this week in theater

THE HAIRY APE: CONVERSATION SERIES

A pair of special discussions accompany presentation of THE HAIRY APE at the Park Ave. Armory (photo by Manuel Harlan)

Park Ave. Armory, Veterans Room
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Friday, March 31, and Friday, April 14, $15, 6:00
Play continues through April 22, $60-$195
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

The Old Vic production of Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 play, The Hairy Ape, which was also made into a 1944 film starring William Bendix, Susan Hayward, Dorothy Comingore, and John Loder, has begun previews in the Park Ave. Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall, prior to a March 30 opening; the show, starring Bobby Cannavale (in a role previously played onstage by such actors as Louis Wolheim, Paul Robeson, and Willem Dafoe) and directed by Richard Jones (Into the Woods, Too Clever by Half), runs through April 22. In conjunction with the play, the armory will be hosting two special events as part of its ongoing Conversation Series. On March 31 at 6:00 in the Veterans Room, the artist talk “A Hairy Ape for the 21st Century” will feature Jones, Cannavale, and O’Neill scholar and English professor Robert M. Dowling discussing the impact of the play nearly one hundred years after its debut. Two weeks later, on April 14 at 6:00, Catherine Combs (who plays Mildred), New-York Historical Society chief historian Valerie Paley, and theater arts and gender studies associate professor Erika Rundle will delve into “The Hairy Ape & New York City: Class vs. Identity.” O’Neill fans will also want to check out The Emperor Jones, continuing through April 23 at the Irish Rep, and Target Margin Theater’s six-hour revival of Mourning Becomes Electra, running April 26 to May 20.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER ON BROADWAY

A group of close-knit twentysomethings seek love and happiness in SIGNIFICANT OTHER (photo by Joan Marcus)

Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 23, $49-$147
www.significantotherbroadway.com

In 2012, Joshua Harmon’s terrific Bad Jews debuted at the Roundabout’s tiny subterranean Black Box Theatre; the following year it moved upstairs to the much bigger Laura Pels, where it continued to play to sold-out houses. In 2015, Harmon’s equally terrific Significant Other debuted at the Laura Pels, and now it’s moved west to Broadway’s Booth Theatre, where it continues to attract well-deserved accolades. Significant Other is the sassy, heart-wrenching story of twenty-seven-year-old Jordan Berman (Gideon Glick), who becomes more and more depressed as his three best friends, Kiki (Sas Goldberg), Vanessa (Rebecca Naomi Jones, replacing Cara Patterson from the original production), and Laura (Lindsay Mendez), one by one find their significant other while he remains solo, terrified that he will never find his Mr. Right. He’s also afraid of maturity in general. “I wish we still lived together,” he says to Laura. “Grown-ups live alone,” she responds, to which he replies, “We’re grown-ups. I keep forgetting that.” He turns to his grandmother Helen (Barbara Barrie) for advice, but her memory is starting to slip and she occasionally discusses ways to kill herself. “I know life is supposed to be this great mystery, but I actually think it’s pretty simple: Find someone to go through it with. That’s it. That’s the, whatever, the secret,” Jordan says to Laura. “You make it sound so easy,” she says, to which he replies, “No, that’s the hardest part. Walking around knowing what the point is, but not being able to live it, and not knowing how to get it, or if I ever even will.” Jordan gets a sudden burst of energy when he suspects dreamy new coworker Will (John Behlmann) might be gay, but that only amplifies his deep-seated fears and worries.

Grandma Helen offers Jordan (Gideon Glick) some relationship advice in SIGNIFICANT OTHER (photo by Joan Marcus)

Seeing Significant Other for the second time was like reconnecting with old friends. The main characters are beautifully drawn by Harmon and exuberantly brought to life by the cast, with Behlmann and Luke Smith playing all of the potential significant others. Director Trip Cullman (Yen, A Small Fire) hasn’t missed a beat with the transition to Broadway, retaining the play’s intimate charm; in fact, some scenes work even better, particularly those in which Jordan dances with Laura at several weddings. Mark Wendland’s vertical set features more than half a dozen inside and outside spaces, lit with pinpoint precision by Japhy Weideman; the lighting in the scene in which Jordan delivers a detailed monologue about seeing Will in a bathing suit is breathtaking and funny. All of the elements come together, but at the heart of everything is Glick’s (Spring Awakening, The Few) heartbreaking performance, which had me more teary-eyed the second time around. The scene in which he decides whether to send an email to Will is an out-and-out riot, while a later argument with one of his best friends is a spellbinding tour de force of writing, acting, and directing. Significant Other is the second of three Roundabout commissions for Harmon; we can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE

