this week in theater

TICKET GIVEAWAY: BREAKFAST WITH MUGABE

Play examines real-life story of Robert Mugabe’s fear that he was being haunted by a former guerrilla leader (photo by Carl Wallnau)

BREAKFAST WITH MUGABE
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
August 7 – October 6, $25-$95
212-279-4200
www.breakfastwithmugabe.com

For more than thirty years, Robert Mugabe has been either prime minister or executive president of Zimbabwe, continually accused by the international community of multiple human rights violations. Currently in the midst of a campaign to remain president, he just publicly denounced homosexuality yet again, even bringing decapitation into the mix. “If you take men and lock them in a house for five years and tell them to come up with two children and they fail to do that, then we will chop off their heads,” he declared. A dozen years ago, the then-seventy-seven-year-old Mugabe started believing that former guerrilla leader Josiah Tongogara, who died in a car crash in 1980, was haunting him for turning his back on his beliefs. This strange but true tale forms the basis of Fraser Grace’s Breakfast with Mugabe, which examines Mugabe’s fear of Tongogara’s ghost. Originally produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Other Place in 2005, the play is making its New York debut August 7 – October 6 at the Pershing Square Signature Center, directed by David Shookhoff and starring Michael Rogers as Mugabe, Rosalyn Coleman as his second wife, Grace, Ezra Barnes as psychiatrist Andrew Peric, and Che Ayende as bodyguard Gabriel.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Tickets for Breakfast with Mugabe are $25-$95, but twi-ny has three pairs to give away for free to performances August 7-31. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time most-hated international dictator to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, July 31, at 5:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

THE CAPABLES

Reality show producer David (Charles Browning) needs Jessy Capable (Katie Eisenberg) and her family to open up if they are going to solve her mother’s hoarding problem (photo by Hunter Canning)

The Gym at Judson
243 Thompson St. at Washington Square South
Through August 3, $18
www.judson.org

Jay Stull is having quite a summer. First he directed the Amoralists’ exceptional version of Mark Roberts’s Rantoul and Die at the Cherry Lane, and now he has made his very impressive debut as a playwright with the The Capables, an insightful, darkly comic show about family and hoarding that continues at the Gym at Judson through August 3. Twenty-something southerner Jessy Capable (Katie Eisenberg) has had it with the endless collection of toys, games, stuffed animals, and other oddball keepsakes stockpiled by her God-fearing mother, Anna (Dale Soules); hundreds and hundreds of these items have been turned into mountainous elements that dominate the creative set designed by George Hoffmann and Greg Kozatek. “Even weak people come to they breakin’ points, and I done warned you enough that I’m well past mine,” Jessy yells at her mom. Meanwhile, Jessy’s father, the nearly blind Jonah Capable (Hugh Sinclair), spends most of his time trying to find his way to the bathroom and pontificating about his desire for the McRib sandwich. To stop her mother’s hoarding, the sheltered Jessy has invited in a reality TV program, including therapist Jenny Bragg Marcus, MSW (Jessie Barr), soundman Mike (David J. Goldberg), cameraman Tommy (Micah Stock), and producer David (Charles Browning), who is determined to get a good story no matter the personal cost. As the film crew keeps on digging for details of the severely dysfunctional and private Capable family past, Jessy starts discovering that there might be a better future out there for her, but first some very hard truths are going to have to emerge, on camera for everyone to see. The Brooklyn-based Stull, who is the literary manager for the Amoralists, employs sharp dialogue and strong characterization to wonderfully capture the essence of this awkward family hiding a secret. Director Stefanie Abel Horowitz (1927, Walt Disney and the Invention of the Human) inventively uses the complex set, with the actors sitting in unique ways and weaving through narrow spaces that could symbolize neural pathways of the brain. Soules is excellent as the matriarch who refuses to see her hoarding as a problem, but the show’s heart and soul is embodied by Eisenberg’s honest depiction of Jessy and Stock’s tender take on Tommy, even if their second-act-opening scene goes on too long. The Capables is a splendid debut about the things one collects in life, both physical and psychological, performed by a fine cast and written by an emerging talent who is well worth keeping an eye on.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: HAMLET

New production of HAMLET gets right to the point in rehearsals prior to moving into Hudson Guild Theatre

Hudson Guild Theatre
441 West 26th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
July 16-28
www.hamletoffbroadway.com

A new production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is coming to the Hudson Guild Theatre, promising “no flash, all substance.” Stripping the tragedy of epic proportions down to its bare bones, the production gets right to the heart of the tale of the prince of Denmark as he contemplates his future at Elsinore with his true love, Ophelia, while being visited by the ghost of his dead father. Kyle Knauf (Fetes de la Nuit, Benten Kozo) takes on the title role, with Brittanie Bond as Ophelia, Justin R. G. Holcomb as Claudius, Kathryn Neville Browne as Gertrude, Ian Gould as Horatio, Daniel Levitt as Laertes, Kim Sullivan as Polonius, Donovan Christie Jr. as Fortinbras, Emily Gleeson as Rosencrantz, and Geoff Kanick as Guildenstern. The set design is by Jiin Choi, with costumes by Ilana Breitman.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend,” Polonius advises in act 1, scene 3, but you don’t have to worry about money, as twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free to Hamlet, which opens July 16 at the Hudson Guild Theatre. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite Hamlet portrayer to contest@twi-ny.com by Thursday, July 18, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

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.