this week in theater

COMPLETING THE CHAIN: GARSIDE’S CAREER AT THE MINT

The Mint has resurrected Harold Brighouse’s 1914 political satire Garside’s Career (photo by Maria Baranova)

GARSIDE’S CAREER
The Mint Theater at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 15, $39-$79
minttheater.org
www.theatrerow.org

I’ve written before about how one of the many joys of experiencing a work by the Mint Theater is not just the exquisite sets but the set changes; those in the know do not leave their seats during intermission but instead watch the transformation of the stage from one act to another, executed with expert precision, a choreographed dance that deservedly receives its own round of applause.

In the company’s latest show, a lovely revival of Harold Brighouse’s savvy 1914 political satire Garside’s Career, director Matt Dickson incorporates the set changes into the flow of the play; all the elements of Christoper Swader and Justin Swader’s scenic design are onstage through the entire 130 minutes (including intermission), piled in the back and the corners. As the story moves from Mrs. Garside’s working-class Midlanton cottage in Lancashire to Sir Jasper Mottram’s elegant house to Peter Garside’s extravagant Temple district home in London and back to the cottage, the furniture is switched out, mimicking Peter’s intense ambition, his past and future hovering around his present.

An engineer with a love of public speaking, Peter (Daniel Marconi) has been studying at night to earn a bachelor’s degree, with the support of his girlfriend, Margaret Shawcross (Madeline Seidman), a shy teacher who Mrs. Garside (Amelia White) believes is not good enough for her only child. Waiting for Peter to return home with his test results, Margaret tells Mrs. Garside, “I’m fearful of the odds against him — the chances the others have and he hasn’t. Peter’s to work for his living. They’re free to study all day long. Oh, if he does it, what a triumph for our class. Peter Garside, the Board School boy, the working engineer, keeping himself and you, and studying at night for his degree.”

Peter indeed has good news, explaining that he and Margaret can now marry, and he can be a journalist and go on lecture tours. “Peter, you didn’t do it for that!” Margaret declares, explaining that if they get married, she will have to give up her job as a teacher and that she is not in favor of his lecturing. Peter responds, “I did it for you. But I mean to enjoy the fruits of all this work. Public speaking’s always been a joy to me. You don’t know the glorious sensation of holding a crowd in the hollow of your hand, mastering it, doing what you like with it.”

Margaret makes herself clear, warning him of the intoxication of power, “I’ve seen men ruined by this itch to speak. You know them. Men we thought would be real leaders of the people. And they spoke, and spoke, and soon said all they had to say, became mere windbags trading on a reputation. Don’t be one of these, Peter. You’ve solider grit than they. The itch to speak is like the itch to drink, except that it’s cheaper to talk yourself tipsy.”

Peter’s boss, Ned Applegarth (Paul Niebanck), then arrives, with Peter’s colleagues Denis O’Callaghan (Erik Gratton) and Karl Marx Jones (Michael Schantz), not only to celebrate Peter’s success, but to convince him to run for a newly open Parliament seat, as a member of the Socialist Labour Party.

Denis spells it out: “We want you for another nail in the coffin of capitalism, another link in the golden chain that’s dragging us up from slavery the way we’ll be free men the day that chain’s complete.”

Effete siblings Freddie (Avery Whitted) and Gladys Mottram (Sara Haider) welcome Peter Garside (Daniel Marconi) into their elegant home in Mint production (photo by Maria Baranova)

Peter sees this as a great opportunity for fortune, fame, and more, but Margaret is hesitant, especially when Peter says that they can use their upcoming nuptials as an “advertisement” in the campaign. Ultimately, she decides that if Peter goes ahead with his candidacy, she will support the cause but will break their engagement, which delights Mrs. Garside.

Soon Peter is hobnobbing with the local wealthy Mottram clan: the haughty Lady Mottram (Melissa Maxwell), her flirtatious daughter, Gladys (Sara Haider), and her cheeky son, Freddie (Avery Whitted). They are initially enlisted by the opposition party to distract Peter from his campaign, but an attraction develops between him and Gladys, complicating matters, especially after he wins the election and heads off to London, his ambition growing by the minute, spiraling out of control.

