this week in theater

NEW COUNTRY

Sharon (Sarah Lemp) takes aim at Uncle Jim (Mark Roberts) in Roberts’s sharpshooting dark comedy (photo by Clay Anderson)

Cherry Lane Studio Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Tuesday – Saturday through June 27, $35
212-989-2020
www.rattlestick.org
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

As you enter the small, intimate Cherry Lane Studio Theatre to see New Country, a flat-screen in the hotel-room set is playing climactic clips from such classic Westerns as High Noon, Once Upon a Time in the West, Pale Rider, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as well as the recent needless remake of 3:10 to Yuma. About two-thirds of the way through the viciously funny seventy-five-minute play, Uncle Jim (Roberts) says, “See, I like old country. Everything new is shit,” which just about sums up the world view of television veteran Roberts, a former stand-up comic who created, executive-produced, and wrote Mike and Molly for three seasons, was the head writer and executive producer for Two and a Half Men for seven years, was an executive consultant for The Big Bang Theory for three seasons, and has appeared on such shows as Friends and Seinfeld. He is now carving out quite a career for himself on the stage as a playwright and actor. Employing a sharp cynicism and wicked sense of humor from his years in Hollywood, Roberts went behind the scenes at a television network in The Gyre: Enter at Forest Lawn and examined the darker side of human nature in the brilliant black comedy Rantoul and Die, both for the adventurous Amoralists company and featuring the ultra-talented Sarah Lemp, who appeared in each of those productions, opposite Roberts in the former. In New Country, David Lind plays the aptly named Justin Spears, a self-obsessed country music superstar partying in Nashville on the eve of his wedding. He is being watched closely by his longtime handlers, the all-business Paul (Malcolm Madera) and his sidekick, the roly-poly Chuck (Jared Culverhouse), who are also dealing with the jealous and nervous fiancée via cell phone. Justin has let his fame go to his head, ordering around everyone, making them cater to his every whim, including Uncle Jim, a grizzled old coot who is the only relative Justin claims to care about. Meanwhile, Ollie (Stephen Sheffer), the hotel bellboy and wannabe country singer, is trying to get his demo to Justin. Things really kick into high gear when Sharon, Justin’s former fiancée, arrives like a house on fire, metaphorical six-guns blazing as she attempts to claim her just deserts. Evoking a screwball drawing-room comedy, albeit with quite a cynical bite, New Country skewers such high-falutin’ concepts as love, loyalty, and creativity as everyone states their case for why they matter — or why they don’t.

The price of fame and fortune in skewered in NEW COUNTRY (photo by Clay Anderson)

The centerpiece of New Country is a marvelous scene between Sharon, a bitter, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding cop, and Uncle Jim, a hippie Walter Brennan who mumbles hysterical asides while guzzling alcohol and hanging out with his companion, a blow-up doll named Wanda June Whitmore who “is up for anything and everything.” Lemp gives what might be her best performance yet as Sharon, a whirlwind of energy and bile, while Roberts has a ball as Uncle Jim, who’s never met a vice he isn’t willing to try. But neither of them is happy with the hands they’ve been dealt. “Live in your own little world, don’t you, pal?” Sharon says to him at one point. “Well. Beats the one they give us,” he responds, to which she adds, “True enough. Everything sure looked better in the catalogue.” Madera and Culverhouse are like a modern-day Abbott and Costello as Paul and Chuck, who are not about to let their golden goose flit away. Lind is excellent as the smug, oily Justin, hiding more than a few secrets that could ruin him, while Sheffer is sweetly likable as Ollie, who is no mere swishy bellboy. Director and set designer David Harwell sustains the craziness with just the right balance of anarchy and order, giving plenty of room for Roberts’s acidic, incisive dialogue to shine. There might not be a violent shootout à la Clint Eastwood and Gary Cooper at the end, but the sharpshooting Roberts hits his many targets over and over, leaving behind a metaphorical, and hilarious, bloodbath of winners and losers.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: THE TEMPEST

Miranda (Francesca Carpanini) and her father, Prospero (Sam Waterston), make magic in Central Park (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Through July 5, free, 8:00
publictheater.org/tempest

