suffers a major health problem and needs a walker, the effect on Haddad is palpable. Yes, the person is more than twice Haddad’s age, but while the character moves painfully slowly, Haddad often puts his walker aside as he sits in chairs, dances with his aunt, and — well, I don’t want to give away the surprise, even though Haddad lets us know what’s coming. When he is without his walker, Haddad needs help standing, and the other actors/characters assist him, but Haddad is not seeking sympathy. He is just revealing what his everyday life is like.

Affectionately directed by Danny Sharron (Hold Me in the Water, Okay) on Afsoon Pajoufar’s lovely garden set (beautifully lit by Barbara Samuels, with expert sound and music by Ryan Gamblin), the play does veer toward sentiment and melodrama in the second act, but otherwise it is a triumph. The cast, in Enver Chakartash’s warm, occasionally flashy contemporary costumes, is so involved that they feel like members of your own extended family: Malone (Fun Home) is delightful as a gay woman who is completely comfortable with the choices she’s made, Cristofer (The Shadow Box) is endearing as the fair but firm friend, Nacer (Meet the Cartozians) and Pebdami (Wish You Were Here) find the right balance in portraying two very different sets of parents, Bagley (No Actors Allowed) is gentle as the man who often serves as mediator, and Raviv (The Bands Visit) is so believable as the title character that it’s hard to believe he’s not really Ryan’s uncle.

Nearly ten years in the making, Good Time Charlie is a love letter to the arts, to the people who are important to us, and to the Public Theater itself (through several funny inside jokes), where Haddad has found a second home.

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

FRIGHTENED SHEEP: HUMAN THINGS AT THE WEST END THEATRE

Two couples hunker down for a coming storm in Human Things at the West End Theatre (photo by Emilio Madrid)

HUMAN THINGS
West End Theatre at St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church
263 West Eighty-Sixth St. between Broadway & West End Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 30, $49-$119
humanthingsplay.com
wetnyc.org

Joshua Owen’s debut play, Human Things, offers the opportunity to see a bravura performance from a two-time Tony winner in a tiny space. Victoria Clark is phenomenal in the bumpy play at Bedlam’s upstairs space at the West End Theatre, which holds a mere seventy-six seats in four rafters on two sides of the staging area, which is essentially the floor. It’s so intimate that you have to walk through the set in order to get to your seat, which is particularly engaging following a major change for the second act.

Margaret (Rebeca Robles) and Greg (Ben Rosenfield) are a married couple living on a remote atoll in the South Pacific; she is an ornithologist studying a bird sanctuary that is experiencing a serious, unaccounted-for decline, while he is an engineer who tinkers with electronics and reads Søren Kierkegaard. Margaret is mad that she slept on the beach the night before and he did not come looking for her, apparently unconcerned that she did not make it home. They bicker for far too long, about that, as well as the future of humankind and the planet.

“I hate feeling like this,” she says. He replies, “Like what?” She responds, “Like I’m a person who is alive and paying attention at the end of the world.”

With nothing better to do, they decide to have sex, but in the midst of their lovemaking, an older man enters their cabin, brusquely calling for help. Bo (Michael Mulheren) explains that he and his wife, Darce (Clark), were sailing when their boat hit a coral reef and she was injured. He demands their help, but Greg is suspicious; he feels the couple may be up to something.

“You think he wants to hurt me? Come on,” Margaret says. “If he were some psycho axe murderer, there are, you know, easier ways than sailing out to the middle of the ocean and crossing your fingers that you find your next victim on some fucking island. Besides, look at him. He’s harmless.”

Bo and Greg bring back Darce, who, with her leg bleeding, is worried that there might be Japanese soldiers around still fighting WWII. When Greg assures her that even if there were, they would be too old, Darce says, “So, what — old people can’t be dangerous?”

Bo and Darce quickly grow extremely comfortable in the cabin while feeling free to treat their saviors with a cynicism and skepticism that annoys Greg. When a severe storm warning is broadcast over the radio, Bo and Greg head to the shed for supplies, leaving Margaret and Darce to contemplate what’s next.