Joan (Jo Lampert) is ready to play the hero in David Byrne’s JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Newman Theater at the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 30, $120
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org

David Byrne and Alex Timbers have followed up their 2013 extraordinary extravaganza, Here Lies Love, with the very ordinary and chaste Joan of Arc: Into the Fire, which continues at the Public’s Newman Theater through April 30. Here Lies Love followed the adventures of Imelda Marcos in the Philippines; of course, Joan of Arc is a very different kind of woman with a very different story to tell. Into the Fire starts off promising enough: At the front and center of the stage hangs a banner that proclaims, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,” immediately placing Joan in context with the battles of today’s women, referencing the recent congressional silencing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren reading from a Coretta Scott King letter. The company of ten men begins by asking, “What can one person do?” as a shadow of a mysterious figure grows taller and taller behind the banner until Joan (Jo Lampert) tears it down and stands at the ready to fight for what’s right. But the rest of the show — taking place in the same room where such vastly successful historical musicals as Timbers’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton happened — lacks the dazzling innovation and imagination that Byrne and Timbers (and Fatboy Slim) brought to their previous collaboration. The music is uninspiring and the lyrics are surprisingly pedestrian, merely telling the audience what is happening, offering little more than platitudes. “Sir, God reasons not / When he touches your soul / Fight for what you believe / We will send them all home / Look me in the eye / No one wins on their knees / You can do this, I swear / Sir, it’s you that we need,” Joan sings to royal garrison captain Baudricourt (Michael James Shaw).

Jo Lampert stars as iconic legend in JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE at the Public Theater (photo by Joan Marcus)

Joan proves her virginity, cuts off her hair, and disguises herself as a man as she prepares to lead forces to return the Dauphin (Kyle Selig) to his rightful throne. “I’m not a boy and I’m not a girl / The King of Heaven rules my world,” she declares. For some reason, Joan morphs into a punk rocker, clutching a microphone and stand and, dressed in black leather, sings like she’s part of a music video. The guitarists occasionally play right next to her or in small spaces cut out of large, spinning stairs on Christopher Barreca’s curiously ineffective set. (The drummer is off by himself at the upper back of the stage.) Steven Hoggett’s choreography and Darrel Maloney’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-them projections don’t disturb the staid nature of the proceedings. The cast, which also includes Terence Archie as Warwick, Sean Allan Krill as Bishop Cauchon, Mike McGowan as La Tremouille, Mare Winningham as Isabelle, and James Brown III, Jonathan Burke, Rodrick Covington, Adam Perry, and John Schiappa in multiple roles as priests, judges, and soldiers, is often standing around, waiting for the next cue, which can’t come fast enough. It feels all too procedural and chronological, straightforward and direct. Here Lies Love went through a much longer gestation period, beginning as a song cycle, then becoming an all-star album and, eventually, an immersive stage production over a seven-year period. During that show’s run, Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis suggested to Byrne that Joan of Arc might be a good subject for him to tackle next, so perhaps this production was too hastily put together, or it never lit a fire inside the former Talking Heads leader the way the Marcos story did. For the curtain call, Lampert comes out wearing a large white T-shirt that proclaims, “I am not afraid”; the shirts are available for purchase ($30) from Byrne himself in the lobby after the show, with all proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. It’s a cool idea; it’s just too bad that most of Joan of Arc: Into the Fire fails to ignite the same kind of spark.

BENEATH THE GAVEL

BENEATH THE GAVEL takes audiences inside the fierce world of contemporary art auctions (photo by Will Gangi)

59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St. between Park & Madison Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 9, $35
212-279-4200
www.59e59.org
www.batedbreaththeatre.org

In the interactive Beneath the Gavel, making its New York City debut at 59E59, there is a very good scene in which the cast gives the audience an auction lesson, complete with inside information about bidding and price manipulation by an auction house. (Former Christie’s and Sotheby’s employee Barbara Strongin served as consultant; in addition, the theater is on the site where Christie’s once housed its galleries.) Unfortunately, the rest of the two-hour show, presented by the Hartford-based Bated Breath Theatre Company and written and directed by troupe executive and artistic director Mara Lieberman, never reaches that level. The play goes back and forth between 1985, when elderly art collector Haddie Weisenberg (Debra Walsh) meets American painter Daniel Zeigler (Corey Finzel); 1990, when Zeigler is painting Weisenberg’s portrait; and 2016, when part of the now-deceased Weisenberg’s collection is being sold at auction, including works by Zeigler. For much of the show, auction house employees Tracey Allister (Missy Burmeister), Geoffrey Thompson (Gabriel Aprea), Stewart Felso (Sean Hinckle), and Charlotte McHenry (Moira O’Sullivan) and other characters (all played by the six-member cast) engage in boring, clichéd discussions about the art world and then start moving in bizarre interpretive dance straight out of the 1980s-era SNL skit Sprockets. Along the way, such real-life artists and gallerists as Andy Warhol, Larry Gagosian, Roy Lichtenstein, Leo Castelli, Wassily Kandinsky, and Damien Hirst are portrayed in annoying scenes that go nowhere.

