this week in theater

NO DEAL: PRE-EXISTING CONDITION RETURNS

Sarah Steele, Lupita Nyong’o, and Dael Orlandersmith star in Pre-Existing Condition remount (photo by Jessica Kourkounis)

PRE-EXISTING CONDITION
Greenwich House Theater
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. South
Monday – Saturday through January 8, $49-$179
preexistingconditionplay.com

In 2014, the National Women’s Law Center, in response to the passage of Obamacare, announced, “The days of women being treated like pre-existing conditions are numbered. Currently, insurance companies can deny coverage to survivors of domestic violence or mothers who have had a Cesarean section simply by calling these ‘pre-existing conditions.’ But thanks to the new health care law, also known as the Affordable Care Act, this unfair practice is on the way OUT.” That didn’t stop House Republicans in 2017 from trying to price survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault out of the market in its American Health Care Act (AHCA), which was ultimately rejected by the Senate.

Marin Ireland’s debut play, Pre-Existing Condition, being remounted at the Greenwich House Theater after a highly acclaimed 2024 run at the Connelly Theater Upstairs, takes its title from that frightening fact; it is also partly inspired by something that happened to her in 2012. In my review of the previous production, some of which is repurposed below, I called the show “a brutally honest and provocative look at the psychological and bodily wounds that humans inflict and receive.” That still holds true, although the play has lost some of its power and intensity with several tweaks and changes.

It’s been seven months since “A” (Lupita Nyong’o) was brutally struck by her partner. No longer with the man, she speaks with an attorney, a psychiatrist, a few close friends, an old acquaintance, her parents, and others, but no one is able to help, instead only adding to her torment and confusion by subtly blaming her for perhaps provoking the attack and then refusing to take her lover back. She tries to date, but she’s clearly not ready, especially when the men she meets cannot, or will not, understand her situation. (The men and “A”’s mother are played by Greg Keller, while the rest of the women are portrayed by Sarah Steele and Dael Orlandersmith, all three from the original cast.)

“A” finds some respite in group therapy run by two caring women who have developed a support program; during those sessions, the two facilitators talk directly to the audience, as if we are all part of this community, because when it comes down to it, we are; domestic violence can occur at any moment, in any family. Attempting to move forward, “A” continues to question her own responsibility in what happened. It’s harrowing to see the proverbial walls that have been built around her, and that she builds herself, in a system that keeps letting her and other survivors down.

“So what happens now? What do I do?” she says to her best friend, who has grown close with the abuser and expresses sympathy for how hard it has been for him. The shocked “A” shoots back, “Isn’t there supposed to be — there’s supposed to be a system in place, right? I can’t . . . find it. I want to do the right thing and I can’t fucking find it.”

Later, “A” explores another aspect of her feelings that no one seems to get. “I’m so fucking exhausted by all of this. All of this. All of the taking it seriously and the. All of it,” she tells a therapist. “I don’t — okay. I don’t want the big task of my life now to be ‘dealing with this.’ It’s fucking eating up everything.”

When her best friend mentions the possibility of her offering forgiveness, “A” states, “I don’t want to. Forgive. I don’t want to forget it. . . . I don’t also want to be guilty of forgetting it.”

An unnamed survivor of domestic violence (Lupita Nyong’o) speaks with a friend (Greg Keller) in tense play at Greenwich House (photo by Jessica Kourkounis)

In the 2024 production, as the healing process continued, I empathized more and more with “A,” realizing that her pain and trauma could be anyone’s pain and trauma, that any one of us could be sitting in that chair in the middle of the room, being consumed by some type of tragedy. In the current iteration, again directed by Tony nominee and director Maria Dizzia — who, along with Tatiana Maslany (who I saw), Tavi Gevinson, Deirdre O’Connell, and Julia Chan, portrayed “A” two years ago — I identified more with the characters who are trying to do the right thing, who want to help but are not sure how, who keep saying the wrong things.