When Darce points out that Margaret only watches the birds but doesn’t do anything to save them from extinction, the ornithologist says, “This is my life and I am an adult woman with agency and with skills and I want to use that agency and those skills to, you know, do something.” The older and wiser Darce answers, “Ahh. The affliction of protagonism. . . . The pathological needs to do things. To change outcomes. To matter. But we don’t really matter all that much. Life is mostly just sitting and watching.”

The storm hits hard, setting the stage for the gripping second act, in which Clark really gets to strut her stuff.

Greg (Ben Rosenfield) is suspicious of Bo (Michael Mulheren) in Joshua Owen’s debut play (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Owen wrote the play while he and his wife, Robles, were sheltering in place during the pandemic, so isolation was on their mind, although Margaret and Greg are not based on their real relationship. The setup is like a reversal of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which a young couple in love visits an older, bickering couple named Martha and George — like Margaret and Greg? It also has elements of Gilligan’s Island, though not nearly as silly — or funny.

The title of the play comes from C. S. Lewis’s 1948 essay “On Living in an Atomic Age,” in which the author of the Narnia series writes, “If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

Previously called Gods of Mercy, Human Things considers those options, the atomic bomb being represented by the typhoon, which itself evokes how climate change might kill us all. Neither Darce nor Margaret has kids, so, in a way, they are already looking at the end of the road for them. Darce is in an especially fraught predicament, which causes further disagreement between Margaret and Greg, leading to a crazy finale that furthers the play’s exploration of marriage and motherhood in a way that will confound and confuse many but I found both hilarious and prescient.

Five-time Tony nominee Clark (The Light in the Piazza, Kimberly Akimbo) is a force to be reckoned with, delivering a master class in acting in the second half of the show, one you’ll not soon forget. Tony nominee Mulheren (Bright Star, Kiss Me, Kate) is a fine companion as the bold, bearlike Bo, looking like someone who has just come from a Jimmy Buffett concert. (The costumes are by Amanda Roberge.) Robles, making her off-Broadway debut as a producer and an actor, and Rosenfield (The Nether, Love, Love, Love) are hampered by repetitive dialogue that too often lacks nuance.

Director Rory McGregor makes the most of Jacob Bers’s terrific set, which features two tables, one a mini-kitchenette, the other cluttered with electronics, and some chairs and a couch, while a large white tentlike cloth hovers above the characters and the audience, implicating all of us in the fate of the Earth. Reza Behjat’s lighting, Ian Scot’s sound, and Thomas Jenkeleit’s props create a fantastic low-budget storm that rattles the theater.

Margaret sums it all up when she states, “Everything might be shit but at least I’m here to bear witness.”

What’s more human than that?

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

GOOD NIGHT, MR. CALABASH: ROGER GUENVEUR SMITH HONORS JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT AT NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP

Roger Guenveur Smith remembers his friend and collaborator in solo show In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

IN HONOR OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
New York Theatre Workshop
83 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Through October 10, $54-$99
www.nytw.org

I’m not sure I can fairly assess Roger Guenveur Smith’s latest solo show, In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a poetic tribute to his good friend and collaborator, the Brooklyn-born artist and musician who soared to fame in the 1980s before dying from a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-seven.

The night I went, a jazz performer and friend of Smith’s was in the audience, to my left in the row ahead of me, interacting with Smith throughout the sixty-minute show. He called out loudly twice, once when Smith was re-creating part of the 2017 auction of Basquiat’s untitled skull painting that went for $110.5 million, a record at the time for an American artist, and again when Smith was talking about Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, in which Smith portrayed Smiley, a character he based on Basquiat. During several moments, the man enthusiastically shook his calabash, a percussive gourd, drowning out Smith’s words. Smith seemed happy nonetheless; initially surprised by his friend’s appearance, he later shouted out for him to join in. The man also regularly boisterously voiced his acknowledgment and recognition (mm-hhmm, uh-huh), adding exclamation points to Smith’s calmly delivered dialogue. In general, such utterances are fine, but when offered again and again and again, with no joiners in the audience, well, it got to feel like a bit much, especially since it was happening so close to me.

