this week in theater

NEGATIVE IS POSITIVE

David (Joshua Zirger) and Simone (Karen Eilbacher) deal with a surprise medical diagnosis in Christy Smith-Sloman’s NEGATIVE IS POSITIVE (photo by Magali Charron)

Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Sts.
Thursday – Sunday through November 30, $15
212-254-1109
www.negativeispositivetheplay.com
www.theaterforthenewcity.net

It’s rarely a good sign when you go to the theater and there are as many people in the audience as there are actors in the cast. It doesn’t help when the stage is surrounded by sheets of plastic that make it look like it is still under construction, not ready for the public yet. And then you have to sit through an opening scene that is so dreadful you’re looking for the emergency exits, wondering how you can sneak out without being noticed. (You can’t.) But then something happens, and you remember why you love going to the theater in the first place. In this case, it’s the entrance of Joshua Zirger, who commands his role with such a genuineness that you’re willing to forgive many of the shortcomings of Negative Is Positive, a new work by Christy Smith-Sloman, directed by Andreas Robertz, running at the Theater for the New City through November 30. The play is set in 2010, with Simone (Karen Eilbacher) getting diagnosed with HIV by a dentist (Fulton C. Hodges) using a rather questionable experimental procedure. Instead of seeking a second opinion — a serious flaw in the story — Simone rails against her husband, David (Zirger), accusing him of cheating and attacking him unmercifully, reevaluating their life together no matter how much he swears he’s innocent and that he loves her. When their best friends, Brianna (Vivienne Jurado) and George (David M. Farrington), arrive for dinner, Simone gets in an even fouler mood, with fireworks flying that get only more intense in the second act.

Negative Is Positive made headlines recently when former New York Rangers forward, Vogue intern, and model Sean Avery, who was originally supposed to play George, abruptly quit the show amid an argument over pizza. Smith-Sloman, who is also a journalist, and Robertz, the artistic director of OneHeart Productions, have, dare we say, turned a negative into a positive with Avery’s last-minute replacement, Farrington, who displays a natural ease in the role and clearly works well with others. Eilbacher is at her best when she unleashes several massive screams, but it’s Zirger who’s the one to watch here, even during the last moments of intermission, as his character examines his board of notes — David’s taken a year off from his sports job to write a screenplay — trying to decide what comes next. For Zirger, hopefully it’s bigger and better things onstage.

LOST LAKE

Veronica (Tracie Thoms) and Hogan (John Hawkes) are a pair of lost souls set adrift in new play by David Auburn (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club
NY City Center Stage 1
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through December 21, $90
212-581-1212
www.lostlakemtc.com
www.nycitycenter.org

One of the best new plays of the fall season, David Auburn’s Lost Lake is a relatively simple yet compelling drama about two flawed souls trapped in worlds they can’t break out of. Veronica (Tracie Thoms) is a single mother looking to rent a cabin upstate for a week for her, her children, and one of their friends. Veronica goes up early to check out the cabin, which turns out to be as shoddy and ramshackle as its owner, Hogan (John Hawkes), a gaunt, grizzled, but well-meaning man who can’t seem to do anything right in his life. Both are repairers of a sort; Veronica is a nurse practitioner with aspirations to perhaps become a doctor, while Hogan purports to be a handyman who can fix just about anything, including the rotting swimming dock out on the lake behind the cabin. But neither can patch the gaping holes in their lives. As her supposed vacation progresses, Veronica gets caught up in Hogan’s family drama, as he lurks around the property, telling her about his problems with his ex-wife, his daughter, his brother, and, mostly, his despised sister-in-law, no matter how much Veronica just wants him to leave. But various events, both major and minor, keep bringing these two very different people together during a complicated period in which each is forced to take a long, hard look at the choices they’ve made while dealing with the hands they’ve been given.

Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Auburn reteams with his Proof director, Daniel Sullivan, for this moving slice-of-life tale, which is highlighted by two superb performances. Thoms (Cold Case, Stick Fly) is careful and deliberate as Veronica, a troubled woman who does not like to let her wounds show. The Oscar-nominated Hawkes (Winter’s Bone, The Sessions) is riveting as Hogan, all herky-jerky and unpredictable as a man seemingly uncomfortable in his own skin. The back-and-forth banter between them is enhanced by the piercing yet vulnerable looks in their eyes, neither character happy with their lot in life but not sure how to turn things around. The script cleverly touches on such issues as race, the economic crisis, class, elitism, and gender roles while efficiently dismissing the one place you really don’t want it to go. J. Michael Griggs’s set is appropriately broken-down and dilapidated, echoing the protagonists’ inner demons. The ninety-minute Manhattan Theatre Club production follows the play’s debut earlier this year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Jake Weber and Opal Alladin as part of the Sullivan Project, a residency led by artistic director Daniel Sullivan, who has also helmed such shows as Rabbit Hole, Orphans, The Heidi Chronicles, and many Shakespeare in the Park presentations. Lost in the Lake is a fine fit for the intimate Stage I at City Center, where it is scheduled to run through December 21.

THE OLDEST BOY

A lama (James Saito), a mother (Celia Keenan-Bolger), and a monk (Jon Norman Schneider) sip Tibetan butter tea in THE OLDEST BOY

Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 28, $87
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

Inspired by a true story told to her by her children’s Tibetan babysitter, playwright Sarah Ruhl explores motherhood, Buddhism, and monastic tradition in The Oldest Boy. Three-time Tony nominee Celia Keenan-Bolger (The Glass Menagerie, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) stars as a Cincinnati-born mother who is surprised when a monk (Jon Norman Schneider) and a lama (James Saito) arrive at her home (in an unnamed American city), claiming that her three-year-old son is the living reincarnation of the monk’s beloved teacher. Both she and her husband (James Yaegashi) — a Buddhist owner of a Tibetan restaurant who was born and raised in India, where the Dalai Lama and many Tibetans have lived in exile since the Chinese army crushed the 1959 Tibetan uprising — are honored that their child might be a tulku, or reincarnated Rinpoche. However, they face a dilemma, for the monk and the lama have come to take the boy to be enthroned in Dharamsala, where he will study in a monastery and become a Rinpoche himself, the teacher now being taught by his student in the endless circle of life. While the thought of giving up her son is shocking to the mother, the father is much more accepting of the situation, as it is part of his family’s culture.

A mother has an impossible decision to make in Sarah Ruhl’s THE OLDEST BOY

The Oldest Boy is set on a round wooden floor that evokes a mandala. Two-time Pulitzer finalist Ruhl (The Clean House, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play) and director Rebecca Taichman (Ruhl’s Stage Kiss and Orlando) open up the back wall of the Mitzi Newhouse, where performers enact symbolic rituals that highlight Tibetan culture but detract from the central narrative, more David Henry Hwang than Sarah Ruhl. Keenan-Bolger and Schneider are both excellent, their difficult relationship wholly believable. The boy is portrayed by a wooden puppet operated by Takemi Kitamura, Nami Yamamoto, and Ernest Abuba, with Abuba providing the speaking voice. It’s a conceit that is odd and uncomfortable at first but ends up working rather well. Also influenced by such documentaries as Unmistaken Child and My Reincarnation, The Oldest Boy is a moving, if uneven, portrait of faith and family, of the value of belief and tradition in the modern world.

THE REAL THING

An all-star cast revive Tom Stoppard’s THE REAL THING on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)

American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 4, $67-$142
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

In 1984, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing won the Tony for Best Play, with stars Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, and Christine Baranski taking home Antoinette Perry statues as well. In 2000, the story of love and infidelity was named Best Revival of a Play, with Jennifer Ehle and Stephen Dillane also honored for their roles. Lightning is unlikely to strike thrice in the latest Broadway revival of The Real Thing, a strangely cold and dispassionate version running at the American Airlines Theatre. In their Great White Way debuts, Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal never catch fire together, while Josh Hamilton and Cynthia Nixon don’t warm up either in this play about playwrights and actors. Henry (McGregor) is a successful scribe married to hoity actress Charlotte (Nixon), but he has the hots for another actress, the more earthbound Annie (Gyllenhaal), married to Max (Hamilton), who is suspicious of his wife’s possible infidelity. The tale alternates between real life and scenes from Henry’s plays with overlapping story lines and self-referential banter that sometimes makes it hard to differentiate between the two. In between scenes, members of the cast happily sing pop tunes out of character, as if they’re gathered around a campfire sharing wine and roasting marshmallows. But then it’s right back to Stoppard’s innately clever, refreshingly adult dialogue, which unfortunately falls flat under Sam Gold’s rather standard direction on David Zinn’s icy set. Madeline Weinstein adds some life as Debbie, Henry and Charlotte’s daughter — a role originated on Broadway by Nixon, who at the time was also appearing in David Rabe’s Tony-nominated Hurlyburly, dashing between the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and the Plymouth — but no sparks ignite as Annie’s costar, Billy (Ronan Raftery), and daft playwright Brodie (Alex Breaux) enter the fray. A well-known soda company once had a jingle that proclaimed, “There ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby”; in the case of this Broadway revival, that’s unfortunately not quite true.