The title character was inspired in part by Victor Grayson, a Liverpool carpenter’s son who became a fiery orator and controversial member of Parliament of whom Winston Churchill said in 1908, “The Socialism of the Christian era was based on the idea that, ‘All mine is yours,’ but the Socialism of Mr Grayson is based on the idea that ‘All yours is mine.’” Marconi (Sweeney Todd, The Mountains Look Different) portrays Peter with a gleam in his eye and a jaunt in his step; Haider (Partnership, Wait Until Dark) is enthralling as the sexy Gladys, while Seidman (Becomes a Woman, Partnership) excels as the steadfastly moral and independent Margaret, Gladys’s rival.

Garside’s Career is a solid, well-structured if somewhat slight comedy of manners with plot lines that relate to contemporary political situations, so it’s surprising that Dickson’s exemplary production is the New York premiere and, possibly, the first major US presentation since a Boston run in 1919. Brighouse also wrote the popular Hobson’s Choice, the oft-revived 1915 play that was adapted into an Oscar-winning 1954 film, the 1966 Broadway musical Walking Happy, and a 1989 ballet.

Thankfully, the Mint, as is its mission, has resurrected yet another long-forgotten gem with style and grace — and another memorable set.

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

DAKAR NOIR: PLAYING CHARADES AROUND Y2K

Dina Stevens (Mia Barron) involves Boubs (Abubakr Ali) in a complicated government plot as Y2K approaches (photo by Matthew Murphy)

DAKAR 2000
Manhattan Theatre Club
New York City Center Stage 1
Tuesday – Sunday through March 23, $79-$99
www.manhattantheatreclub.com
www.nycitycenter.org

“If we both describe the same thing at the same time, will one of our descriptions be more true than the other?” Isaac says to Nikolai in Rajiv Joseph’s 2017 time-leaping play Describe the Night. Later, Feliks tells Mariya, “You love to make up stories that are more interesting than what the truth is.”

The concept of “the truth” is also central to Joseph’s latest work, Dakar 2000, a gripping cat-and-mouse contemporary noir presented by Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center’s Stage 1 through March 23.

It’s December 31, 2024, and a fifty-year-old man (Abubakr Ali) walks onstage and delivers a monologue detailing a series of life-altering events that happened to him twenty-five years earlier, during the last few days leading up to Y2K, when some people thought the world might end.

Standing on a swirling ramp, he begins, “This is a story within a story, about a person within a person, in a time within another time. In a galaxy far, far away. All of it . . . is true. Or most of it, anyway. Names have been changed. Some of the places have been changed. Some of the boring parts snipped away. Some other stuff has been added to make it . . . theoretically more interesting. But otherwise all of it is almost entirely true.”

After telling us about a secret job he had that has taken him across the globe, he concludes, “The truth — the dumb, boring truth — is that this is mostly the story of a kid who just wanted to make a difference. And the truth is . . . he didn’t. I mean, I didn’t. Or I hadn’t . . . I hadn’t done much of any consequence, ever. Until I flipped my truck, just before the millennium . . . And met a woman who worked at the State Department.”

The narrative shifts to late December 1999, and Boubacar (Ali), known as Boubs (pronounced “boobs”), is a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, stationed in Kaolack and building a fenced-in community garden in the nearby village of Thiadiaye. Sporting a bandage around his injured head following the accident, he has been called in to meet with Dina Stevens (Mia Barron), who identifies herself as the Deputy Regional Supervisor of Safety & Security for Sub-Saharan Africa. Dina watches Boubs carefully as he shares the details of what led to the crash; she then starts asking pointed questions that tear holes in his story. He keeps up what turns out to be a ruse until she accuses him of lying about his situation, and he ultimately admits to repurposing materials that were meant for other projects.

Threatening to send him back home to America, Dina, who is hell bent on avenging the murder of several of her friends in the 1998 embassy bombing in Tanzania, offers Boubs the option of performing an odd task for her instead, which leads to another task, and another, each one more mysterious and perilous — and bringing Boubs and Dina closer and closer. As Y2K approaches, Boubs doesn’t know what to believe, and neither does the audience.