In the show, which has been extended at New York Theatre Workshop through October 10, Smith stands stage right, at a slight angle, barefoot in a dark suit, an homage to how Basquiat often dressed. On the opposite side, Marc Anthony Thompson operates live sound design, from music to immersive sound effects that work better when not competing with noise from an audience member. In between them, a door in the back wall offers shadowy glimpses of another time and place. (The set is by Raphael Mishler, with soft lighting by Arlo Sanders.)

Smith relates biographical information with personal vignettes about both his and Basquiat’s lives, connecting them to other artists and public figures and historical occurrences. For example, after mentioning that Basquiat’s Haitian father came to Brooklyn in 1955, he points out that was also the year that Emmett Till was murdered, Disneyland opened, the Dodgers won the World Series, and Charlie Parker died. He notes that Basquiat was born six days after planes collided over Staten Island, one crashing into Prospect Park. He tells us that Basquiat got hit by a car and lost his spleen in 1968, the same year his mentor, Andy Warhol, was shot by Valerie Solanas. He says that Basquiat’s parents met at a Brooklyn dance hall, while he and Basquiat met at a Brooklyn dance hall.

Some of these comparisons are intriguing, but others seem like too much of a stretch. Also referenced are Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, Robert Rauschenberg, David Byrne, Michael Stewart, Eric Dolphy, Bob Marley, Frantz Fanon, Mark Twain, James Van Der Zee, and Marcus Garvey. In addition to the skull painting, Smith also brings up 1981’s Bird on Money, a tribute to Charlie Parker that includes a depiction of Green-Wood Cemetery, where Basquiat would be buried six years later, 1982’s The Pilgrimage, on which Basquiat wrote “twenty seven,” his age when he died, and 1983’s Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart).

Roger Guenveur Smith and Marc Anthony Thompson honor Jean-Michel Basquiat at New York Theatre Workshop (photo by Marcus Middleton)

The show works best when Smith, known as the rapper Hollywatts when he met Basquiat, shares stories about his close relationship with the artist, as in scenes when they go clubbing, Smith takes Basquiat to a Jamaican barber, and they talk about his drug use. Smith’s previous nonfiction solo shows include A Huey P. Newton Story, about the cofounder of the Black Panther Party; Juan and John, which delves into the 1965 confrontation between San Francisco Giants pitcher Juan Marichal and Los Angeles Dodgers catcher John Roseboro; Rodney King, about the 1992 LA riots; and Frederick Douglass Now, in which Smith portrayed the abolitionist and orator — which premiered in 2011 at La MaMa, across the street from NYTW. Although he does change voices for some of the people in In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat, he mostly relies on his own tender and moving cadence:

“Resurrected as the ascendant dread / Jean-Michel Basquiat / Unbeknowest to me / Thought JMB / Was just a cool club kid / With an electronic hairdo / Little did I know / He was incognegro numero uno / Writing acrylic poems and philosophy / On concrete walls and canvas / And refrigerator doors / A feathered Icarus / Touched by the tarbrush / The big brother / Who had thrown snowballs / And flown kites / With his two little sisters.”

The play begins with Smith explaining that his father, a former elevator operator in DC (in fact, his father was a lawyer and judge), advised him to go to a trade school, saying that “power has its ups and downs,” and opining that, regarding Basquiat, “Hell, that boy didn’t live long enough / to see his shit really sell.” His dad also told him, “So you go ahead / You be an actor / But you’ll never act yourself out of this coffin / called the US of A. . . . And before it’s all over, son / Why don’t you / Act something out / For your friend Jean-Michel / And for me.”

Initially presented in 2004 in conjunction with a revelatory Basquiat exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat, fulfills that request. I only wish I hadn’t been so distracted through most of it.

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

HUGGING IT OUT: AMERICA, WHO HURT YOU?

