this week in theater

SIGNATURE PLAYS

A muscleman (Ryan-James Hatanaka) shows off his wares to Grandma (Phyllis Somerville) in Edward Albee’s THE SANDBOX (photo by Monique Carboni)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 19, $25-$65
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

As part of its twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, the Signature Theatre has put together an evening of compellingly strange one-acts that were previously presented by the company as part of their authors’ Playwright-in-Residence seasons all of which involve unique looks at death. In Edward Albee’s 1959 The Sandbox, first mounted at the Signature in 1994 directed by Albee himself, a WASPy couple who refer to each other as Mommy (Alison Fraser) and Daddy (Frank Wood) relax on lounge chairs after having an impressively toned muscleman in a bathing suit (Ryan-James Hatanaka) deposit Grandma (Phyllis Somerville) in a child’s sandbox on a nearly blindingly yellow set (by Mimi Lien). While Melody Giron plays the cello, the man continues his calisthenics, slowly flapping his arms while standing firmly on the ground, Mommy and Daddy find that they have little to talk about it, and Grandma marvels at the young man’s body while expressing her dismay at her situation. “Honestly! What a way to treat an old woman! Drag her out of the house . . . stick her in a car . . . bring her out here from the city . . . dump her in a pile of sand . . . and leave her here to set. I’m eighty-six years old!” she tells the audience. All of the characters are aware that they are in a play, making comments about the music, the lighting, and the script, but only Grandma, who embodies the entire life cycle, from baby to sexual being to mother to old woman on her last legs, speaks like a real person; the others are more like clichéd stock characters reciting their lines with the sparest of genuine emotion. Director Lila Neugebauer keeps it all bright and cheery as the end nears, in more ways than one.

Roe (Sahr Ngaujah) teaches Pea (Mikéah Ernest Jennings) about life in María Irene Fornés’s DROWNING (photo by Monique Carboni)

María Irene Fornés’s 1986 Drowning, initially presented at the Signature in 1999, when John Simon declared in New York magazine that it was “the worst play I have seen all year,” was originally part of Orchards, in which seven contemporary playwrights (among them Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet, and John Guare) wrote a one-act play inspired by a short story by Anton Chekhov. Cuban-American playwright Fornés chose “Drowning,” although her avant-garde approach was more than a little unusual. In a cafeteria, Pea (Mikéah Ernest Jennings) and Roe (Sahr Ngaujah), a pair of giant potato-like creatures (Kaye Voyce’s elaborate costumes are a certifiable riot), talk ever-so-slowly, almost like a Butoh dance, as the latter teaches the former about newspapers, snow, and flesh. Fornés evokes Beckett as Roe and Pea wait for Stephen (Wood), who actually does show up, and the immature, childlike Pea learns about love and pain. “He is very kind and he could not do harm to anyone,” Stephen says about Roe, who responds, “Yes. And I don’t want any harm to come to him either because he’s good.” Drowning is a bizarre yet captivating journey into what makes us human.

Adrienne Kennedy’s FUNNYHOUSE OF A NEGRO takes place inside of the mind of young woman facing a harsh reality (photo by Monique Carboni)

The Legacy Program evening concludes with Adrienne Kennedy’s Obie-winning 1964 Funnyhouse of a Negro, which was staged at the Signature in 1995. A complex exploration of slavery, racism, colonialism, and heritage, the entire story takes place inside the mind of Negro-Sarah (Crystal Dickinson) as she encounters Queen Victoria Regina (April Matthis), the Duchess of Hapsburg (January LaVoy), Patrice Lumumba (Ngaujah), and Jesus (Jennings) in addition to her roommate, Raymond (Nicholas Bruder), her landlady (Fraser), and the Mother (Pia Glenn). “My mother was the light. She was the lightest one. She looked like a white woman,” Victoria says. “Black man, black man, I never should have let a black man put his hands on me. The wild black beast raped me and now my skull is shining,” the Mother states. Negro (Sarah) adds, “As for myself I long to become even a more pallid Negro than I am now; pallid like Negroes on the covers of American Negro magazines; soulless, educated, and irreligious. I want to possess no moral value, particularly value as to my being. I want not to be. I ask nothing except anonymity.” And Sarah explains, “The rooms are my rooms; a Hapsburg chamber, a chamber in a Victorian castle, the hotel where I killed my father, the jungle. These are the places myselves exist in. I know no places. That is, I cannot believe in places. To believe in places is to know hope and to know the emotion of hope is to know beauty. It links us across a horizon and connects us to the world. I find there are no places only my funnyhouse.” Each scene takes place in a different, exquisitely designed set by Lien amid darkness and Voyce’s extravagant costumes. Like The Sandbox and Drowning, Funnyhouse of a Negro is a highly stylized, absurdist drama about death, and the death of the American dream, only this time with more overt targets and explicit, at times shocking action. It’s unfortunately still relevant a half century after its debut during the civil rights movement. It’s also a fitting finale to this Signature hat trick that looks back while also peering into the future.