Boubs (Abubakr Ali) and Dina Stevens (Mia Barron) grow close working together in Rajiv Joseph’s Dakar 2000 (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Dakar 2000 is a riveting thriller reminiscent of Stanley Donen’s 1963 Hitchcockian favorite Charade, in which Audrey Hepburn stars as an American expat unexpectedly caught up in a dangerous spy drama in Paris after her husband is killed and she is pursued by multiple men, one of whom (Cary Grant) claims he is trying to help her even though she catches him in lie after lie. Which is not to say that Barron and Ali have the same kind of chemistry as Hepburn and Grant, but the quirky relationship between Dina and Boubs is appealing. At one point, when they’re on Boubs’s roof, face-to-face, you want them to kiss but also want them not to, as neither one is ultimately trustworthy.

Two-time Obie winner Rajiv Joseph (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, King James) and director May Adrales (Vietgone, Poor Yella Rednecks) keep us guessing all the way to the finale. Tim Mackabee’s turntable set moves from Dina’s office and a restaurant to the roof and a hotel bedroom, with small props occasionally surreptitiously added when it rotates from scene to scene. Shawn Duan’s projections range from a starry sky and outdoor African locations to text that establishes the precise time and location. A metaphor linking the 1997 Hale Bopp Comet to fate is confusing, but the choice of Culture Club’s 1983 hit “Karma Chameleon” as the song connecting Boubs with his ex-girlfriend is inspired, with Boy George singing, “There’s a loving in your eyes all the way / If I listen to your lies, would you say / I’m a man without conviction / I’m a man who doesn’t know / How to sell a contradiction / You come and go, you come and go.”

Ever-dependable Obie winner Barron (The Coast Starlight, Dying for It) effectively captures Dina’s enigmatic nature, representing an unethical government that holds all the cards. Ali (Toros) portrays Boubs’s younger self with a tender vulnerability that makes his actions understandable, although his overall characterization is ultimately a bit uneven, his voice too often switching pitches, his youth making him less than convincing as the modern-day Boubs.

Joseph has noted that Dina and Ali are based on actual people, but that doesn’t mean Dakar 2000 is a documentary play, particularly as words such as truth and lie show up over and over again. During the course of the work’s brisk eighty minutes, Dina tells Boubs, “You’re a good liar,” “Trust me, I wouldn’t lie to you about this,” and “Do you ever wonder if it’s all a big lie?” Meanwhile, Boubs wonders, “How could it be a lie?” when Dina questions humanity’s general consciousness.

Theater by its very definition presents a fictional version of reality, no matter how factual it might be. But in the case of Dakar 2000 and other plays by Joseph, we should be grateful that he “loves to make up stories that are more interesting than what the truth is.”

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

BODY POSITIVITY AND NEGATIVITY: SUMO AT THE PUBLIC

Wrestlers known as rikishi get ready to do battle in Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Sumo (photo by Joan Marcus)

SUMO
Anspacher Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through March 30, $65-$93
212-539-8500
publictheater.org

Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Sumo takes audiences inside the ancient Japanese sport and sacred Shinto ritual of sumo, in which large-sized wrestlers known as rikishi do battle in a dohyo, or ring, attempting to push their opponent to the mat or out of the circle. Each competitor wears only a mawashi, or silk belt, around their waist, leaving little to the imagination, as they seek to climb the ladder of success through such san’yaku, or ranks, as the lower jonokuchi, jonidan, and sandanme to the higher sekiwake, ōzeki, and the ultimate yokozuna. Most matches are over in a few seconds, although some can last upwards of a minute.

The tense Ma-Yi Theater Company drama, which premiered in 2023 at La Jolla Playhouse and is now at the Public’s Anspacher Theater through March 30, is too long at two hours and twenty minutes (with intermission), and in its second act it gets caught up in treacly melodrama, but it is still a compelling exploration of dedication, honor, tradition, and respect in a sport Americans know little about, in a changing world that is redefining masculinity and conceptions about the human body.

