this week in theater

THE UNAVOIDABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM DURNIN

Father (David Morse, r.) and son (Christopher Denham) have a serious chat in THE UNAVOIDABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM DURNIN (photo by Joan Marcus)

Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 25, $71-$81
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

After serving five years in prison for Madoff-like financial wrongdoings, disbarred lawyer Tom Durnin (David Morse) thinks he can just walk right back into his family’s life, but his wife, Karen (Lisa Emery), has left him, his daughter wants nothing to do with him, and his son, James (Christopher Denham), is torn when his father suddenly shows up in his ramshackle house, in a dilapidated would-be neighborhood that was also a victim of the mortgage crisis. His father’s fall from grace has shattered James, who had to leave Yale and now is studying fiction writing at a local college, where he meets the emotionally injured Katie (Sarah Goldberg), who has family issues of her own. Tom, who is working as a barista at a Borders bookstore — which itself would go out of business shortly — tries to find out from James where Karen is, but he’s not telling. Meanwhile, Tom meets with his son-in-law, Chris (Rich Sommer), whom he helped set up in the law firm where he was once a partner, trying to convince him to get him any job with the company, but the meek Chris, who has been told by his wife not to talk to Tom, is not about to risk his career by endorsing Tom’s return to the firm where he committed his dirty dealings.

James (Christopher Denham) and Katie (Sarah Goldberg) deal with difficult family issues in play about financial crisis (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin takes place in June 2009 in “the American exurbs, Sam’s Clubs and SUVs and Caribou Coffee and the eerie, shuttered windows of foreclosed strip malls,” representing the America that was devastated by the financial meltdown. Morse is excellent as the determined title character, who believes that he has done his time and can now get back on the path he was on, both personally and professionally, unable to recognize the continuing results of his actions. The play, written by Steven Levenson (The Language of Trees, Core Values) and directed by Scott Ellis (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Harvey), works best when Morse is onstage, his steely gaze and solid posture revealing a man who firmly believes he has paid his price and can’t understand why everyone has turned their back on him. The scenes in which James and Katie read their writings come off as gimmicky, a too-easy way to show these characters’ twisted emotions. The country is still recovering from the financial crisis brought on by men like Tom, and Levenson’s play does a good job using the Durnin family as a microcosm of the ongoing fall-out — in which very few people have actually gone to prison for what they have wrought. (There will be free talkbacks with members of the cast following the 2:00 performance on July 13 and 21 and August 4, 10, and 17.)

A KID LIKE JAKE

It’s not all laughs as Greg (Peter Grosz) and Alex (Carla Gugino) try to get their four-year-old son into the right school in world premiere of A KID LIKE JAKE (photo by Erin Baiano)

Claire Tow Theater
LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St.
Through July 14, $20
www.lct.org

In Daniel Pearle’s A Kid Like Jake, having its world premiere at Lincoln Center’s 112-seat Claire Tow Theater through July 14, husband and wife Greg (Peter Grosz) and Alex (Carla Gugino) are going through the challenging process of trying to find the perfect New York City school for their four-year-old son, Jake, and they’re ready to spend thirty grand a year for the privilege. But as they work with teacher and consultant Judy (Caroline Aaron) on crafting just the right essay and preparing Jake for interviews, they also must face a major factor that could influence their son’s future: his penchant for dressing up as princesses in lieu of playing with trucks and army men. Greg and Alex had never been overly concerned with Jake’s gender identity before — after all, he’s only four — but when they are told that he has been acting out in response to treatment from other children, they are suddenly forced to take a long, hard look at both Jake as well as each other. In A Kid Like Jake, Pearle (The Prodigies, The Truth about Christmas) and director Evan Cabnet (All-American, The Performers) explore the complex, very believable situation without ever showing Jake, instead cleverly allowing the proceedings to be more about the parents, and the system itself, than the four-year-old boy. The three main actors are uniformly excellent — Michelle Beck also appears occasionally in a minor role, including in an unfortunate and unnecessary dream sequence near the end — as they try to find an emotional balance as the character of Alex grows more and more unlikable. A Kid Like Jake is another satisfying production from LCT3, following such other shows as Slowgirl, Luck of the Irish, Mr. Joy, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Disgraced.