ON BROADWAY: FROM RENT TO REVOLUTION

on broadway

Rizzoli Bookstore
1133 Broadway at 26th St.
Monday, May 23, RSVP only, 6:30
212-759-2424
rizzolibookstore.com
www.broadwaycares.org

Before word of mouth, before the reviews, before the public sees the cast and sets and hears the dialogue and music, a Broadway show attempts to define itself — and sell tickets — by establishing a look, a unique brand, via posters, billboards, and advertisements. For the last twenty years, SpotCo, originally known as Spot Design, has been at the forefront of this business, working on campaigns for more than three hundred clients, including eight Pulitzer Prize winners and the last eight winners of the Tony for Best Musical. The company’s history is celebrated in the new coffee-table book On Broadway: From Rent to Revolution (Rizzoli, April 2016, $45), which explores SpotCo’s branding of such shows as Rent, Chicago, The Vagina Monologues, Doubt, Avenue Q, Hair, Once, Kinky Boots, Fun Home, and Hamilton. “What separates SpotCo’s oeuvre from what has come before and makes it so astounding is that as a whole it has no recognizable visual style, in a business that was long thought to rely on exactly that, no matter how hackneyed and clichéd,” author and graphic designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd writes in his foreword. “The only thing that unites them all is an unwavering sense of intelligence and the apparent belief that their audience is comprised of people who can think, intuit, and take a chance on something they haven’t quite experienced before.” The book also features text by SpotCo founder Drew Hodges and producers, composers, illustrators, playwrights, artistic directors, photographers, and actors (Harvey Fierstein, Cherry Jones, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patrick Stewart, Sting) detailing the various campaigns, in addition to an introduction by former company maid David Sedaris. On May 23, the Rizzoli Bookstore will host the annual Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS charity event while also celebrating On Broadway: From Rent to Revolution; the evening will include a red carpet entrance for numerous stars of the Great White Way, an auction of original art, and more.

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

The Tyrone family battles its inner and outer demons in Roundabout revival of Eugene O’Neill masterpiece (photo by Joan Marcus)

American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 26, $67-$147
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

As the audience enters the American Airlines Theatre to see the Roundabout revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Long Day’s Journey into Night, a white curtain billows ominously from the right side of the set, blown by the wind from an offstage shore. It’s as if we’re being warned that what we’re about to see is a kind of ghost story, and that’s precisely what we witness over the next three hours and forty-five minutes, an intense tale told as if the dysfunctional Tyrone family must relive their personal horrors over and over again, continually hiding from the truths that overwhelm them. Sixty-five-year-old patriarch James Tyrone (Gabriel Byrne) is a miserly, well-known actor who is fond of the bottle and the small tract of land that he owns. He is still in love with his wife, the fifty-four-year-old Mary (Jessica Lange), a morphine addict who has been in and out of sanatoriums and is struggling to deal with reality. Their older son, thirty-three-year-old Jamie (Michael Shannon), is a brash, ne’er-do-well philanderer and would-be actor always at odds with his father. And the younger son, twenty-three-year-old Edmund (John Gallagher Jr.), is a more sensitive soul who is suffering from an illness that might be consumption. It’s August 1912, and the Tyrones are at their summer home on the beach. “I can’t tell you the deep happiness it gives me, darling, to see you as you’ve been since you came back to us, your dear old self again,” James tells Mary, who has recently returned from her latest rehab stint. James and Jamie are trying to keep the severity of Edmund’s illness from Mary, fearful that the truth will send her back to her drug of choice. “It’s a relief to hear Edmund laugh. He’s been so down in the mouth lately,” she says early on, which James ignores resentfully. Soon James and Jamie are having one of their regular arguments, which upsets Edmund and Mary. “What’s all the fuss about? Let’s forget it,” Jamie says. “Yes, forget! Forget everything and face nothing!” James shouts back, summarizing the general Tyrone philosophy. Meanwhile, Mary compares James’s snoring to the foghorn that keeps her awake at night, as if the harsh sound is a wake-up call, warning of dire things to come that all ignore. As they await the verdict from Doc Hardy regarding Edmund’s illness, the ghosts continue to hover over this doomed family, unable to save themselves from their sad destiny.