In the original version, the limited audience sat on three sides of a small, central space, in tightly arranged rising rafters; at Greenwich House, the audience sits in more traditional horizontal rows at the same floor level, looking up at the proscenium stage, making it feel one step removed. At the Connelly, “A” held what appeared to be a spiral-bound copy of the script throughout the play’s seventy-five minutes, sometimes glancing at the words, other times clutching it to her chest like Linus’s blanket in Peanuts. The character essentially never let go of the script, not because the actor had not yet learned the lines but because it was a constant reminder of a horrific, life-altering event in her recent past. That powerful connection is also not present at Greenwich House, where the ending is less dramatic.

Cate McCrea’s set is an empty room with a few movable chairs, an exposed radiator, white walls, and a framed poster offering, “Consider the Alternatives.” Enver Chakartash’s costumes are casual, highlighted by Steele wearing a Blondie T-shirt; Blondie vocalist Debbie Harry wrote in her 2019 memoir about having been viciously sexually assaulted in the 1970s. Lighting designer Isabella Byrd avoids it getting too dark, keeping the audience visible, as if we are all complicit.

Solo specialist Orlandersmith (Spiritus/Virgil’s Dance, Forever) is again wonderfully gentle as various therapists. Keller (Dig, Shhhh) is down-to-earth as several men in “A”’s life, the good and the bad, in addition to her mother. Drama Desk winner Steele (The Humans, I Can Get It for You Wholesale) is charming in multiple roles as she engages with “A” from multiple points of view; Steele is pregnant in real life, with a significantly protruding belly, which references how pregnancy used to be a pre-exisiting condition as well. (She will be replaced by the always terrific Susannah Perkins after October 5.)

Oscar winner and Tony nominee Nyong’o (Ruined, Eclipsed) is mesmerizing as the unnamed woman, maintaining a formidable balance as she tries to go on with her life with this trauma hanging over her head. At one point, she shakes nervously, almost uncontrollably, in a chair; later, she hovers in a corner as if trapped, eyeing people with fear and suspicion. But Nyong’o does not treat “A” like some kind of helpless victim, instead humanizing her with difficult truths about life, love, and the legal system, things that need to be addressed from top to bottom.

The role will later be played by Phillipa Soo, Susannah Flood, Hari Nef, Edie Falco, and Whitney White, who will bring their unique talents to a complex part that also reminds us that domestic violence can happen to anyone, at any time.

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

SAVING BOOKS AND PENGUINS FROM EXTINCTION: GARRY STARR GOES NUTS OVER LITERARY CLASSICS

Damien Warren-Smith lets it all hang out as alter ego Garry Starr in Classic Penguins (photo by Austin Ruffer)

GARRY STARR: CLASSIC PENGUINS
Studio Seaview
305 West 43rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 11, $45-$155
studioseaview.com
www.garrystarr.com

Jackass meets the literati in the utterly insane, completely brilliant, and exhilaratingly entertaining Garry Starr: Classic Penguins. Starr is the clown alter ego of Australian writer, producer, and performer Damien Warren-Smith, who previously appeared as Starr in Greece Lightning, about Greek mythology, Garry Starr Performs Everything, exploring different styles of theater, and the family-friendly Monkeys Everywhere, in which he interacts with simian sidekicks.

Classic Penguins is most definitely not for children or the faint of heart. The official website warns, “This event is strictly 18+. Please be aware that this production includes full nudity, strobes, haze, recorded gunshots, and sudden loud noises. Audience participation will be invited at the discretion of the performer and is voluntary. By purchasing a ticket, you acknowledge the inherent risks of voluntarily participating in a live performance, including physical activity and close contact with the performer, and release all producers and venue operator from claims based on negligence, except for gross negligence or willful misconduct.”

As ticket holders enter the theater, Starr is already onstage, seated in a leather chair, its back to the audience; only his top hat and orange flippers are visible. He is watching a monitor on which, at first, burning logs in a fireplace are projected while Mozart’s Laudate Dominum (Vesperae Solennes De Confessore, K.339) is playing, by the London Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Cassovia, Kosice Teacher’s Choir, and others. To his left is a treasure chest; to his right is a small bookcase with a globe, a skull, a plant, and more than three dozen orange-and-white Penguin Classics paperbacks. Soon the video of the logs are replaced by photos of famous paintings in which a cartoon penguin has been inserted in key places, a quick turn from the civilized to what will become more and more uncivilized by the minute. The penguin finds itself in such masterpieces as Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, and John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott.