THE EXPLORERS CLUB

The set is the real star of the Manhattan Theatre Club world premiere of THE EXPLORERS CLUB (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club
New York City Center Stage 1
Through July 21, $85
212-581-1212
www.theexplorersclubplay.com
www.nycitycenter.org

Evoking a number of classic Monty Python adventure skits (including the “Bruces” sketch and “The Lost World of Roiurama”), Nell Benjamin’s The Explorers Club is an immensely silly comedy set in Victorian-era England as a small gathering of explorers decide whether to accept its first female member. The wacky hijinks take place on Donyale Werle’s gorgeous set, featuring taxidermied animals hanging from the walls, a giraffe skin stretched across the floor, paintings of intrepid explorers, and a dazzling, fully stocked bar bookended by huge tusks; theatergoers are actually encouraged to snap photos of the stage and post them to social media sites before the show begins. Unfortunately, the set is the best thing about this goofy tale that regularly travels too far over the top. The Manhattan Theatre Club production stars Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein) as Phyllida Spotte-Hume, an explorer who is scheduled to present to the queen her latest finding, the very blue Luigi (Carson Elrod) from the NaKong tribe of the Lost City of Pahatlabong. But after events go terribly wrong at the palace, the queen’s envoy, Sir Bernard Humphries (Max Baker), arrives, needing important information so England can go to war with the NaKong. Meanwhile, the rather proper, shy Lucius Fretway (a sweetly innocent Lorenzo Pisoni) takes a liking to Phyllida, the bombastic Harry Percy (a very funny David Furr) boasts of his discovery of the East Pole, Professor Sloane (John McMartin) quotes from the Bible and claims that the Irish are the lost Hebrews, and Professors Walling (Steven Boyer) and Cope (Brian Avers) battle over rats and snakes. The Explorers Club — not to be confused with the actual Explorers Club on the Upper East Side — becomes tiresome and repetitive very quickly, as director Marc Bruni (Old Jews Telling Jokes) and Benjamin (Legally Blonde) continually tread the same territory, whether it be jokes about snakes and charades or mentions of the club’s chief competitor, the National Geographic Society. However, one repeated joke is nearly worth the price of admission itself; posing as a bartender, Luigi mixes drinks and serves them by sliding them across and off the bar, where they’re acrobatically caught by the cast in delightful displays of dexterity. Otherwise, The Explorers Club is a disappointing journey that fails to explore any new territory.

RANTOUL AND DIE

Rallis (Derek Ahonen) and Debbie (Sarah Lemp) are at the end of their ropes in RANTOUL AND DIE (photo by Russ Rowland)

Cherry Lane Studio Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Through July 20, $51
212-989-2020
www.amoralists.com
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

One of the city’s best, most adventurous and unpredictable theater companies is currently presenting the first must-see show of the summer. The Amoralists, whose recent successes include The Bad and the Better, which squeezed twenty-six actors playing thirty-three characters onto one set, and HotelMotel, a pair of plays that took place around a bed in a room in the Gershwin Hotel, are now dazzling audiences in the tiny Cherry Lane Studio Theatre with the outrageously funny Rantoul and Die. Written by Mike & Molly creator and executive producer Mark Roberts, the play begins as sad-sack Rallis (Amoralists cofounder and associate artistic director Derek Ahonen) is being chastised by his best friend, Gary (Amoralists cofounder and associate artistic director Matthew Pilieci), for having tried to kill himself because his wife, Debbie (Sarah Lemp), is divorcing him. “I’m just looking for the sufferin’ to end. Can you understand that?” the depressed, tenderhearted Rallis says in a hysterically funny and pathetically whiny singsong voice. “I got nine kinds of misery livin’ inside of me right now.” When Debbie returns from her job at the local Dairy Queen, she laces into poor Rallis as well. “It’s very simple, Rallis,” she says. “I see your face and I think of the time I have wasted. The life I have pissed away on you. That fills me with hatred and rage, and therefore my interactions with you are less than nurturing. You get it?” In the second act, the trio is joined by cat lover Callie (Vanessa Vaché), Debbie’s boss at the DQ, a young woman with a rather sickeningly sweet view of life. “We all got stuff we ain’t proud of. And we have things that we are proud of,” Carrie tells Debbie. “Which one you choose to focus on is the difference between a smile and a frown.” As plot twists ensue, this black comedy about so-called white trash grows both deeper and darker, but the belly laughs never stop coming.