In the brief synopsis of The Tempest in the program for the Public Theater’s latest Shakespeare in the Park presentation, which opened at the Delacorte on June 16, it says in bold caps, “The play opens with a storm. . . . The storm isn’t natural.” But the night I saw it, real blasts of thunder accompanied the beginning, a striking depiction of the sudden squall that deposits a group of noblemen on a remote island. The elements are always part of the fun in these Public Theater productions, so the darkening clouds and threatening rain — which never came — added to the drama, which at times needed a little help. The island is occupied by the gray-bearded, professorly magician Prospero (Sam Waterston), his fifteen-year-old daughter, Miranda (Francesca Carpanini), and his two slaves, the playful sprite Ariel (Chris Perfetti) and the brooding, deformed Caliban (Louis Cancelmi). Formerly the duke of Milan, Prospero was exiled twelve years earlier when his brother, Antonio (Cotter Smith), usurped his title, and Prospero has been planning his revenge ever since; it is no coincidence that the shipwrecked boat was carrying Antonio, along with Alonso, the king of Milan (Charles Parnell), his brother, Sebastian (Frank Harts), and Ferdinand, the son of the king of Naples (Rodney Richardson), along with several others, including the honest councilor Gonzalo (Bernard White), Alonso’s jester, Trinculo (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), and the drunken butler Stephano (Danny Mastrogiorgio). Promising him freedom, Prospero sends out Ariel to do his dirty work, turning the men against one another so he can regain his title, while also playing matchmaker to Miranda and Ferdinand, who take an instant liking to each other.

Prospero (Sam Waterston) orchestrates strange doings on a remote island in THE TEMPEST (photo by Joan Marcus)

“Your tale, sir, would cure deafness,” Miranda says to her father when he is filling her in about their past, but unfortunately, Waterston (Law & Order, Grace and Frankie), wearing what appears to be a kind of tallit (Jewish prayer shawl), is marble-mouthed as Prospero, hesitant and uneasy in his line readings, particularly in the first act, making it hard to understand him as he strains to find a rhythm. This is his tenth Shakespeare in the Park appearance, an illustrious resume that dates back to his starring role in Hamlet back in 1975, so his performance is somewhat confounding, although he does settle down significantly in the second act. Perfetti’s (Sons of the Prophet) Ariel, clad in a mildly S&M body harness, is also questionable and ill-defined. But the rest of the cast is strong and engaging; current Juilliard student Carpanini and Richardson (Pulse) have infectious chemistry as the potential lovers, Ferguson (Modern Family, The Comedy of Errors) and Mastrogiorgio (Lucky Guy, Golden Boy) provide necessary comic relief, and Cancelmi (Father Comes Home from the Wars, The Hallway Trilogy) is excellent as the native “monster,” a character who evokes colonialism, bigotry, and fear of the other. Through it all, Arthur Solari’s percussion, played from his own booth at the corner of the stage, is filled with emotion itself as it goes from anger and ire to passion and love. Director Michael Greif (Next to Normal, Our Lady of Kibeho,), who helmed the well-received 2007 Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Juliet with Lauren Ambrose and Oscar Isaac, never quite finds his own rhythm, the three story lines bumpy until all coming together in the end on Riccardo Hernandez’s scaffold-based set. And speaking of the end, when Waterston stood alone onstage to deliver the epilogue, asking for applause to help him return to Milan, a goose flew overhead as if on cue, honking like a warped metronome, the outdoor elements once again becoming part of the show. This brave goose might not have laid a golden egg, but it did recall Mercutio telling Romeo, “Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five: was I with you there for the goose?”

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Nick Cearley stars as a musical Puck in Masterworks Theater (photo by Russ Rowland)

Nick Cearley stars as a musical Puck in the Masterworks Theater Company production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (photo by Russ Rowland)

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
47th Street Theatre
304 West 47th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 28, $19-$65
212-279-4200
www.masterworkstheatercompany.org