Mitsuo (David Shih) is an ōzeki known as Kōryū, or Exalted Dragon, who runs a heya, or stable of wrestlers, that consists of the stalwart jūryō Ren (Ahmad Kamal), the makushita Shinta (Earl T. Kim), the sandanme Fumio (Red Concepción), the jonidan So (Michael Hisamoto), and the maezumo Akio (Scott Keiji Takeda), an overeager eighteen-year-old newcomer who is not ready to pay his dues, which includes sweeping up, remaining silent, and pouring tea before earning his way into the dohyo. A trio of kannushi, or Shinto priests (Kris Bona, Paco Tolson, Viet Vo), serve as a Greek chorus as well as the gyoji, or referees, and sponsors who scour the tournaments and practices deciding who they will bankroll.

Speaking directly to the audience early on, they explain, “Rikishi were once gods. Kami! Who fought for ownership of Japan. There were two deities: Takeminakata-no-Kami, god of wind and water, who fought on behalf of the humans. And Takemikazuchi-no-Kami, god of thunder, who fought on behalf of the divine. The imperial family supposedly descends from Takemikazuchi, and if Takeminakata had won instead of Takemikazuchi, Japan wouldn’t have been ruled for centuries by emperors and instead would have been governed by commoners — people like you. Ok, maybe not you.”

Mitsuo starts working Akio hard, seeing promise in him, which rankles the others, who nonetheless sneak in little lessons for Akio when no one else is around; they will be punished if Mitsuo catches them breaking the rules, which Akio doesn’t want to follow. “There is a saying: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water,” So tells Akio, who shoots back, “I’m not here to be enlightened.” A moment later, So, explaining how good they all have it, adds, “In here, we are free. But you have to learn to trust us.”

The rikishi compete in a series of matches, employing such kimarite, or techniques, as harite (a slap), henka (a sidestep), and tachiai (initial charge); train in their heya, where no one else, especially women, are permitted; and, in the case of two of the men, grow extremely close. At one point Akio shares his doubts with Shinta, asking, “Do you think I can do this?” Shinta responds, “I have no idea. Can your body? Probably. It depends.” Akio: “On what?” Shinta: “On if the gods want it.” Akio: “Who?” Shinta: “Whoever you pray to.” Akio: “I don’t pray.” Shinta: “Yes you do.” Shinta poetically discusses what’s at the heart of sumo: “Our bodies are so big, so alive, that we wake everyone who sees. . . . It’s a service. It’s all an offering to her.” Akio repeats, “Her,” to which Shinta says, “Yes. The spirit of sumo is a woman.”

As the heya participates in several tournaments, friendships and relationships get tested and Akio needs to look deep inside himself to figure out who he truly is.

David Shih leads a strong cast in Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Sumo at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

Although I’ve never been to a wrestling or sumo tournament, I have seen several boxing bouts, sitting ringside as well as in the upper decks; unsurprisingly, the closer you are to the action, the more exciting it is. The same is true for Sumo; from my second-row aisle seat, I seemed to have a different experience from some of my colleagues, who were in the last row. Every foot stomp, or shiko, gave me a tingle. Wilson Chin’s dramatic set turns two of the Anspacher’s pillars into a prop around the dohyo; when the actors are not in the ring, they are practically in the audience’s lap.

Paul Whitaker’s lighting features five rows of nine lights behind sliding doors that open and close to indicate time and space changes. Hana S. Kim’s lively projections announce details of the matches on the back wall and floor, occasionally fitting neatly within the dohyo. Mariko Ohigashi’s costumes go beyond the miwashi to include elegant kimono, traditional gyoji wear, and contemporary clothing. Fabian Obispo’s sound design and original compositions enhance the atmosphere, setting the pace with Japanese hip-hop before the show and at intermission, blasting out such tunes as Denzel Curry’s “Sumo | Zumo,” ¥ellow Bucks’s “My Resort,” and Yuki Chiba’s “Dareda?”