When the show proper begins, Starr spins around in the chair to reveal that he is dressed as a penguin, with a white ruff collar, an open black tailcoat — and nothing else. He is naked from the waist down, his willy hanging free. He explains that he is attempting to save literature and penguins from extinction, so for the next hour, he performs, in one way or another, each of the novels on the shelf, either riffing on the title, the author, and/or the plot. Before, during, or after each vignette, he places the paperback on the top of the bookcase so a camera can project it onto the monitor for everyone to see; afterward, he slides it onto the floor.

For example, early on, he dons a bald cap, shakes his hips so his schlong twirls, and then reveals Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The bald cap references the singer and animal-rights activist Moby, whose real name is Richard Melville Hall; many of Warren-Smith’s gimmicks are layered with such neat twists, although you don’t have to get them all to still laugh yourself silly.

Starr also incorporates meta info about many of the books; for example, he brings up Oscar Isaac and Jabob Elordi when doing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (they starred in Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 Oscar-nominated adaptation), and Kate Bush’s 1978 song “Wuthering Heights” is heard while he takes on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, with another nod to Elordi.

Garry Starr (Damien Warren-Smith) performs dozens of Penguin Classics with the help of many audience members (photo by Austin Ruffer)

Eventually, he loses the coat and flippers and is essentially fully naked the rest of the way, never failing to grab a chance to dangle his Johnson at or expose his butt cheeks to the audience, some of whom volunteer to come onstage and assist him with his crazier and crazier antics and impressive acrobatics. The night I went, the crowd was particularly spry and fearless, getting involved in shenanigans I never thought I would see in such a venue.

Most of the participants are chosen from the first row, although Starr does his best to not select people he thinks may be actors or improv comics themselves. (Interestingly, the first row is less expensive than the next four rows, perhaps as a thank-you to those ready to strut their stuff.) But that doesn’t mean that others won’t have the chance to high-five Starr, hug him, share some food, and — well, it’s probably best if you don’t know some of the, er, nuttier elements, which involve a whole lot of (consensual) touching, though nothing pornographic (depending on, I guess, what you consider pornographic). If you don’t get picked to participate, you can get your photo taken with a “moist” Warren-Smith in the bar after the show.

Penguin Classics was cofounded in 1946 by E. V. Rieu, whose translation of Homer’s The Odyssey was the first book to be part of the program, which now consists of approximately two thousand novels and nonfiction titles. While it would seem that The Odyssey would be excellent fodder for the play, given all the discussion about Christopher Nolan’s new film and Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation, which is published by a Penguin rival — I can clearly envision Starr in Matt Damon’s Odysseus headgear, replete with tantalizing plume — but it didn’t make the cut. Works by Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Louisa May Alcott are among the dozens that did.

Classic Penguins may not be as radical or revolutionary as the oeuvre of such downtown legends as Karen Finley, Penny Arcade, Annie Sprinkle, or John Fleck, but it is more accessible and a whale of a good time. Warren-Smith is an engaging performer who knows how to titillate an audience and adapt to whatever happens; the evening I attended, during a fierce fruit fight, an audience member nailed Starr with an orange right in the one-eyed trouser snake, which both surprised and delighted Starr, who needed a moment to recover, not unlike baseball players who get plunked in the crown jewels by a fastball.

Jackass leader Johnny Knoxville — whose desire for adventure was stoked when, at the age of fourteen, he read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, a Penguin Classic not in Starr’s show — would be proud.