It’s hard to get New Yorkers to pay to see Shakespeare in the summer, what with so many free productions in parks, parking lots, and other outdoor spaces around the city. (You can check out an updated day-by-day list here.) But the Masterworks Theater Company is defying the odds, staging the Bard favorite A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the 47th St. Theatre. Clocking in at a breezy ninety minutes, this version, which features a lot of music and pop-culture references, stars Nick Cearley as Puck, Warren Jackson as Bottom, Jenny Strassburg as Hippolyta/Titania, Andrew Ramcharan Guilarte as Theseus/Oberon, Sheria Irving as Hermia, Becca Ballenger as Helena, Reynaldo Piniella as Lysander, Emilio Paul Tirado as Demetrius, and Jack Herholdt as Snout and Wall. Tamilla Woodard directs, with choreography by Shannon Stowe. The show is set in a modern-day playground designed by Raul Abrego.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: A Midsummer Night’s Dream is running through June 28 at the 47th St. Theatre, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite Midsummer Night’s Dream production (film or theater) to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, June 17, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

THE SPOILS

Ben (Jesse Eisenberg) shares his bitter thoughts on the state of the world with Kalyan (Kunal Nayyar) in THE SPOILS (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 28, $75-$95
212-244-7529
www.thenewgroup.org
www.signaturetheatre.org

In the second act of Jesse Eisenberg’s third play, The Spoils, Eisenberg, as the deeply troubled and extremely obnoxious Ben, says, “Did you think she was too mean? I’m struggling to figure out who our protagonist is. You can’t have a mean protagonist, but if they’re too perfect then they have nowhere to go. You know?” Yes, we know; Ben is referring to a woman in a documentary he is purportedly making, but he just as easily could be talking about himself, a nasty, confused, and confusing character who dishes out streams of sharp barbs and insensitive jokes. It is the third consecutive unlikable part that Eisenberg has written for himself for the stage, following Asuncion and The Revisionist. (He’s more likable in his film work: He was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and has also starred in such underrated films as Adventureland and The Double.) Ben is a pot-smoking, jobless New Jersey Jew living in a New York City apartment with his roommate, Nepalese business student Kalyan (The Big Bang’s Kunal Nayyar). An all-around nice guy and good friend to Ben, Kalyan is dating Reshma (Annapurna Sriram), an Indian American doing her med school residency — and who can’t stand Ben. (Kalyan is based on a real-life Nepalese friend of Eisenberg’s who was in Indonesia during the recent earthquake and returned home to help with the disaster.) Ben’s slacker-like existence, supported by his parents’ money, turns when he bumps into an old grade school acquaintance, Ted (Michael Zegen of Boardwalk Empire and Rescue Me), a banker engaged to Ben’s first crush, the sweet, kind, and innocent Sarah (Erin Darke). Suddenly infused with a purpose in his life, Ben sets out to steal Sarah from Ted, but he is unaware of just how pathetic and unpleasant he really is.

A group of friends apologize to the rest of the world for their supposed success in Jesse Eisenberg’s THE SPOILS (photo by Monique Carboni)

The Spoils opens with Kalyan showing Reshma a PowerPoint presentation he has created called “American Football: An Introduction to the Ballet of Brutality,” asking the questions “Is it appropriate to withhold knowledge from someone even if you think it might hurt them? Is it ethical to deny someone information, even if disclosing that information might hurt them?” Eisenberg’s play is also a ballet of brutality centered around the vitriolic Ben, who is haunted by dreams and memories that he can’t hold within himself. Eisenberg gives a whirling, energetic performance as Ben, words flowing out of him like Barry Sanders racing toward the goal line. Nayyar is much more calm and subdued as Kalyan, whose nature is to find the good in all people, including Ben. The New Group world premiere, in the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Signature Center, is ably directed by Scott Elliott, making good use of Derek McLane’s traditional living room/kitchen apartment set with a balcony; one nice touch is that Ben and Kalyan use a print of Jasper Johns’s “White Flag” as a screen for their PowerPoint and video projections, a very subtle reference to both surrender and the whitewashing of the American Dream. At one point in the play, the five characters are drinking Nepalese beer, and Ben calls for a special toast. We gotta say ‘Cheers’ in Nepali!” he proclaims. “I don’t think I ever said anything that would be an equivalent to ‘Cheers,’” Kalyan says. “I guess when we’re drinking, we don’t really feel a need to congratulate each other.” Ben ultimately decides that they “should apologize to the world. Because they’re toiling away while we get to sit here and drink. . . . A Nepalese Cheers: To all the pathetic f—s breaking their back while we drink this beautiful beer: I’m sorry!” It’s a funny moment that perhaps best represents the bubble they are all living in. But The Spoils still has a hard time getting past just how contentious and ill-natured Ben is, even when he begins to reveal his true self. He’s just not someone you’ll ever want to share a beer with.