Debbie (Sarah Lemp) learns a little too much about her cat-loving DQ boss, Callie (Vanessa Vaché), in new Amoralists show (photo by Russ Rowland)

Over the course of about ninety minutes (plus intermission), director Jay Stull (Strange Heart, The Capables) includes four interludes in which each of the characters get their own moment to step out of the story and address the audience directly, sharing something personal or absurd that reveals more about them. The play is set in a ramshackle trailer-park-like house designed by Alfred Schatz, with garbage strewn all around and most of the action occurring on a couch at front and center. Each of the two acts starts with the lights out, with dialogue that ultimately equates sex with violence in clever, funny ways. The cast, all of whom have performed in multiple Amoralist productions previously — Ahonen also has written and/or directed several of the company’s shows — is clearly comfortable with one another, adding an involving intimacy in the already intimate Cherry Lane space. Roberts and Stull also avoid belittling the “white trash” setting, finding plenty of humor without being mean-spirited or obvious. Rantoul and Die is a brilliantly conceived and executed play that examines the darker side of human nature in beautifully bizarre ways.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

The dancing starts early and keeps on coming in playful Central Park production of THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Through June 30, free, 8:30
shakespeareinthepark.org

Shakespeare in the Park kicks off its 2013 season — and second half century — with a delightfully fresh and funny production of William Shakespeare’s early play, The Comedy of Errors. Inspired by the ancient Roman comedies of Plautus such as The Menaechmi and Amphitruo, the Bard created a farce built around two pairs of identical twins who are separated shortly after birth during a shipwreck. Egeon (Jonathan Hadary) brings Antipholus (Hamish Linklater) and the servant child Dromio (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) back home to Syracuse, wondering what has become of his wife and the other two boys. Many years later, his search for his family leads him to Ephesus, run by the gangster Duke (Skipp Sudduth), who has a thick Brooklyn accent, and his gun-wielding henchmen. Unbeknownst to Egeon, both sets of twins are soon also in Ephesus, getting mixed up in different pairings, with Antipholus of Ephesus confused by Dromio of Syracuse, thinking it is his Dromio, and vice versa. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse has the hots for Luciana (Heidi Schreck), the sister of Adriana (Emily Bergl), who is married to Antipholus of Ephesus. The mayhem mounts as Angelo the goldsmith (Robert Creighton) makes a necklace for Antipholus of Ephesus, who decides to give it to a local courtesan (De’Adre Aziza) when he thinks his wife is cheating on him.

Antipholus (Hamish Linklater) and Dromio (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) get all mixed up in Shakespeare in the Park production of THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Antipholus (Hamish Linklater) and Dromio (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) get all mixed up in the Bard’s comedy of mistaken identity (photo by Joan Marcus)

It’s all great fun, set in a 1940s atmosphere with nightclubs, couples swing dancing between scenes, a movie theater (named the Lyceum) that is showing the 1933 Eddie Cantor musical Roman Scandals, and a train station that takes passengers to Ithaca, Utica, Troy, and Schenectady. Shakespeare in the Park veteran Sullivan (Orphans, Glengarry Glen Ross) turns up the slapstick as the gang makes its merry way to an immensely satisfying conclusion. The excellent cast is led by a standout performance from three-time Emmy nominee Ferguson (Modern Family), who has a ball running around as the two Dromios, along with Sudduth doing double duty as Dromio of Ephesus’s oversized wife, Linklater (Seminar, The School for Lies) playing two very different Antipholuses, and Harady telling the story of his search using a magical suitcase. The lighthearted romp, which continues at the Delacorte through June 30, also features original music by Greg Pliska, choreography by Mimi Lieber, and scenic design by John Lee Beatty; be sure to get there a little early, because the dancing starts well before showtime (8:30), setting the proper mood for the festivities. Don’t forget that in addition to waiting on line at the Delacorte to get free tickets, you can also enter the daily virtual ticketing lottery online here.