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

TASTY TIMES SQUARE: SAMPLING SIGNATURE BITES AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD

Taste of Times Square is back with local signature bites September 9 (photo by Michael Hull for the Times Square Alliance)

TASTE OF TIMES SQUARE
46th St. between Broadway & Ninth Ave., Broadway between 45th & 46th Sts.
Wednesday, September 9, dishes $5-$10, 4:00 – 8:00
timessquarenyc.org

The international culinary flavor of the Times Square area will be on display September 9 at the annual Taste of Times Square, where more than three dozen local restaurants will be serving their signature dishes on and around Restaurant Row; there will also be live performances representing several current Broadway shows from the Broadway Dreams Foundation and Ellen’s Stardusters. Most dishes cost five dollars, with a few no more than ten bucks, purchased with “tastes”; you can get 25% off advance wristbands of $25 and $50 through September 8.

The menu lineup includes lobster toast from Rosie O’Grady’s, beef or chicken suya from Lagos, tacos from Toloache, sliders from Schnipper’s, rigatoni Bolognese from Orso, a Cuban sandwich from Havana Central, penne from Becco, escovitch fish fingers from Jasmine’s Caribbean Cuisine, tiramisu from Bond 45, cheesecake from Junior’s, and frrrozen hot chocolate from Serendipity 3. There’s also fare from the Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, and Applebee’s but not Olive Garden or Bubba Gump.

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

THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: SAFE HOUSE BUILDS A BUNKER AT THEATRE ROW

A family faces a series of crises in their new basement bunker in L. B. Browne’s Safe House (photo by Viktorija Mickute)

SAFE HOUSE
Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 13, $39-$67
www.splitdecision.co
www.theatrerow.org

It’s a shame that L. B. Browne’s Safe House is having such a short run at Theatre Row, playing a mere twelve performances through September 13, because it’s a superb drama, a microcosm of what’s happening in America today.

It takes place in a bunker being built by a tough right-winger named Rock (Marc Kudisch) with the assistance of his enabler wife, Slipper (Karen Ziemba), in their suburban Pennsylvania house. Forest Entsminger’s set is a somewhat claustrophobic basement with wood beams, two doors, a couch, a table, shelves of canned goods, tools and other supplies, and several rifles and pistols hanging on a wall.

“I think we’re the only folks around here reinforcing a basement pantry against nuclear fallout,” Slipper says. Rock, a former longtime Department of Defense contractor and army vet, responds, “Pantry? This isn’t soup and flour. It’s infrastructure, it’s freedom.” Rock is concerned that if the upcoming presidential election goes a certain way, a second civil war would be imminent.

They have two daughters: Ashley (Anna Roman) is a prim and proper family court lawyer, while Claire (Grace Church) is a teenager who ran away from home the year before. The twenty-seven-year-old Ashley had been finally planning on getting her own place, but the painful disappearance of her sister, ten years younger, caused her to remain to help her parents deal with the crisis. They hadn’t heard from Claire until she suddenly returns, with a little surprise that sets off everyone’s feelings and beliefs about various hot-button issues; Claire’s left-wing radicalism does not sit well with Rock’s ever-more-extreme views. The hot-headed Rock wants her gone, but Slipper and Ashley convince him to let her stay for at least a few nights.

Dr. Calvin Merritt (Justin Lee Miller) drops by unexpectedly to chat privately with Rock about his alarming diagnosis eleven months earlier and whether he’s told his wife and kids yet. Rock, who has not done so, insists he’s as strong as an ox, pointing out the bunker as proof, despite his occasional twitches and shakes. “You know these tests get mixed up all the time. Nothing like that runs in my family,” Rock says matter-of-factly. “The General, Ma, when their time came, they were healthy enough to make death cruel.”

When Dr. Merritt reminds Rock that his father, the General (Glenn Seven Allen), died in Vietnam when Rock was a child, his father, in uniform, enters from a far corner. Rock talks to the hallucination as if it were real, momentarily forgetting that the doctor is there; the words Rock speaks relate to both his father and Dr. Merritt in a potent way, as exemplified in this exchange:

The General: You couldn’t hold steady enough to hit the broad side of a barn.
Dr. Merritt: Your father had the gene; just didn’t live long enough to find out.
Rock: I was a boy.
Dr. Merritt: Yeah, you couldn’t have known. Are you okay?
Rock: I told you, I’m feeling great.
Dr. Merritt: Your hand’s shaking.
The General: Like the first time you brought a buck to its knees.
Rock: I’m not shaking.
Dr. Merritt: You don’t even feel it, do you?
The General: Shameful sight, the way you shook on that trigger.
Rock: I didn’t shake!