James Tyrone (Gabriel Byrne) and wife Mary (Jessica Lange) hold on to each other for dear life in LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Completed in 1942 but not published and performed until 1956, three years after O’Neill’s death at sixty-five, Long Day’s Journey into Night is a semiautobiographical look at the playwright’s own family over the course of one very long day, from 8:30 in the morning to midnight. It takes a while to get used to accepting the cast as the Tyrone family; while Byrne is around the right age for James, Mary is supposed to be eleven years younger but Lange is actually a year older than Byrne, and Shannon and Gallagher at first seem completely miscast, but they both eventually settle into their roles. Director Jonathan Kent (Hamlet, Man of La Mancha) makes the most of Tom Pye’s (The Testament of Mary, Fiddler on the Roof) inviting yet haunting set, Natasha Katz’s (An American in Paris, Aida) appropriately moody lighting, and Clive Goodwin’s (The Glass Menagerie, Once) menacing sound design, keeping the audience on edge as the intense drama unfolds. Byrne (A Moon for the Misbegotten, A Touch of the Poet) and Lange (A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie) ultimately form a stirring James and Mary, their love complicated by suspicion and doubt, in parts previously played by such pairs as Robert Ryan and Geraldine Fitzgerald, Laurence Olivier and Constance Cummings, Jason Robards and Zoe Caldwell, Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, Jack Lemmon and Bethel Leslie, Brian Dennehy and Vanessa Redgrave, and, in 2000, Charles Dance and Lange. The cast also includes Colby Minifie (The Pillowman, Punk Rock) as Cathleen, the Tyrones’ young maid who speaks her mind when she has the chance. “A drop now and then is no harm when you’re in low spirits, or have a bad cold,” she says to Edmund as the two steal a drink from one of James’s closely watched bottles. Of course, drinking can actually do a lot of harm, as the Tyrones, and O’Neill himself, are well aware. This Roundabout revival is a powerful production of one of America’s signature plays, once again justifying its position in the pantheon alongside such other towering achievements as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

MIKE BIRBIGLIA: THANK GOD FOR JOKES

Mike Birbiglia delves into the art of the joke in latest one-man show (photo © Joan Marcus)

Culture Project, Lynn Redgrave Theater
49 Bleecker St. near Lafayette St.
Wednesday – Sunday through May 29, $56.50-$96.50
866-811-4111
www.thankgodforjokes.com
cultureproject.org

“At some point this week you told someone where you were going tonight and that person said, ‘Who?’ and you said something I’d been in and they said, ‘What’s that?’ and you said, ‘Go back to bed, Grandma,’” Mike Birbiglia explains near the beginning of his latest one-man show, Thank God for Jokes. “But I’m a niche thing.” The thirty-seven-year-old actor, comedian, writer, and director has appeared in such films as Trainwreck and Hot Pursuit and such cable series as Orange Is the New Black and Girls and is a regular contributor to This American Life on radio. In 2012, he wrote, directed, and starred in the award-winning Sleepwalk with Me, a film based on his one-man show and book about his battle with rapid eye movement (REM) behavior disorder. The success of the indie movie led to his gig hosting the 2012 Gotham Awards, which plays a central role in Thank God for Jokes. Over the course of eighty-five minutes, Birbiglia also discusses spam filters, nut allergies, cursing in front of the Muppets, riffing on Jesus at a Christian college, cats, and his fear of cops. The latter leads to an improvised conversation with an audience member that can be both funny and a little scary depending on the person’s past. He also has a blast with latecomers — the Lynn Redgrave Theater makes it clear that there will be no late seating, but when a few stragglers do indeed arrive after the show has begun, Birbiglia lets them have it. “What late people don’t understand about us on-time people is that we hate you,” he says. “And the reason we hate you is that it’s so easy to be on time. You just have to be early and early lasts for hours and on time just lasts a second and then you’re late. Forever.”

Mike Birbiglia riffs on lateness, Jesus, fear of cops, the Muppets, and more in THANK GOD FOR JOKES (photo © Joan Marcus)