Sarah Jones explores the Declaration of Independence and more in latest solo show (photo by HanJie Chow)

AMERICA, WHO HURT YOU?
Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Pl. between Lafayette Ave. & Fulton St.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 4, $70-$125
www.tfana.org
americawhohurtyou.com

At the end of Sarah Jones’s potent one-woman show, America, Who Hurt You?, at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Fort Greene, the Queens-born actress, podcaster, solo specialist, and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador asks audience members to stand “and if you’re open to it, silently hug the person you’re with if you already have their consent, or you can silently give ocular hugs — I made that up.” I was there by myself on the aisle, and the seat next to me was empty; I looked around and no one near me seemed to want to hug anyone but who they were with. I was both disappointed and relieved.

However, that night there was a talkback, followed by a gathering with food and drink at a pub down the street. After filling a plate and getting a stout, I found a small round table and sat down. A woman next to me did the same at a second table. In a move that was extremely unlikely for me, I asked to join her, and she heartily accepted.

We started discussing the play, in which Jones celebrates the semiquincentennial of the nation by exploring how the past has led to the present, focusing on the ever-growing gap between right and left, Republican and Democrat, on various critical issues. I mentioned that I had wanted to ask a question at the talkback but it turned out that someone else had already submitted the same query, about how the show would play in red states; it turned out that the interlocutor was the woman I was sitting with.

Jones had answered, “I want to take this show to Hank,” referring to one of the characters she portrays, a Trump-supporting right winger. “And there’s a version of it that can actually, hopefully hold a dialogue. I have to get my ego out of the way, because I don’t think I’m going to get a standing ovation necessarily from those folks. But that’s not the point; the point is to connect and remind them that we’re related, and that maybe we can do some family counseling together.”

Jones was certainly creating connection at the party, but in this case she was preaching to the choir, an audience of New York City liberals. Would it work in MAGA territory? I wondered.

Family photographs are occasionally projected as Sarah Jones delves into America’s past and present (photo by HanJie Chow)

America, Who Hurt You? is the follow-up to Jones’s 2000 Surface Transit, set on a New York City bus; the Tony-winning 2006 Bridge & Tunnel, about New York City’s immigrant communities; and her 2016 Sell/Buy/Date, which deals with the commercial sex trade. Some of her earlier characters reappear in the latest work, which began life as a podcast about the upcoming 2024 presidential election. “We thought perhaps sanity might prevail, and it was sort of facetious. Like, ‘America, girl,’ who hurt you? Why are you like this? Are you alright? Blink twice. You in danger! Too many?” she says in the play’s introduction. “Well, we all know how it’s turned out. It’s going really well. I mean, have you bought eggs or berries or lettuce recently? No, you probably haven’t because then you might have fucking salmonella-cyclospora and have to miss the theater tonight.”

Among the characters of different genders, ethnicity, age, and class who share their opinions about the state of the nation are Lorraine (“I come from the white part of Sarah’s family that has both Christians and Jews. It’s a long story filled with intrigue and interfaith guilt.”), Nereida (“It’s feels very . . . gentrified to be with you at your Shakespeare Theater”), Rashid (“Whenever we got a room with some good white people in it, we appreciate y’all, that’s mad important, and I know this shit ain’t all your fault, however, for real for real, we gon’ need y’all to fix this.”), Gary (“It does take more than centuries of extermination campaigns, broken treaties, and making us blue creatures for the Avatar movie franchise to destroy an entire people.”), Ms. Lady (“Hank, you know good and well, y’all been lying through your teeth for centuries about the real history of America.”), Mrs. Ling (“Now this country, it’s different. It’s not safe anymore – so many people, more afraid, more separated, there’s more hate, and Sarah Jones started to be afraid for us to speak in public.”), Suneeta (“In recent years even I have begun to warn her that perhaps she should tread lightly or face possible accusations of the cultural appropriation.”), and Habiba (“The past few years especially, the voice I used to share with her, it has been silent.”).

An engaging figure and compelling storyteller, Jones also reaches into the country’s not-always-illustrious history as we meet Louise, who was sold as a slave when she was twelve; Civil War veteran Juan-Carlos, a Mexican who argues that the North broke promises they made to foreign soldiers; and Moira, Jeannie, Shizuko, Edmund, and Marcus, who help round out the diaspora. Jones employs only minor adjustments in shifting among characters, changing her accent and her body movement.