It’s a clever plot device that is effectively used several times through the rest of the play, with Rock encountering both the General, as if her were alive in the present, and seven-year-old Claire (Julianna Layne), reliving scenes from the past.

As Claire’s situation grows more dire because of Rock’s unyielding, unsympathetic reactions, the bunker is in danger of collapsing like a house of cards.

The past and present merge for Rock (Marc Kudisch) in timely debut by L. B. Browne at Theatre Row (photo by Viktorija Mickute)

Safe House is a sparkling debut for novelist, editor, Fulbright Fellow, and physician Browne; she has crafted a gripping, timely story with well-drawn characters caught up in circumstances that are not always in their control, fraught in family dynamics and the difficult legacies parents leave for their children. At first, it’s not clear what political side anyone’s on. Rock declares, “Things are only getting worse. Grid’s thinner, egg prices are climbing, and crooks are running the whole damn show. You know I’m right.” He could be talking about the Democrats or the Republicans, although he eventually rails against the Democratic Socialists, referring to them as “commie goons” who are going to steal the election; he gets into a heated argument with Claire, who holds nothing back, while Slipper seeks a détente.

The family itself represents the divides in America today, without ever mentioning any politicians or parties by name: Rock is the far-right fearmonger lacking empathy and compassion for his fellow human being and not trusting science, although that can be perhaps attributed at least in part to his illness; Claire is the Democratic Socialist who believes in universal health care and government programs for the poor; Ashley is the intelligent, successful single woman who knows precisely what is going on but tries to avoid getting overly involved in controversy, focusing on her career instead; and Slipper goes about her business as nice and sweet wife and mother, saying nothing to upset anyone except when she worries that Ashley needs to find a man, something her daughter does not appreciate.

Three-time Tony nominee Kudisch (Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Wayside Motor Inn) gives a powerful, boldly physical performance as the aptly named Rock, a determined, serious man unwilling to accept his vulnerabilities, dead-set on protecting his family even as his delusions threaten to overwhelm him, always on the verge of exploding. Tony winner Ziemba (Contact, Curtains) is gently touching as Slipper, imbuing her with an innate good-heartedness that covers her inability to stand up to her husband. A thoughtful, impressive Roman, who made her off-Broadway debut in July when she took the stage for Juliana Canfield in Girl, Interrupted at the Public, provides a steady balance as Ashley, who the others take for granted as she tries to hold it all together. In her professional theater debut, recent NYU grad Church is deeply affecting as the teenage Claire, an idealist at odds with not only her family but the world itself, searching for her place, wise beyond her years. Miller, Allen, and Layne deliver admirable support in their key roles.

Director Benjamin Viertel (The Peepholeman) expertly navigates the cast through the space, which becomes ever-more confining as the tension mounts, highlighted by a shocking twist. Several beams at the front both allow the audience to see into the bunker and invite us in, implicating us in the conflicts; each one of us either is or knows these fictional characters all too well. Browne’s dialogue is quick-witted and intense, brutally honest in its depiction of 2026 America, where friends and families are torn apart over politics. She also throws in some Easter eggs, beginning with the preshow music, which ends with Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” the oft-misunderstood patriotic protest anthem that was a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” and that originally contained two verses critical of the state.

The play could use some tweaking — the night I went, both Viertel and Browne were there, taking notes — but I think that’s why it’s at Theatre Row for only twelve days, hopefully a tryout/showcase for a much longer run, which it richly deserves. That is, if we don’t have another civil war. . . .

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

ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS: SHIFTERS AT THE CHERRY LANE

Des and Dre travel through time and space as they explore the past, present, and future of their relationship (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

SHIFTERS
Cherry Lane Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 20, $69-$149
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

Ah, what might have been — or still could be?