ALL FOR ONE: FOURTH ANNIVERSARY

Phebe’s Tavern & Grill
359 Bowery at East Fourth St.
Monday, November 11, free, 8:30
www.allforonetheater.org
www.phebesnyc.com

All for One, the nonprofit organization dedicated to “the art and craft of solo theater through education, performance, community, and advocacy,” is celebrating its fourth anniversary with a free party on November 11 at Phebe’s in the East Village. At the event, there will be appetizers and a cash bar, two-dollar raffle tickets to win two tickets to Sleep No More, 54 Below, the New York Neo-Futurists’ Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, Gazillion Bubble Show, and Metropolitan Playhouse, an announcement of next year’s programming, and the presentation of the 2015 All for One Pioneer Award to Cheryl King. Following the party, everyone is invited down the street to see a reading of founding artistic director Michael Wolk’s new musical at 64E4 Underground, GL9 (Ghostlight Nine), which is set in a haunted Broadway theater and features “book, music, lyrics, guitar playing, singing, and an attempt at acting” by Wolk, directed by Aaron Mark. The party is being held in conjunction with All for One’s SoloLab, which continues through November 16 with seven one-person solo shows in development, including Diana Oh’s {my lingerie play}: Installation 9/10, Katie Northlich’s Divine Chaos, Deb Margolin’s 8 Stops, Kim Morris’s We’re the Only Ones Left, and Antonia Lassar’s Post Traumatic Super Delightful.

THE OBJECT LESSON

Geoff Sobelle uses stuff to look back at his life in THE OBJECT LESSON (photo by Jeremy Abrahams)

2014 NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL
BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
November 5-8, $20
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.geoffsobelle.com

Geoff Sobelle is a modern-day Buster Keaton in his one-man show The Object Lesson, which had its New York premiere at the BAM Fisher on Wednesday night and continues through Saturday. Once the doors to the intimate Fishman Space open, lucky ticket holders — the run is sold out, although there is a standby line — enter a room filled with hundreds and hundreds of cardboard boxes of all sizes, some scattered across the floor to be used as seats, others piled high to the ceiling. Many of the boxes are open, inviting people to peruse their contents. They contain the stuff of a lifetime, a hoarder’s fantasy, from footballs and photographs to stuffed animals and trophies, from Christmas decorations and clothing to papers and toys. There’s also a large card catalog with drawers and drawers of smaller items, many of which hold surprises that reveal a wry sense of humor. (Be sure to check out the Hamlet compartment.) Eventually, Sobelle enters the room and creates a central space consisting of a carpet, chair, side table, and lamps, magically pulling the items out of boxes while David Byrne’s “Glass, Concrete & Stone” plays on a turntable; “It is just a house, not a home,” the former Talking Head sings, differentiating between physical things and a more emotional concept. For the next seventy minutes or so, Sobelle rummages through boxes, interacts with the audience, has cleverly created telephone conversations, makes a salad like no one else ever has, and encounters memories that he can’t decide whether he wants to forget or remember, prompted by particular, tangible pieces of his past. He does all this in a mostly deadpan manner, with plenty of sly nods to the audience, who occasionally need to shift position when he builds his next set. (In addition to the “box seats” on the floor, a more standard row of theater chairs in the balcony accommodates those who might be otherwise uncomfortable, but the floor is clearly the place to be.) It all leads to a dazzling finale in which Sobelle, the co-artistic director of rainpan 43 and longtime member of Philadelphia’s Pig Iron Theatre Company, gathers everyone around him as he — well, you have to see it to believe it.