But mostly, Birbiglia delves into the art of the joke. “I say this about jokes, having thought about them a lot. Jokes are a volatile type of speech. Sometimes when you tell a joke someone will punch you in the face. And the people standing around you will go, [nodding] ‘Yeah.’” Referring to the Charlie Hebdo incident, in which twelve magazine employees were killed for publishing cartoons depicting Muhammad, Birbiglia points out, “A few of my friends said, ‘Can’t people just write jokes that aren’t offensive?’ And I’m not sure that’s possible. I think all jokes are offensive . . . to someone. . . .” Directed by Seth Barrish (All the Rage, The Tricky Part) and designed by Beowulf Boritt (Act One, The Scottsboro Boys), both of whom did the same on Birbiglia’s first two one-man shows, Sleepwalk with Me and My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Thank God for Jokes features the relatively soft-spoken and self-effacing Birbiglia walking around a small stage, the audience seated around him on three sides. On the wall behind him are religious-tinged stained-glass windows and a handwritten scrawl about Jesus. But don’t let Birbiglia’s gentle, thoughtful demeanor fool you, as he can pack quite a punch, in his storytelling and his delivery, hitting you with hilarious surprises just when you’ve settled in comfortably. He’s a friendly, engaging guy — as long as the joke’s not on you. The show continues through May 29; you can catch more of Birbiglia this July, when his second film as writer, director, and star, Don’t Think Twice, opens in theaters.

DADDY LONG LEGS

Megan McGinnis shines as orphan getting chance to go to college in DADDY LONG LEGS (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Davenport Theatre
354 West 54th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Friday – Wednesday through June 6, $59.50 – $89.50
www.daddylonglegsmusical.com

Don’t let the title steer you in the wrong direction. The off-Broadway musical Daddy Long Legs is not a stage adaptation of the 1955 Jean Negulesco film starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron, nor is it a theatrical version of Josh and Benny Safdie’s 2009 hit indie film, Daddy Longlegs. (It’s not about spiders either, although it references the creepy arachnid.) This absolutely lovely Daddy Long Legs goes back to the source of the earlier film, Jean Webster’s 1912 epistolary novel about an American orphan’s coming-of-age as a young woman in a male-dominated society. Megan McGinnis gives one of the most charming and engaging performances of the season as Jerusha, who is, as she sings in the show’s catchy opening number, “the oldest orphan in the John Grier Home.” She also points out, “Poor Jerusha Abbott / Never breaking free of this place,” but she is finally given a shot at a real life when her essays win her a college scholarship — previously reserved for boys only — from a mysterious, anonymous benefactor. But “The Further Education of Miss Jerusha Abbott by Mr. John Smith” comes with nine very specific rules, including requirements that Jerusha must write him a letter every month, can never thank him, will never receive a letter back, and will never meet him. However, her very first letter from college begins to beguile Mr. Smith with her candidness and fresh point of view on life and education. “I just wanna be like other girls / Get all dressed up like other girls / Become a scientist, a motorist / a suffragette, a Methodist / a Fabian, a Freudian / the class valedictorian,” she explains to Mr. Smith, who is actually Jervis Pendleton, the wealthy scion of a society family. In subsequent letters, she wonders more about Daddy Long Legs, whether he is old and bald, rich and tall, while a lovestruck Jervis starts thinking that he needs to meet Jerusha but maintain his secret identity.

DADDY LONG LEGS is told exclusively through letters and songs (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Two-time Tony-winning director John Caird (Les Misérables, Nicholas Nickleby) and composer Paul Gordon, who previously collaborated on Jane Eyre, wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Daddy Long Legs, with Caird directing. All of the dialogue comes from Jerusha’s letters, which are either read or sung by her and Jervis, the latter often sitting at his desk at the back of the left corner of the stage, in his book-laden study, while Jerusha is generally front and center. The quaint set and period costumes are by David Farley, with subtle lighting by Paul Toben, sound by Peter Fitzgerald, and splendid orchestrations by Brad Haak, performed live by Haak on piano, Steven Walker on guitar, and Jeanette Stenson on cello. Projections in a cursive typeface identify the precise time and place like chapter headings. McGinnis (Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast) is beyond delightful as Jerusha, casting wide-eyed smiles directly at the audience, making warm, intimate connections with her beautiful voice as well. McGinnis, who originated the role in 2010 at the Rubicon Theatre Company and has played Belle in Beauty on the Beast and Eponine in Les Miz on Broadway, has an infectious charisma and casual grace that should make her a star. The role of Jervis is usually played by McGinnis’s real-life husband, Adam Halpin (Paul Alexander Nolan originated the role off Broadway), but we saw his understudy, Will Reynolds, who was just fine following some initial tightness. Nominated for two Drama Desk Awards and three Outer Critics Circle Awards, Daddy Long Legs was scheduled to end its run on January 10 but was extended to June 6, so there’s not much time left to see one of the best shows of the year.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A PERSISTENT MEMORY

a persistent memory

A PERSISTENT MEMORY
The Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Previews begin May 27, opening June 1, runs through June 18, $49.50 ($29.50 with code TRBI29)
www.apersistentmemory.com
www.theatrerow.org