A HUMAN BEING DIED THAT NIGHT

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Noma Dumezweni) and Eugene de Kock (Matthew Marsh) discuss violence and murder, forgiveness and reconciliation in A HUMAN BEING DIED THAT NIGHT (photo by Richard Termine)

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
Tuesday-Sunday through June 21, $65
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Near the beginning of Nicholas Wright’s sharp, powerful A Human Being Died That Night, inmate Eugene de Kock (Matthew Marsh) asks psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Noma Dumezweni), “Does this set-up that you’re looking at now make you think of a certain film?” It’s a question meant for the audience too, who are thinking the same thing as de Kock continues, “With Jodie Foster and Sir Anthony Hopkins? . . . Well, that’s what they think I am.” Set in a prison where de Kock is serving two life sentences plus 212 years for committing political crimes against black South Africans, earning the nickname “Prime Evil” for his involvement in numerous cold-blooded murders, A Human Being Died That Night instantly recalls Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs; Marsh’s erudite manner as de Kock even mimics Hopkins’s portrayal of Hannibal the Cannibal. But there are two primary differences: First, de Kock is a real person, and his story is true. Second, where the fictional Hannibal Lecter reveled in his deeds, de Kock is exploring forgiveness and repentance. Based on Gobodo-Madikizela’s book, which details her meetings with de Kock in Pretoria Central Prison, the play takes place inside a prison cell (designed by Paul Wills), with Gobodo-Madikizela, who served on Nelson Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on one side of a rectangular table, de Kock, in leg irons that limit his movement, on the other. Over the course of eighty minutes, they discuss the nature of his killings, which included a public bombing, his victims and their families, and his fellow policemen, particularly his superiors, who gave him his orders but have paid no consequences. Gobodo-Madikizela is not interviewing de Kock in an official capacity but for her own personal and professional studies, although she does not want to get too close to him. “There’s a line that I don’t want to cross,” she explains, to which he responds, “You want to understand me, but you don’t want to cross a line? Isn’t that making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself?” But she is shocked when she suddenly does cross that line, leading the way to deeply intimate revelations.

Nicholas Wright’s play offers a different look at apartheid (photo by Richard Termine)

Originally staged by Cape Town’s Fugard Theatre, A Human Being Died That Night is a riveting exploration of forgiveness and reconciliation. Olivier Award winner Dumezweni (A Raisin in the Sun, The Bogus Woman) and Marsh (Proof, The Last of the Haussmans) are mesmerizing as their characters warm to each other and reach unforeseen conclusions. Director Jonathan Munby, a veteran of many a Shakespeare production at theaters around the world, maintains a tense calm throughout that is heightened by a moment that frightens Gobodo-Madikizela; meanwhile, the sound of de Kock’s rattling chains are occasionally heard, a reminder of what he has done, even as he speaks eloquently about what’s in his heart. In the latter part of the play, the two characters switch sides of the table, de Kock no longer tethered to his spot, as if each is now in the other’s shoes, offering a different perspective on what comes next. Haunting and harrowing yet with a gentle soul, A Human Being Died That Night is especially relevant given America’s reaction to the Boston Marathon bomber, with calls for his execution coming from even those who are usually against the death penalty. Meanwhile, in January of this year, de Kock was granted parole. The play will have you looking inside yourself, examining your own views on forgiveness and reconciliation, empathy and compassion, and the nature of good and evil, whether in relation to a mass murderer or a more personal and private matter. And you might be surprised what you learn about yourself.