Daniel Zeigler (Corey Finzel) is hard at work on his next painting in BENEATH THE GAVEL (photo by Will Gangi)

During the show, there are three auctions in which the audience participates, using fake money that can be reserved in advance and accumulated when a cash cannon shoots it out over the crowd. While some people scramble for the bills, others just ignore it all; several of those disinterested audience members did not return after intermission. The auctions are actually fun, but there’s also something inherently demeaning about them, starting with that you have to get on your hands and knees and pick up bills off the floor if you want to amass quite a wad. Perhaps that is the point, but when Geoff states, “We’ve billed this sale as a sale for the ‘everyman.’ We’ve invited more VOPs than ever before,” and the auction employees chime in, “Very Ordinary People,” it’s not too hard to take that as an insult, even if that’s not what was intended.

THE STRANGEST

Layali (Roxanna Hope Radja) shows off her charms to her shocked family in Betty Shamieh’s THE STRANGEST

Fourth Street Theatre
83 East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
Through April 1, $25-$45
www.brownpapertickets.com

Commissioned to write a theatrical adaptation of Albert Camus’s 1947 existential classic, The Stranger, playwright Betty Shamieh, the American-born daughter of Arab immigrants, chose instead to focus on what Camus didn’t write: the story of the nameless Arab man shot on the beach by the central character, Meursault, without reason or remorse. Continuing at the Fourth Street Theatre through April 1, The Strangest takes place in an Algerian storytelling café, where an audience of approximately forty to fifty people sit on cushions on benches or the floor, gathered around small tables where they can pour themselves cups of thick Turkish coffee. Umm (Jacqueline Antaramian), a woman in her early forties, has decided to share her personal tale, infiltrating the strictly all-male story competition. “I will show you three young men. You won’t know which son of Algeria would be shot until the end of the story. No magic carpets in the story either. Just an assassination of a child I bore, and the French man who shot him down will feel nothing before, during, or after. Strange, isn’t it?” she says. The tale Umm tells is a murder mystery with a sexy femme fatale, Layali (Roxanna Hope Radja), Umm’s niece, courted by Umm’s three sons: sensitive artist Nader (Juri Henley-Cohn), brutal thief Nemo (Andrew Guilarte), and meek shoemaker Nounu (Louis Sallan). Umm weaves many layers into her tale, including the fate of her village, her house, and her husband, Abu (Alok Tewari), a onetime master orator who is now a disabled mumbler; the flashback in which he tells a unique version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and declares his love for Umm is captivating and romantic. But when Layali brings home her fiancé, literally a French smoking gun (Brendan Titley), the rest of the family is disconcerted and upset, setting into motion a fast-unfolding series of ferocious events.

Sensitive artist Nader (Juri Henley-Cohn) makes a plea to his mother, Umm (Jacqueline Antaramian), in world premiere at Fourth Street Theatre

In researching Arab storytelling cafés, Shamieh (The Black Eyed, Roar, Fit for a Queen) went to Aleppo, Syria, in 2011, just as antigovernment protests were beginning there; sadly, the cafés she visited have since been destroyed, adding another sobering layer to the show, which already references racism, colonialism, rape, the current refugee crisis, and the shootings of black men, women, and children by white police officers. Director May Adrales (Vietgone, Luce) makes fine use of Daniel Zimmerman’s intimate, boxlike set; the actors, in Becky Bodurtha’s colorful costumes, enter and exit on two sides through wall curtains, the floor carpeted by numerous Oriental rugs. The uniformly strong cast is highlighted by the powerful acting of the three sons, particularly Henley-Cohn as Nader and Guilarte as Nemo, anchored by Tewari (The Band’s Visit, Awake and Sing!) and Antaramian (Dr. Zhivago, Mary Stuart) as the mourning mother; her pain is palpable as tears roll down her face. The play is filled with surprises, including a big-time, completely unexpected twist at the end. In the storytelling cafés, the audience votes on who tells the best story; with The Strangest, you won’t go wrong putting your money (a mere twenty-five dollars) on Shamieh and Adrales.