A 2009 Scientific American article explained that “remarkable recall power, researchers believe, is a big part of how elephants survive.” Playwright Jackob G. Hofmann (The Speed Date, Tracking Gertrude Treadwell) makes recollection and elephants central issues in his latest work, The Persistence of Memory, having its world premiere at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row later this month. The play travels from New York City to Uganda, following the exploits of David Huntington as his memories start disappearing and his past begins to haunt him at the same time “a mysterious phenomenon is plaguing the world’s elephant population.” The ninety-minute play is directed by Jessi D. Hill and stars Drew Ledbetter as David, Ariel Estrada as Kasem, Claire Warden as Carly, Lisa Bostnar as Marie, and Richard Prioleau as Elijah, with scenic design by Parris Bradley, costumes by Valerie Joyce, and lighting by Greg Solomon. For further information about elephants, the play’s official website includes links to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the African Wildlife Foundation, the Elephant Sanctuary, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, the Wildlife Conservation Network, the World Wildlife Fund, and the wildLIFE Project.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A Persistent Memory begins previews May 27 and opens June 1 at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite play or movie that involves elephants to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, May 20, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

PORT CITIES NY

Nathaniel Ryan and Elizabeth Gray hold tight to crates in PORT CITIES (photo by Kelly Stuart)

Pier 11, South St. at Wall St.
Waterfront Museum Barge, Red Hook
Wednesday, May 18, and Thursday, May 19, $20-$27
www.portcitiesproject.org

Port Cities NY is the ambitious first presentation in Talya Chalef’s five-part project investigating the sociocultural and –economic impact of the seventeenth-century Dutch trade routes, relating history and legacy to contemporary hot-button issues. The Brooklyn-based South African / Australian multidisciplinary artist wrote, directed, and choreographed the work, which ends its short run on May 18 and 19. The audience of up to sixty people for each show gathers at Pier 11 on South Street and takes a ferry across the East River to Red Hook. During the journey, they listen, individually on their own headphones, to a New Agey soundscape by Cameron Orr that can be downloaded in advance or streamed online; it also includes an introductory ghost story recited by modern-day archaeologist Katie (Leah Barker). “Things which may seem unreal to some become very real. Maybe too real,” she ominously says. The crowd then walks over to Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79, which is docked at the Conover Street pier and houses the Waterfront Museum. Katie and actors Marcus Crawford Guy, Elizabeth Gray, and Nathaniel Ryan, who play multiple roles, lead the audience inside, where Orr is performing his score live. At this point, the intriguing and promising journey turns abstract as the increasingly esoteric narrative unfolds over forty-five minutes.

Marcus Crawford Guy points the way as Elizabeth Gray stands tall in play set on waterfront barge (photo by Kelly Stuart)

Katie is guided into a game, “The Settlers of Manahatta” (based on the Dutch game “Catan: Trade Build Settle”), hosted by Hans Van Brunt (Guy) and Lottie Van Brunt (Gray), that introduces her to four historical figures from the 1600s Dutch settlement that became New York City: prostitute and entrepreneur Grietje Reyniers, butcher Asser Levy, execution-surviving slave Groot Manuel, and Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant. Among the other characters in the time-and-place-shifting play are the white Katie’s African American boyfriend, Kevin; Jane, a commodities broker who once believed that she was “the messiah of the money world”; and Prison Man X, who gives a soliloquy that brings up Barack Obama and Eric Garner. Chalef also includes references to Dutch tulips, the color mauve, colonialism, the Triangle Trade, the ship discovered under the World Trade Center, the African Burial Ground unearthed in Lower Manhattan, and lots and lots of numbers. Port Cities NY explores some fascinating events and makes some clever observations but gets lost in many a head-scratching moment; in particular, Horus Vacui’s projections are hard to make out, Gray’s occasional robotic movement comes out of nowhere, and the use of milk crates to stand in for a multitude of physical objects is downright confusing. It possibly has something to do with shipping containers and perhaps sustainable packaging, but it’s never made clear. In fact, in a postshow discussion, Chalef understandably was reluctant to give away too many answers, but judging from the questions that were asked, there was a significant amount of befuddlement, especially with the gaming aspect. And because the ferry and water taxi do not run past 8:20, you’ll have to find your own way home from Red Hook, either sharing an Uber or taking a bus. But Port Cities NY is still a unique adventure, even if it’s not wholly satisfying or successful. Chalef’s grand, operatic project will travel over the next several years to Cape Town, Jakarta, and Perth before culminating in a multimedia installation in Amsterdam.