Be prepared to see a lot of flesh; these are big men who might not win any bodybuilding contests but have sacrificed conventional notions of physical attractiveness for the cause, to be the best at what they do, knowing that when they are done, they will have trouble reconnecting to society, as this exchange details:

Shinta: You can’t leave.
So: I’ve given my whole body.
Fumio: There’s this pus that comes from my feet.
Shinta: Someone got my right ear — no more sound.
So: I miss my brothers.
Ren: We just do this.
Fumio: I could have learned to sail.
So: I have no skills.
Fumio: It’s just this.
Akio: How did you come here?
Fumio: My father trained me from when I was a boy.
Ren: Because my body needs it.
So: My family had too many mouths to feed.
Shinta: This was the path that opened before me, so I walked it.
Mitsuo: Because I’ve always been the best.
All: But only here.
Ren: And when I leave here /
Shinta: When I retire from here /
So: I’ll never leave here.
Fumio: When I get kicked out of here, I’ll be /
All: Screwed.
Akio: Then why do you do it?
Ren: Hatakikomi. Because I can.
Fumio: Tsuppari. Need.
Shinta: Tsuri-otoshi. Beauty.
So: Kote-nage. Devotion.
Mitsuo: Uwate-nage: You do it to win.

The strong cast is a mix of established actors, such as Shih (Once Upon a (korean) Time, KPOP) and Tolson (The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Wind and the Rain), and performers making their New York City debuts; all handle themselves well, with a bonus nod to Kamal as Ren, perhaps the most complex of the characters. Shih-Wei Wu provides thrilling live taiko drumming throughout.

As the story continues, it occasionally resembles a special episode of Cobra Kai, the entertaining streaming series that is an extension of the Karate Kid movies, but while that show, in which Ralph Macchio and William Zabka reprise their 1980s roles, has its tongue in its cheek while dealing with teen issues, Sumo takes itself too seriously. Ultimately, Dring (Hungry Ghost, Kairos) and Obie-winning director Ralph B. Peña (The Romance of Magno Rubio, The Chinese Lady) paint themselves into a corner, throwing too much information at the audience and getting bogged down in exposition.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t much to admire in the play, especially if you are sitting ringside.

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

DOOM, HOPE, AND THE BARD AT PARK AVE. ARMORY

Anne Imhof reimagines Romeo and Juliet in Doom: House of Hope at the armory (photo by Nadine Fraczkowski / courtesy the artist, Galerie Buchholz, Sprüth Magers, and Park Ave. Armory)

DOOM: HOUSE OF HOPE
Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
March 3–12, $60
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

“What less than doomsday is the prince’s doom?” Friar Laurence asks Romeo in William Shakespeare’s tragic tale Romeo & Juliet.

Because of its massive 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Ave. Armory has been home to numerous unique theatrical productions and art installations, involving such unusual elements as thirty tons of clothing (Christian Boltanski’s No Man’s Land), wooden swings hanging seventy feet from the ceiling (Ann Hamilton’s The Event of a Thread), one hundred bleating sheep (Heiner Goebbels’s De Materie), and a dark, mysterious heath (Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth).

Now Berlin-based Golden Lion winner Anne Imhof has transformed the hall into an enormous prom gym, filling the space with more than fifty actors, dancers (ABT, modern, flexn, line), skateboarders, and musicians, twenty-six Cadillac Escalades, a Jumbotron, and other inspiring elements for Doom: House of Hope, a three-hour multidisciplinary reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, running March 3–12. Curated by Klaus Biesenbach, the durational performance features Sihana Shalaj, Levi Strasser, and Devon Teuscher as Romeo; Talia Ryder and Remy Young as Juliet; assistant director and costumer Eliza Douglas, choreographer Josh Johnson, Cranston Mills, and Connor Holloway as Mercutio; Jakob Eilinghoff, Arthur Tendeng, and Daniil Simkin as Benvolio; and Efron Danzg, vocalist Lia Wang, and Simkin as Tybalt. Among the other characters are Vinson Fraley and Toon Lobach as angels, Perla Haney-Jardine as the critic, Tess Petronio as the photographer, Casper von Bulow as the director and the revolutionary, Coco Gordon Moore as the poet, Tahlil Myth as the storyteller, and Henry Douglas as the gamer, offering yet more twists on the traditional tragedy.