Charity Bedu-Addo and Daniel Ezra are electrifying in British Congolese playwright Benedict Lombe’s Shifters, a sizzling two-character drama at the Cherry Lane that posits that destiny is a choice. It begins when Des (Bedu-Addo), short for Destiny, and Dre (Ezra), both thirty-two, meet up at the wake for Dre’s beloved Nana. They’ve known each other since high school, when they were sixteen, but haven’t been in touch for eight years, a period during which their lives changed significantly.

Over the next 105 minutes, Lombe and director Lynette Linton take the audience back and forth from the past to the present as Des and Dre go from sixteen and seventeen to twenty-four and twenty-seven, their relationship shifting from classmates and friends to possible lovers; in the script, scenes are identified by such titles as “Allies,” “Fractures,” and “Fugitives.” Through the play, they each break out of the narrative to recite monologues and make brief points to the audience.

“This is the moment when I finally [see] that time is an illusion,” Dre explains to us after greeting Des. “Because the walls of the world we built, the walls where time is linear and finite — start to crumble. And in this moment, I — you — are both here and there and time is moving and standing still as memory is made skin — yesterday, today, tomorrow — all real, all happening, all at the same time. And suddenly — ”

Des is the new girl in school, and she is in philosophy class with Dre when they get into an argument about the decisions people constantly face as he tries to get her to join the debate club. “There are more than two sides and more than two choices,” Des says. Dre responds, “Still gotta be for something to know what you’re against though, innit?” When Des offers that decisions should not be the most important thing, Dre replies by asking how anything would get done if there were no decisions. “You’re asking the wrong question,” Des says.

The story shifts from the wake to key moments in their life together, when decisions had consequences that brought them together and tore them apart, including some choices that are still haunting them. While Dre sees him and Des as “two little Black kids destined to oppose each other push each other shift each other until they could be formed again,” Des doesn’t believe in destiny, telling us, “If destiny is the path laid out for you — you still have to walk it. Choose it.”

It’s the choices they made when they were younger that brought them to this moment, at the wake, where they continue to dance around asking, and answering, the right questions.

Charity Bedu-Addo has replaced Heather Agyepong in Benedict Lombe’s Shifters at the Cherry Lane (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

Most of the choices made by the cast and crew work extremely well. Alex Berry’s compelling set is a dark, open rectangle with two added rows of seating on the far side of the stage, which is draped with narrow LED tubes of varying lengths and at different angles that change colors based on mood. (The lighting is by Neil Austin.) The characters, in Berry’s contemporary costumes, occasionally move around black storage boxes that they sit on and open to find pieces from their past, as if reaching into their memories and psyche. Tony Gayle’s sharp sound incorporates Xana’s entrancing, award-winning score and John Hiatt’s 1987 track “Have a Little Faith in Me,” heard on an old turntable. “When the road gets dark / And you can no longer see / Just let my love throw a spark / And have a little faith in me,” Hiatt sings.

Shifters evokes Nick Payne’s Constellations and Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries, two other outstanding plays in which a man and a woman revisit the past as they explore their relationship. Ezra (Twelfth Night) and Bedu-Addo (The Bolds, Stocking Fillers), replacing Heather Agyepong when the show was extended, as she did in the original London run, have an instant chemistry. Both of the characters are complex and unpredictable, and the two actors imbue them with a fresh, beguiling honesty that keeps the audience’s emotions swirling as Dre and Des seek out their crisscrossing paths.

The play is about ten or fifteen minutes too long, as it gets bogged down with a bevy of revelations of tragedy and trauma in the final scenes; Lombe (Lava, for which she won the 2022 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) and Lynton (The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Not Your Superwoman) already have us invested in Dre and Des, so this added information is unnecessary and detracts from the proceedings. Otherwise, Shifters is a triumph.

In a program note, Lombe writes, “Shifters was born from this intentionality and specificity — a universal love story between a British Congolese woman and a British Nigerian man — that shifts in and out of time and space and feeling, demanding nothing less than to shift the theatrical canon itself.” Lombe is clearly on the right path.