There are also several phone conversations between Britain (“America, I love you, but you are at a frightful bottom – we believe you’re in complete denial, and this is a therapeutic intervention.”) and America (“I’m just getting better and better – like, I’m the hottest country in the world, no one can get in!”)

Projections behind Jones feature family photographs, a live video feed, and a timeline that would probably be controversial in many schools, as the truth hurts. It’s likely no accident that the official logo of the play has a whole lot more red than it does blue in its patriotic design. The play is warmly directed by Eric Ting (The Comeuppance, Between Two Knees), with set and lighting by Jiyoun Chang, sound by Palmer Hefferan, costume by Toni-Leslie James, and video by Stefania Bulbarella.

A production of the National Black Theatre and Theatre for a New Audience, America, Who Hurt You? was commissioned by Oxford University for its Unfinished Revolutions series, comprising works by Suzan-Lori Parks, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Anna Clyne and Jody Elff, Taylor Mac and Matt Ray, and Lil Buck and Dannielle “Rhimes” Lecointe. It’s part history lesson, part tribute to America’s melting-pot legacy, and part screed about how we ended up where we are. Some of her comparisons do lean into obvious left-wing judgments and verbiage over the one-hundred-minute performance, but it is an ever-evolving narrative, notably with the midterms approaching. “With the current news cycle, I basically have to rewrite it twice a day,” Jones says. “Like brushing my fucking teeth.”

In 2026 America, even the brand of toothpaste she uses is probably controversial. She’ll find out when she takes her show on the road.

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

TO BE HAMLET, OR NOT TO BE HAMLET: THAT IS THE CONUNDRUM

(photo by Valerie Terranova Photography)

Damon Horowitz’s Becoming Hamlet gives him and the audience the opportunity to portray the tragic Danish prince (photo by Valerie Terranova Photography)

BECOMING HAMLET
Five Angels Theater
789 Tenth Ave. at Fifty-Second St.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 3, $29-$79
becominghamlet.com

To be Hamlet, or not to be Hamlet: That is the question posed in Becoming Hamlet, which continues at Five Angels Theater through October 3.

If you are a purist who wants to see Hamlet, perhaps William Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, this play is not the thing. However, if you’ve ever wanted to portray the Dane, for a few seconds or a minute or two, then this show just might be the thing, a fun participatory event for those who have dreamed of at least temporary stardom.

Adapted by Damon Horowitz and directed by Sybille Bruun, Becoming Hamlet has streamlined the often-three-hour-play to about a hundred bumpy minutes. The audience has the choice of watching in standard riser seating or participating, in which case they sit on a chair on the floor. Everyone is considered to be Hamlet, as if the conflicted prince has been divided into dozens of beings and personalities. The night I attended, there were about twenty-five Hamlets on the floor and approximately fifteen people in the risers, with plenty of empty seats.

As you enter the theater, characters engage you in conversation — a man in a regal blue suit walked up to me and was surprised when I correctly addressed him as Polonius, so we spoke about whether I was being faithful to Ophelia while studying in Wittenberg. Facilitators in dark cloaks (Tristan Andre, Emily Jackoway, Addy Jenkins, Sevans Martinez) approach you and ask what kind of a role you want, from reading a line on a card to going onstage for something more. I was given the line “I am constant to my purposes” from act five, scene two, and told that I would be led around the right side of the space, then walk slowly to the center, where I would face the audience and make my Shakespearean debut.

While waiting for my moment in the sun — or, in this case, darkness — I couldn’t help but recall two recent dreams in which I was an actor in a play and completely blanked out on my lines, intense fear and embarrassment overwhelming me. So I studied the card relentlessly, even as I occasionally was tapped to deliver other bits of dialogue. Some audience members were led onstage and read lines that were projected on the walls at the right and left.