The band, under the musical direction of Ville Haimala, consists of Sharleen Chidiac on guitar, Eilinghoff on bass, Eva Bella Kaufman on drums, and James Shaffer on guitar, with vocals by Lia Wang. The score ranges from Johann Sebastian Bach, Gustav Mahler, Franz Schubert, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to the Doors, Radiohead, and Frank Sinatra, along with original compositions by ATK44, Douglas, Haimala, Imhof, Lia Lia, Jacob Madden, and Strasser. In addition to Shakespeare, the text collects quotes from Jean Genet, Heinrich Heine, and Raymond Moody and writings about George Balanchine, John Cranko, Dieter Gackstetter, Bruce Nauman, Jerome Robbins, Tino Sehgal, and others.

The set is by sub, with sound by Mark Grey and lighting by the masterful Urs Schönebaum, who has dazzled audiences with his work on such previous armory productions as Inside Light and Doppelganger.

As its title states, the immersive show recognizes the doom so many feel now, the increasing anxiety over the state of the planet, while also seeing a potentially bright future.

Romeo (Levi Strasser) and Juliet (Talia Ryder) face doom and hope in Anne Imhof extravaganza at the armory (photo by Nadine Fraczkowski / courtesy the artist, Galerie Buchholz, Sprüth Magers, and Park Ave. Armory)

A few moments after Friar Laurence predicts the worst, Romeo tells him, “Hang up philosophy. / Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, / Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom.” Perhaps there is a way out of this mess we’re in, although the Bard’s original play does not exactly end happily.

On March 11 at 5:30, Imhof, whose other works include Sex, Natures Mortes, and Angst I–III, will participate in an artist talk about Doom: House of Hope with writer and curator Ebony L. Haynes.

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

BLACK HOLES: ESTRANGED SIBLINGS CAN’T CONNECT IN HUNTER’S LATEST GEM

Paul Sparks and Brian J. Smith play half brothers facing a family crisis in Samuel D. Hunter’s Grangeville (photo by Emilio Madrid)

GRANGEVILLE
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 23, $69-$144
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

In a short period of time, NYU grad Jack Serio has established himself as an exciting director of intimate dramas; since 2021, he has helmed Bernard Kops’s The Dark Outside at Theater for the New City, Rita Kalnejais’s This Beautiful Future at the Cherry Lane, Joey Merlo’s On Set with Theda Bara at the Brick, Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a Flatiron loft, and Ruby Thomas’s The Animal Kingdom in the Connelly’s tiny upstairs theater. His unique stagings foster particularly visceral connections with small audiences in these constrained spaces.

Since 2010, Idaho native Samuel D. Hunter has proved to be one of America’s most consistently thoughtful and intelligent playwrights, penning such poignant and involving works as A Bright New Boise, The Whale, Lewiston/Clarkston, Greater Clements, and A Case for the Existence of God, demonstrating an unfailing ear for dialogue while exploring the contemporary human condition.

The Signature has wisely teamed up Serio and Hunter for Grangeville, a moving and powerful story about a pair of estranged half brothers forced together when their mother becomes seriously ill.

The play opens in near darkness, with Jerry (Paul Sparks) sitting stage right, on a stoop in front of a door in the corner, and Arnold (Brian J. Smith) on a bench far away on the opposite side. The distance between them is palpable, and not only physically. Jerry, wearing a flannel shirt, vest, and baseball cap, looking like a down-on-his-luck farmer, is still living in Grangeville, the Idaho town the siblings — sired by different fathers — grew up in. Jerry and his wife are raising their two children there, and he’s also taken on the responsibility of caring for their ailing mother, who lives in a trailer park. (The costumes are by Ricky Reynoso, with lighting by Stacey Derosier and set design by dots.)

Jerry has called Arnold, a fashionably dressed queer artist living in Rotterdam with his husband, Bram, because their mother’s health bills are piling up and the money is running out. Rejected by the family because they would not accept his sexual orientation, Arnold has cut himself off from them, so he is surprised to get the call but even more shocked when he is told that their mother has named him executor in her will.

Arnold (Brian J. Smith) and Jerry (Paul Sparks) find themselves at a distance in gripping new play (photo by Emilio Madrid)

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Arnold argues. “I live in the Netherlands, we haven’t spoken in years! Why would she do this?!”