JOAN OF ARC AT THE STAKE

Joan of Arc (Marion Cotillard) and Brother Dominique (Éric Génovèse) contemplate her fate as the stake awaits (photo by Startraks Photo/Rex Shutterstock)

Who: Actors Marion Cotillard, Éric Génovèse, and Christian Gonon, the New York Choral Artists, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, conductor Alan Gilbert, the New York Philharmonic, and others
What: Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake
Where: Avery Fisher Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, 212-875-5030
When: Saturday, June 13, $50-$164, 8:00
Why: Director Côme de Bellescize’s concert staging of Swiss composer Arthur Honegger’s 1935 oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake might occasionally be more than a bit head-scratching (a court of adults and children in animal costumes?), but the music, conducted by Alan Gilbert, is glorious, with the Philharmonic joined by the New York Choral Artists, who hover in the back like an angelic jury, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, composed of children in a dazzling spectrum of outfits. Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) stars as Joan of Arc, the fifteenth-century French nationalist heroine who is accused of being a witch and a heretic. The production works best when Joan and Brother Dominique (Éric Génovèse) examine her life and fate, on a central wooden rectangular stage featuring a threatening stake in front of hellish red lighting. Other standouts include Faith Sherman as Catherine and Simone Osborne as Marguerite. The eighty-minute presentation is divided into a prologue followed by eleven scenes, with such titles as “The Voices of Heaven,” “Joan Given Up to the Beasts,” and “The Sword of Joan,” leading to a powerful, emotional conclusion.

AFGHANISTAN, ZIMBABWE, AMERICA, KUWAIT

The maddening desperation of war hovers over Rattlestick production of AFGHANISTAN, ZIMBABWE, AMERICA, KUWAIT (photo © Joan Marcus)

The Gym at Judson
243 Thompson St. at Washington Square South
Through June 27, $18
866-811-4111
www.rattlestick.org
www.judson.org

Early on in Daniel Talbott’s Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, two American soldiers, Smith (Seth Numrich) and Leadem (Brian Miskell), are outside their desert bunker, burning up in the furious heat and talking about a bird that recently flew past them. “The f—in’ bitch thought we were going to die,” Smith says. “I waved at her. I waved. Like with both hands up. Gave her the f—in’ hang loose sign. The peace sign.” The time is the near future, and Smith and Leadem are in the middle of nowhere, fighting a war they don’t understand. They don’t even know what day it is, but they’re well aware that they’re running desperately short of food and water, with no way to call for help, and the vultures are circling. Their precarious existence becomes even more troublesome when a third soldier, Miller (Chris Stack), arrives, with no hope to offer them. “It’s like Chernobyl a week after the f—ing meltdown,” he says. “Just silence. Like f—ing New York, or DC, after China. It’s all gone.” Throughout the play, the soldiers are visited by various characters who could be ghosts, hallucinations, or memories as they discuss family and lovers, the past and the future, avoiding the central issue of the brutal effects of war. Leadem is particularly spooked by a Serbian woman (Jelena Stupljanin) who cries out in the night about being tortured and raped. “The only conversation we had was when I was begging them to kill me,” she explains. “That’s when they laughed. Their response was, ‘We don’t need you dead.’” But the soldiers are determined not to give up, not to die in this unstated location, which could be anywhere, for seemingly no reason at all.

Raul Abrego’s set is harshly realistic, a small concrete shelter surrounded by hills of sand that trickle toward the audience. Above and behind them, David Tennent’s projections depict bright blue skies and approaching clouds. Rattlestick literary manager Talbott (Slipping, Yosemite) also directs the play with a sure hand, making powerful use of John Zalewski’s sound design and Joel Moritz’s lighting to indicate changes of scenes, turning the theater pitch black, filling the space with loud feedback, then bringing the lights back up with the actors in different positions to signify the passage of time. The fine cast also includes Jimi Stanton as Leadem’s brother and Kathryn Erbe as his mother, adding to the mystery of what exactly is unfolding onstage. Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait is a dark, bleak experience, an existential exploration of the horrors of war without overtly political content. The narrative occasionally gets confusing and repetitive; even at a mere ninety intermissionless minutes, it feels too long, but Talbott is not out to make the audience comfortable in their seats, instead intent on sharing aspects of the soldiers’ physical and psychological terror. It’s not a pleasant catharsis, and it’s not supposed to be. (The June 16 performance will be followed by a panel discussion with Greg Grandin, Morgan Jenness, and Michael Ratner, moderated by the Reverend Micah Bucey.)