Each box Geoff Sobelle rummages through bring back memories, both fun and heartbreaking (photo by Jeremy Abrahams)

Every movement, every step, is wonderfully choreographed by Sobelle’s collaborators, director David Neumann, set designer Steven Dufala, lighting designer Christopher Kuhl, and sound designer Nick Kourtides, each contributing to the immersive illusion of it all. Winner of three major awards at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, The Object Lesson is inspired in part by the wit and wisdom of George Carlin, who said in his famous “A Place for My Stuff” routine, “That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is — a place to keep your stuff.” Sobelle has turned BAM’s Fishman Space into his own house, his own storage facility, like the end of Citizen Kane, with boxes and boxes of the stuff he has accumulated over the years. (Yes, many of the items are actually his.) Call it what you want — junk, trash, flotsam and jetsam, garbage, debris, waste, crap — but each one has a particular meaning for him, each one a root that ties him down, and it will dredge up memories of your own as well, especially when you return home and look at your own stuff, opening that box at the back of your closet that you haven’t looked inside for years.

DISGRACED

A dinner party goes seriously wrong in Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning DISGRACED (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 15, $37.50 – $138
www.disgracedonbroadway.com

Ayad Akhtar’s searing Pulitzer Prize-winning Disgraced, which had its New York premiere in 2012 at Lincoln Center’s tiny 131-seat Claire Tow Theater, has made a terrifically successful transition to Broadway’s 950-seat Lyceum Theatre. Akhtar’s poignant and powerful drama about identity and racism feels right at home on the Great White Way, led by a strong cast, smart, energetic direction, and razor-sharp dialogue. Hari Dhillon stars as Amir Kapoor, a bold corporate lawyer who is hiding his Pakistani background to help him rise in his firm. His wife, Emily (Gretchen Mol), is a white painter using Islamic imagery in her work. Jewish curator Isaac (Josh Radnor) is considering including some of Emily’s canvases in an important upcoming show. Isaac is married to Jory (Karen Pittman), a black lawyer who works with Amir. Problems arise when Amir’s nephew, Pakistani-born Abe (Danny Ashok), who changed his name from Hussein in order to fit in better in America, asks his uncle to meet with his imam, who has been imprisoned for suspected ties to terrorism. At first, Amir resists becoming involved, but Emily helps convince him that it’s the right thing to do. Yet Amir’s attendance at a hearing for the imam is a serious mistake, setting in motion a cascade of events that culminates in a dinner party where all of the characters let loose on one another in a ricochet of revelations that surprises even themselves.

Abe (Danny Ashok) and his uncle Amir (Hari Dhillon) discuss heritage and assimilation in searing Broadway drama (photo by Joan Marcus)

As Disgraced opens, Emily is painting a portrait of Amir inspired by Velázquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja, his slave of Moorish descent, immediately setting up the ethnocentric boundaries the play investigates. Dhillon, who starred in the West End production (the role was originated in Chicago by Usman Ally and in New York by The Daily Show’s Asif Maandvi), plays Amir with a fire building in his belly, ready to explode at any minute. Mol is warm and appealing as Emily, who might not really understand her deep-down motivations, serving as a kind of onstage stand-in for the liberal Caucasians who tend to populate Broadway theaters. Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Pittman (the only returning member from the LCT3 cast) do a splendid job playing a couple representing social factions that do not always get along very well, Jews and blacks. (Think Crown Heights, for example.) And in the middle of it all is Ashok as Abe/Hussein, debating the ultimate value of assimilation and its cost. John Lee Beatty’s Upper East Side apartment set is elegant and welcoming, even as the story turns angry, and Senior (Akhtar’s The Who & the What, 4000 Miles) keeps it all moving smoothly through a fast-paced eighty-five intermissionless minutes. Disgraced is one of those plays that hits you in the gut, forcing you to look inside yourself at your own biases and predispositions, and it’s not necessarily a pretty picture. The Staten Island-born Akhtar is clearly a writer to watch; he has also written a novel (American Dervish) and acted in several films, including one that he cowrote and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay. His follow-up play, The Invisible Hand, begins previews November 19 at New York Theatre Workshop.