THE VIEW UPSTAIRS

Max Vernon’s new musical theater piece recounts story of 1973 LGBT tragedy in New Orleans

MAX VERNON: THE VIEW UPSTAIRS
The Living Room
154 Ludlow St. between Stanton & Rivington Sts.
Monday, June 24, 7:00
212-533-7237
www.livingroomny.com
www.maxvernon.com

On June 24, 1973, during Pride Weekend, popular New Orleans gay bar the UpStairs Lounge was set on fire, leaving thirty-two people dead. Although it was believed to have been arson and many claimed to know who did it, no charges were ever brought against the supposed suspect, a hustler who later killed himself. On the fortieth anniversary of the tragedy, New York-based multidisciplinary artist Max Vernon will tell the little-known story in a staged concert performance of his new musical theater piece, The View UpStairs. Taking place on June 24 at 7:00 at the Living Room, it features Tony nominee Michael McElroy, Nathan Lee Graham, Katie Thompson, Blake Daniel, Doreen Montalvo, and MJ Rodriguez, with narration by Rania Salem Manganaro; the show is directed by Eric Hoff (Hit the Wall), with musical director Rona Siddiqui on piano, Hiroyuki Matsuura on drums, and Mike Rosengarten on guitar. “Oh, ain’t it great how far we’ve come since 1973 / The future is great there you are but you own / If I could take you back with me your mind will be blown / Being fabulous all the time can get a little pricey / The future is great . . . trust me,” Vernon sings in “The Future Is Great!” The production also includes such songs as “Waltz,” “Sex on Legs,” and “When Your Body Breaks.” “It’s shocking to me that most people have never heard of the UpStairs Lounge fire, given its significance,” Vernon (Wired, State Debate) said in a statement. “Even as a queer studies major, the fire was never mentioned in any of my classes. Now, with the recent violence and hate crimes occurring around NYC, it feels more important than ever to tell this story and reclaim this event.”

TICKET GIVEAWAY: LESBIAN LOVE OCTAGON

Sue (Caitlin Lee Reid) and Jerry (Jax Jackson) search for love in LESBIAN LOVE OCTAGON (photo by KT Thomas)

Sue (Caitlin Lee Reid) and Jerry (Jax Jackson) search for love in LESBIAN LOVE OCTAGON (photo by KL Thomas)

LESBIAN LOVE OCTAGON: A MUSICAL COMEDY ABOUT DYKE DRAMA
Kraine Theater
85 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Wednesday – Saturday through June 29, $18
866-811-4111
www.lesbianthemusical.com

When Sue suddenly loses her girlfriend to her ex-girlfriend, she starts reevaluating her needs, while her friends tell her that she should jump right back in the saddle and go crazy. Relationships soon get so tangled, it all makes Alice’s famous Chart on The L Word look like amateur hour. Set in the Lower East Side in the 1990s, Lesbian Love Octagon: A Musical Comedy About Dyke Drama features such numbers as “Ordinary Day at the Wimmin’s Bookstore,” “Butch on the Inside,” “Pet Tranny,” “Clarity,” and “Vibration Salvation,” which offers a positive outlook on life: “When a girl’s in a slump / ’cause she just got dumped / nothing feels better / than a new toy, and some leather.” The two-hour show is directed by Kim Kressal, who also designed the costumes and teamed up with Felicia Blum on the choreography; music direction is by Will Larche. The cast includes Caitlin Lee Reid as Sue, Kelly Lockwood Larson as Scout, Lindsay Naas as Wendy, Kristian Espiritu as Darla, Jax Jackson as Jerry, Jenny Atwood as Anya, Taniesha Duggan as Chris, and Ti Grieco as Jess in addition to Jaimie Kelton, Lauren Sapienza, Bernadette Marsham, Tracie Franklin, Abby Chase, and Blum. Each night features a special guest as “lesbian performance artist”; among those ready to take on the role, which was recently played by award-winning Broadway star Jan Maxwell, are Maggie Keenan-Bolger, Kaki King, Ariel Scarcella, and Yetta Kurland.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Lesbian Love Octagon continues through June 29 at the Kraine Theater on the Lower East Side, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite lesbian-related movie, TV show, or play to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, June 21, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random. All responses will be kept confidential.