Alas, a gravedigger (Equiano Mosieri) introduces poor Yorick in classic Shakespeare scene (photo by Valerie Terranova Photography)

The production features fine costumes by Amit Gajwani, with Gertrude (Desiree Baxter) and Ophelia (Jude Feingold) standing out in fabulous shoes. The story has been whittled down to the basics: Hamlet (Horowitz) has returned home to see his recently widowed mother, Gertrude, marry his dead father’s brother, Claudius (David Littleton), who has assumed the crown. Accompanied by his best friend, Horatio (Tyler Moss), Hamlet is told by his father’s ghost (Equiano Mosieri) that Claudius in fact murdered King Hamlet, and he considers revenge. He is in love with Ophelia, whose father, Polonius (Jim Pratzon), is chief counsel to Claudius and whose brother, Laertes (Steven Lamon), is suspicious of Hamlet. As Hamlet appears to be going mad, Claudius summons his nephew’s childhood friend, Guildenkrantz (Truman Gaudoin) — Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been turned into one person — to be spies for him. There’s a play-within-the-play and a visit to a graveyard, but otherwise various other subplots and minor characters have been excised.

The pacing is inconsistent, since it is dependent on the skills of several dozen nonprofessional actors. Various words are repeated in ways that seem random. The show doesn’t provide new insight into the work; instead, if feels more like a vanity project for Horowitz and the audience, arranged just so they can all play the tormented Danish prince. If you go with that as your goal, not caring about the intricate emotional and psychological aspects of Shakespeare’s story, then you will most likely be fine with what you get.

As my time approached, I devised a plan: Since I was going to deliver my line center stage, only a few feet from my chair, I placed the card facing out. I was tapped on the shoulder, and a facilitator led me on my journey. Finally standing at my spot, I began my very brief soliloquy: “I am constant,” I said defiantly, and then forgot the next word. I looked out at the audience, then, attempting a natural maneuver, at my chair, where I could read the large type. I firmly, proudly stated, “to my purposes,” as if the pause was, well, on purpose.

I sat back down and breathed a huge, silent sigh of relief.

Later, as I was heading for the bus, three women who had been at the show called out to me, “Congratulations!”

I felt like a star.

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

UNVEILING VÁCLAV: CELEBRATING HAVEL’S NINETIETH

A new production of Václav Havel’s Unveiling comes to Chelsea this month (photo courtesy Untitled Theater Company No. 61)

UNVEILING
Torn Page
435 West Twenty-Second St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Thursday – Saturday, October 1–17, general admission $2, suggested donation $25
untitledtheater.com
tornpage.org

In honor of what would have been Václav Havel’s ninetieth birthday — the first president of the Czech Republic and acclaimed dissident playwright died in 2011 at the age of seventy-five — Edward Einhorn and Untitled Theater Company No. 61 are bringing a revival of Havel’s 1975 absurdist one-act play Unveiling (Vernisáž) to Torn Page in Chelsea, in association with the Czech Center New York. Part of the Vaněk Trilogy that also includes Audience and Protest, the work continues the story of Ferdinand Vaněk, a kind of Havel alter ego who battles authoritarianism.

In Unveiling, running October 1–17 in a production directed by Einhorn using a translation by Jan Novák, Vaněk is invited to see how two of his friends, Vera and Michael, have upgraded their apartment, where they get caught up in a debate about moral integrity and Communism in a way that relates to what is happening today, when Americans are faced with ever-more-ethical choices nearly every day. When the couple shows him their new confessional, he asks, “What do you do with it?” The cast features Craig Anderson, Bob Brader, and Yvonne Roen, with costumes by Ramona Ponce.

On October 5 ($27.50), the play will move to the Bohemian National Hall on the Upper East Side for one night only, with live ASL translation, followed by a panel discussion and a reception with goulash.

And on October 12 at Torn Page, Untitled Theater Company No. 61 will present a staged reading of Einhorn’s Frida Vaněk, a modern sequel to Unveiling starring Vas Eli, Nalina Mann, Alyssa Simon, and Richard Toth, about Ferdinand’s niece, whose mother dies, leaving behind a file that contains some surprising information. General admission is $2, with a suggested donation of $10. Seats are limited for all performances.

As Havel himself said, “Truth and love must overcome lies and hatred.”

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