“Yeah, I mean when she had this drawn up she knew I was going through some — shit, so maybe she just figured you’d be better at this,” Jerry responds. “I mean you’re the smarter one! Maybe it’s a compliment!”

Jerry and their mother were counting on a supposed treasure she had bought on the cheap.

“She was convinced she found a long-lost piece of art by that famous artist — Jack something? Anyway, it’s this sculpture of a real tall skinny guy, all stretched out. Famous sculptor. Jack something,” Jerry explains.

“Wait — are you talking about Giacometti?” Arnold asks.

“That’s it. She was convinced that she found a long-lost Giacometti at this pawn shop in Burley,” Jerry answers.

“Okay, I — don’t know what to do with that,” Arnold says.

Over a brief period of time, the half brothers confront some of their personal failings and make unexpected admissions, but neither is anticipating any grand, sentimental rapprochements.

Serio expertly keeps the tension mounting without costume or set changes or dramatic narrative shifts, primarily only with dialogue. However, as the characters’ conversations switch from telephone to computer to in person — in one scene, Sparks becomes Bram, while in another, Smith is Stacey, his brother’s wife — the actors slowly get closer across the liminal space, eventually standing face-to-face, which packs a powerful punch. In addition, Chris Darbassie’s sound shifts with the changes in technology, at first high-pitched and squeaky, later clear and crisp.

Replacing the originally announced Brendan Fraser — who won an Oscar for starring in The Whale, the 2022 film adaptation of Hunter’s 2012 off-Broadway play — Emmy nominee Sparks (At Home at the Zoo, Grey House, Waiting for Godot) is sensational as Jerry, the ne’er-do-well older brother whose life is falling apart while he has no idea how to stop the avalanche. Every minor gesture, every movement is so carefully choreographed that the audience understands who Jerry is, not some mere country bumpkin with no future.

Tony nominee Smith (The Glass Menagerie, The Columnist, Three Changes) holds his own as Arnold, a conflicted man who has been harboring inner pain since he was a child and is not quite as grounded as he initially appears to be. Both men need help, the kind they never received from their parents or, sadly, from each other.

Jerry (Paul Sparks) and Arnold (Brian J. Smith) face off in Samuel D. Hunter’s Grangeville at the Signature (photo by Emilio Madrid)

But at the center of it all is Hunter’s razor-sharp, laser-focused language. There is not a word out of place, not a sentence that languishes in mediocrity. The story takes place in Grangeville, a town of approximately three thousand people in Idaho County, but it’s about America, with its troubled health-care system, rampant homophobia, fast-moving technology that leaves so many behind, and endless political battles between red and blue geographical locations as well as escalating issues over how we communicate with one another.

The play has a brutal yet subtle honesty as it reveals the dark underbelly of the American dream, laid to waste in the complexities of one family that refuses to blame the system.

“So what happened?” Arnold asks when Jerry explains that his decades-long marriage is in trouble.

“I think Stacey just — realized she wasn’t happy,” Jerry answers.

“What about you?” Arnold responds.

“Oh, I’ve never been happy. Heh,” Jerry admits matter-of-factly.

Arnold has not found happiness either, later telling his brother, “It’s like no matter what memory it is, no matter how seemingly innocuous it is, it always leads straight to shit. It’s like being stuck in a maze and no matter what path you choose there’s just black holes everywhere that you keep falling into.”

In Grangeville, there’s no escaping those black holes, no matter how far you try to run from them.

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

LISTEN TO WHAT THE QUEEN SAID: ISABELLE HUPPERT AS MARY AT NYU SKIRBALL

Isabelle Huppert portrays Mary, Queen of Scots in third collaboration with Robert Wilson (photo by Lucie Jansch)

ROBERT WILSON & ISABELLE HUPPERT: MARY SAID WHAT SHE SAID
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl.
February 27 – March 2, $125
nyuskirball.org

In October 2005, French superstar Isabelle Huppert performed Sarah Kane’s blistering solo piece, 4.48 Psychose, at BAM’s Harvey Theater. For ninety-five minutes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA, César, and Cannes–winning actress stood stock-still — except for occasionally scanning the audience or extending a finger — portraying a woman who had just suffered a mental breakdown.