[An earlier version of this article misidentified Nemo as the shoemaker and Nounu as the thief; we regret the error.]

CHESS MATCH NO. 5

A man (Will Bond) and a woman (Ellen Lauren) play chess and discuss art and life in SITI Company world premiere (photo by Maria Baranova)

June Havoc Theatre, Abingdon Theatre Company
Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex
312 West 36th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 2, $57
212-868-2055
abingdontheatre.org
siti.org

On March 5, 1968, revolutionary artist Marcel Duchamp and revolutionary composer and musician John Cage sat down for a game of chess for the performance Reunion at the SightSoundSystems festival in Toronto. As a bonus, each of the squares on the board was wired with a unique sound. Duchamp had previously said, “I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” Art and chess, as well as everyday life itself, blend together in unique ways in SITI’s world premiere of Chess Match No. 5, which opened Sunday at the Abingdon Theatre. In the ninety-minute work, conceived and directed by SITI Company cofounder Anne Bogart, He (Will Bond as a stand-in for Cage) and She (Ellen Lauren) meet in a relatively spare room to play a few games of chess. They also discuss art and life using text adapted from actual Cage conversations, adapted by Jocelyn Clarke. “I wouldn’t say that we are interested in destroying the barrier between art and life or even blurring it,” the man tells the woman early on. “I would say that we are interested in observing that there is no barrier between the two.” Through cleverly choreographed staging (there’s even a little dancing), the dialogue, so much of which is dry and didactic (as well as often being revelatory and very funny), never bogs things down; in fact, it all becomes rather playful. “I think life, when we have it, is the paying of attention,” the man opines, as if making sure the audience is listening closely. “Some people pay attention with their eyes and some pay attention with their ears. I enjoy paying attention with both my eyes and my ears, and I think that as a result my work has a theatrical quality – or ‘character’ is a better word – because theater is the use of both eyes and ears.” Brian H Scott’s lighting features several dozen hanging bare bulbs of different shapes and sizes; the man occasionally calls out a number and the lighting suddenly changes. Meanwhile, Tony, Obie, and Drama Desk Award winner Darron L West’s superb sound design is like a character unto itself.

A John Cage stand-in (Will Bond) contemplates his next move in CHESS MATCH NO. 5 (photo by Maria Baranova)

At the front of the stage is a large, old-fashioned Lloyd’s transistor radio, at the rear a table with bread, a toaster, and coffee. When the man uses the items, he makes a series of sounds that recalls Cage’s “Water Work,” which the composer performed with everyday household objects. Other participants in the sound landcape include a chess timer, a rotary phone, and traffic. As they play chess and wander around James Schuette’s set, the man and the woman talk about Erik Satie, the sound of silence, multiplicity, Zen, anarchy, Mozart, the role of the artist, and sleep and even tell a few existential jokes. They also are fully aware of the audience, occasionally addressing them directly. Bond’s fluid, sometimes tongue-in-cheek delivery and calm manner keep the dialogue from becoming boring (although he does note, “Boredom is not so bad and not really boring, you know.”) But if you’re looking to make sense of it all, you’re out of luck. “I’m on the side of keeping things mysterious, and I have never enjoyed understanding things,” the woman explains, offering guidance to potentially confused onlookers. “If I understand something, I have no further use for it.” Always innovative Obie and Bessie Award winner Bogart (Room, No Plays No Poetry But Philosophical Reflections Practical Instructions Provocative Opinions and Pointers from a Noted Critic and Playwright) directs with a sly smile, enjoying the play’s — and the characters’ — many idiosyncrasies. If you submerse yourself in the concepts and ideas being espoused by the man and the woman (as well as the outstanding sound and lighting), you’re likely to enjoy Chess Match No. 5, which is the anchor of a larger SITI project called Theater Piece #1; however, if you need your shows to have a more straightforward narrative in which traditional things actually happen, well, this just might not be your kind of game, which would be a shame. “This is an odd way to have a conversation,” the man says. It sure is. Check and mate.

THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT

Henrietta Iscariot (JoAnna Rhinehart) watches her son, Judas (Gabriel Furman, left), play as a child in Stephen Adly Guirgis revival (photo by Shashwat Gupta)

Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa
66 East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
Thursday – Saturday through March 26
lamama.org

In 2015, New York City native Stephen Adly Guirgis won the Pulitzer Prize for his off-Broadway hit Between Riverside and Crazy. In January, he was named a Residency One Playwright at the Signature Theatre, for which he will produce a series of old and new plays for the 2018-19 season. So the time is ripe for a look back at some of his earlier work, beginning with his time as coartistic director of the LAByrinth Theater Company. As part of its “Theatre and Social Justice” series, the Actors Studio, in conjunction with La MaMa, is presenting a rare revival of Guirgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, which debuted in 2005 at the Public Theater, where it was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and starred Eric Bogosian as Satan, Stephen McKinley Henderson as Pontius Pilate, John Ortiz as Jesus of Nazareth, Deborah Rush as Henrietta Iscariot, and Sam Rockwell as Judas. The cast of the revival, made up of members of the Actors Studio, might not be quite so well known, but Oscar winner Estelle Parsons directs this new version with a dynamic unpredictability and an intimate edge as Judas’s lawyer appeals his conviction for betraying Jesus and being sentenced to Hell.

Mary Magdalene (Burnadair Lipscomb-Hunt) makes her case in THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT (photo by Shashwat Gupta)

“No parent should have to bury a child . . . No mother should have to bury a son,” Henrietta Iscariot (JoAnna Rhinehart) says in the prologue, standing under an umbrella, the sound of rain cascading through the Ellen Stewart Theatre. “I buried my son. In a potter’s field. In a field of Blood. In empty, acrid silence. There was no funeral. There were no mourners,” she adds, immediately humanizing a figure who has been considered the worst of all villains through the centuries. The stage then becomes a makeshift courtroom (the set is by Peter Larkin) in a place called Hope in downtown Purgatory ruled over by cynical judge Frank Littlefield (Jay Johnston), who has little patience for his young bailiff, Julius of Outer Mongolia (Liana Jackson), or with the proceedings in general. Defense attorney Fabiana Aziza Cunningham (Suzanne DiDonna) seeks mercy and forgiveness for Judas (Gabriel Furman), who is catatonic, unable to speak for himself. The prosecutor is butt-kissing blowhard shyster Yusef Akbar Azziz Al-Nassar Gamel El-Fayoumy (Daniel Grimaldi), who, when given permission to approach the bench, declares, “It is a lovely bench! Splendid and sturdy like the great derriere that rests upon it!” Among the witnesses called to testify are Pontius Pilate (Leland Gantt), Caiaphas the Elder (Count Stovall), Simon the Zealot (Gabe Fazio), Mother Teresa (Bob Adrian), Sigmund Freud (Timothy Doyle), and Satan (Javier Molina) as the jury looks on, headed by foreman Butch Honeywell (Stephen Dexter). Saints such as Matthias of Galilee (Lash Dooley) and Peter (Con Horgan) chime in from the rafters, while Jesus (Michael Billingsley) wanders around seriously but quietly, carefully observing the trial.

Prosecutor El-Fayoumy (Daniel Grimaldi) grills Mother Teresa (Bob Adrian) as judge Frank Littlefield (Jay Johnston) looks on (photo by Shashwat Gupta)

Despite its nearly three-hour length (with intermission), the play flies by, anchored by several stirring monologues, including a sensational bit by Delissa Reynolds as Saint Monica, speaking in hip-hop, who proclaims, “I was axed to look into the case of Judas Iscariot by this Irish gypsy lawyer bitch in Purgatory named Cunningham. She wanted me to do some naggin’ to God on Judas’ behalf, and, quite frankly, I was impressed by her nagging abilities — cuz that bitch nagged my ass day and night for forty days . . . But I don’t nag for juss anybody, and I definitely don’t nag for no mothafuckah I don’t know, so I went down to check out Judas for my own self — he looked fuckin’ retarded.” The night we saw the play, two of the main actors stumbled over too many lines, but in general the cast, which also features Burnadair Lipscomb-Hunt as Mary Magdalene, Richarda Abrams as Gloria, and Beth Manspeizer as Loretta, a young woman on life support, is strong; many of them will also appear in the next Guirgis revival, Our Lady of 121st Street, as the Actors Studio plans to remount most of his plays. In The Last Days, Guirgis explores blasphemy, faith, selling out, abortion, anti-Semitism, a New York City overrun by “violent devil-worshipping cannibals,” the crucifixion, justice, and personal responsibility that is addressed in a long, heartfelt, and melodramatic monologue by Honeywell about remorse and regret. The play examines why, at least in theory, Jesus offered forgiveness to everyone except Judas, his onetime bestie, while also holding out hope that he will indeed grant atonement to us all.