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

MAKING CONNECTIONS: THE CIRCUIT SEARCHES FOR LOVE IN DUMBO

Danielle Louise Bowen portrays the guest in site-specific immersive DUMBO dance journey The Circuit (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

THE CIRCUIT
Begins at Superfine restaurant
126 Front St., Brooklyn
Through September 7, $39.62-$82.20
www.nytheatrecompany.com

So let me get this straight: New York Theatre Company’s The Circuit is a site-specific immersive journey through several of DUMBO’s most spectacular locales, inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s 1920 play, La Ronde, and Max Ophüls’s classic 1950 film? I’m in! And you should be too.

Ophüls’s French adaptation begins with a new character not in the play, a master of ceremonies elegantly portrayed by Anton Walbrook. In the famous five-minute opening scene, filmed in one continuous take, the emcee walks along the streets of Vienna, telling the audience, “You can tell from the scent in the air that love is just around the corner, can’t you?” Approaching a carousel he calls “the merry-go-round of love” while revealing he is on a movie set, he says, “Love comes calling, sudden and fleeting. And they all dance to love’s same tune.” La Ronde depicts a series of couples meeting up in the city, with one person from each pas-de-deux heading off and encountering another potential romantic partner.

The Circuit: An Immersive Silent Disco Ballet reimagines La Ronde for DUMBO, taking full advantage of the area’s cobblestone passages, iconic views, and unique landscape. Audience members put on silent disco headphones, through which they hear dialogue and EDM, and follow guides who lead them from site to site using multicolored LED batons, as characters find each other, dance while engaging in various aspects of hooking up — or not — and then go on their way.

The tale of bisexual love and loneliness, betrayal and ecstasy, written by Connor Wentworth, starts with the guest (a terrific Danielle Louise Bowen, who alternates with Manatsu Aminaga), who performs a solo in a plaza before joining dancers in the Archway (swing ensemble Kaitwan Jackson, Kurt Horney, dance captain Anna Nader, and Katie Baik). Soon she becomes involved with the doll (Luke Swaller), who harbors a secret; next, the doll chances upon the almighty (Tessa Fungo), who confronts the keeper (Gigi Hausman), who happens upon the gentleman (Fabricio Seraphin), who has a rendezvous with the lover (Arzu Salman). Each couple moves to an original score by Jacob Ryan Smith and choreography by Josh Zacher, who codirects with John Kroft.

It’s part walking tour, part silent disco, part flash mob as the group makes its way among tourists, random passersby, native New Yorkers, and others going about their business, snapping pictures in and around Brooklyn Bridge Park, walking their dog, pushing their baby in a stroller, knitting on a bench, or picking up dinner. Some immediately take videos of the proceedings, some completely ignore them, and others appear to think, well, this is just another night in the city with who-knows-what going on. At one point a young woman was grooving atop a small DOT orange-and-white traffic barricade; a few of us went toward her, believing she was the next character, but it turned out she was simply having fun with friends, perhaps dancing to love’s same tune. With darkness descending, the guides use handheld colored lights and the cast’s smartphones glow, as text messages are incorporated into the plot.

The main independent elements of The Circuit — the narrative, the music, and the choreography — might not necessarily stand out on their own, but they merge beautifully in the tremendously fun and thoroughly engaging show. The title relates to making connections, between people as well as electrical devices, which essentially are running our lives in 2026. A deep connection is also made between the audience, the performers, and DUMBO itself, with a gorgeous, contemplative finale occurring under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Yes, it’s a site-specific immersive silent disco ballet, but it also has a lot of heart as it explores coming together and breaking apart in a city that can be difficult to navigate when one is alone, although love could be waiting right around the corner.

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

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS: THE BATHROOM ATTENDANT AT 124 BANK STREET

Tina (Kate Miller), Connor (Evan Klein), and Johnny (Dan Patrick Brady) concoct a blackmail scheme in The Bathroom Attendant (photo by Scott Fetterman)

THE BATHROOM ATTENDANT
124 Bank Street Theater
124 Bank St.
Through August 30, $38.10
sparkplugproductions.com

I’ve previously written about my anxieties around public bathrooms and theatrical productions several times, from a show at SoHo Rep in which they waited for me to finish my business to being walked in on prior to a play in a hotel room in which one of the actors made actual use of the facilities, with the door open.