In New York, Huppert has also appeared in Florian Zeller’s The Mother at the Atlantic in 2019 and, at BAM, in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Phaedra(s) in 2016 and Robert Wilson’s Quartett in 2009.

Always ready to take on artistic challenges, Huppert has teamed up with Wilson for the third time with Mary Said What She Said, in which Huppert, who has made more than 135 films, including The Lacemaker, Heaven’s Gate, The Piano Teacher, and Elle, gets inside the head of Mary, Queen of Scots, the sixteenth-century Scottish monarch. The show is divided into three parts consisting of eighty-six paragraphs, beginning with “Memory, open my heart.”

Wilson, who has dazzled the world with such wildly unpredictable and visually stunning productions as Einstein on the Beach, The Black Rider, and The Old Woman, is the director of the Théâtre de la Ville-Paris commission as well as the set and lighting designer. The text, which is performed in French with English surtitles, is by longtime Wilson collaborator, novelist, and essayist Darryl Pinckney, using Mary’s own letters and Stefan Zweig’s 1935 biography of the queen in his research. The music is by Ludovico Einaudi, who has worked with such experimental composers as Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

The US premiere at NYU Skirball runs February 27 to March 2; all tickets are $125 to see one of the greatest actors of our era in a show by one of the most inventive creators of our time, promising to be something special. As a bonus, Huppert will participate in a talkback following the 7:30 show on March 1.

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

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? VINNY DePONTO WILL TELL YOU AT GREENWICH HOUSE

Mentalist Vinny DePonto delves into people’s memories in Mindplay (photo by Chris Ruggiero)

MINDPLAY
Greenwich House Theater
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. South
Thursday – Tuesday through April 20, $49-$159
mindplaynyc.com

“What’s on your mind?” Vinny DePonto asks at the beginning of his latest show, Mindplay, quoting the prompt that appears when people open Facebook. There’s a lot on DePonto’s mind, clearly, including family history, grief, and the nature of memory. Although the New York City–based mentalist and magician performs dazzling tricks during the ninety-minute production, it doesn’t quite cohere into a solid, thoroughly composed play — but you may not care if you’re a fan of onstage magic.

When DePonto was six years old, his father discovered a dusty box of magic tricks belonging to his own father, and DePonto was hooked. Ever since, in such presentations as the Drama Desk–nominated Charlatan, Mysterious Delights, and the virtual Mental Amusements, DePonto has mesmerized audiences with his remarkable abilities, all fully evident in Mindplay, which continues at the Greenwich House Theater through April 20.

On the way in, everyone is invited to write a thought on a slip of paper, put it in an envelope, and drop it in a fishbowl. DePonto occasionally reaches in and pulls one out to begin a new segment, each of which brings the writer of the thought onstage to participate in multiple ways, including having their mind read. He also incorporates balloons, a Shakespeare compendium, a rotary phone, and other props to carry out tricks that will leave you scratching your head in wonder.

Vinny DePonto wants to know what’s on your mind at the Greenwich House Theater (photo by Chris Ruggiero)

But as a theater piece, Mindplay, written by DePonto and Josh Koenigsberg and directed by Andrew Neisler (The Elementary Spacetime Show, The Gray Man), fails to find a narrative flow; it feels more like a nightclub act, albeit an entertaining one. In the second half, when DePonto reveals what’s behind the curtain — the set is by Sibyl Wickersheimer — too many conceptual threads get in the way and the prestidigitation gets lost as DePonto talks about the possibilities of the brain, rummages through metal drawers, and uses a cassette tape deck to look into his past.

Geography is also on his mind, and it was difficult to figure out the night I went whether a few coincidences were accidental or planted, forcing us to think too much about the result instead of gasping at how the trick got there. (DePonto explains early on that there are absolutely no plants.) For comparison, in the spring of 2023 magician and corporate mentalist Asi Wind’s Inner Circle at Judson Theatre was able to create a compelling investigation into identity, individuality, and the human condition by letting the cards tell the story. In Mindplay, DePonto tries to share something bigger than just entertaining magic but just misses the mark.

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