So I absolutely had to see a new play called The Bathroom Attendant, at 124 Bank Street Theater through August 30.

On line to check in, I decided to go to the bathroom; there was a sign saying “Private” on the door, so I asked other people if they knew if we could use this, and one woman said yes, she had just seen someone exit it. I slowly reached for the handle and, feeling that it was unlocked, opened the door — to find a young man sitting on the bowl, not exactly happy that everyone on line could see him.

I closed the door and apologized profusely, completely commiserating with him, and used a second bathroom instead, making sure to lock the door.

I was somewhat disappointed to learn that the play does not take place in a can, and the protagonist’s job is mentioned only a few times: He works part-time as an attendant in the Mob Museum rest room. (There really is such an institution in downtown Vegas.)

Written by Tom Kelly (Bleached Blonde Betty, The Gangster and the Busboy) and directed by Andrew Block (Small Engine Repair, Fat Cat Killers), The Bathroom Attendant is set in a ramshackle apartment in the Dean Martin Houses, not exactly the luxury condo tower known as the Martin on Dean Martin Dr. It’s a sad-sack room with a torn-up icky yellow couch, a microwave, a sorry excuse for a stove, a ridiculously old television playing an episode of the late 1970s series Vegas starring Robert Urich as a PI catching the bad guys in glittering Sin City, and a view of the Strip through dirty windows. Designed by Scott Fetterman, it’s a claustrophobic nightmare, about as lousy as it gets. On the back wall is a poster of Johnny “the Street Fighter” Knight from the 1984 Golden Gloves finals at Madison Square Garden, a constant reminder to the apartment’s resident of his long-ago glory days, of what might have been.

Bambi (Mari Blake) is not quite a femme fatale in gritty crime thriller (photo by Scott Fetterman)

It’s August 2018, but Johnny (Dan Patrick Brady) is still stuck in the past, unable to gain any kind of foothold; he’s three months behind on his rent, is in debt to a local mob, and swills Mike’s Hard Lemonade that he stole from another apartment. His only friend is Tina (Kate Miller), a former porno star who is now part of the evangelical community, focused on helping young women in trouble; she is currently trying to save a teenager named Jade who is being abused by her drunk junkie father. Johnny is shocked when a sixteen-year-old boy named Connor Donahue (Evan Klein) knocks on his door; Connor is the nephew of one of Johnny’s best friends from his Brooklyn days.

Decked out in Mets gear, Connor is in Vegas with his father but has brought along memorabilia for Johnny to sign; he has heard all the old stories from his father about Johnny’s prowess in the 1980s.

He also has an ulterior motive; the previous night, he videotaped Mets superstar Mickey Logan, potentially the first-ever $500 million player, viciously beating up a teenage girl, Bambi (Mari Blake). (The incident recalls Super Bowl winner Ray Rice, who was caught on video attacking his fiancée in 2014, and Sean “Puffy” Combs assaulting his girlfriend in 2016.) Connor, who learned about the underworld by bingeing The Sopranos, has already pitched the video to the National Enquirer and TMZ but believes he could make a much better score by blackmailing Logan, with Johnny’s assistance. Tina asks in as well and they set out to pull off the big haul, although Logan’s right-hand man, Marcus (Jon Krupp), has other ideas, ready to do whatever is necessary to protect Logan.

At more than two hours (including intermission), The Bathroom Attendant is too long and feels far out of time; it starts slowly, has a more gripping middle section, but then devolves into convoluted plot devices and huge plot holes. The acting is hit or miss, the staging gets confusing, and the sound effects (cellphones, barking dogs) are not only way too loud but seem to come from all over the theater, which makes no sense. I did care about a few of the characters, but others have inexplicable motives and are in need of heavy tweaking.

You don’t always know who to root for when you really start thinking about it, which is a good thing, and the show contains some excellent crime-thriller elements, but the finale goes off the deep end, throwing in too many new facts late in the game. It feels more like an episode from a 1970s television series, like Mannix, Cannon, Baretta, or, well, Vegas, where you can get away with various shortcomings, but that’s not the case with live theater.

In the meantime, please double check that you’ve locked the bathroom door.

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