this week in theater

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

Tracey Letts and Amy Morton go at it in Steppenwolf production of Edward Albee classic (photo by Michael Brosilow)

Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 24, $67 – $132
www.virginiawoolfbroadway.com

George and Martha might be “sad, sad, sad,” as half of the characters lament in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but it’s still electrifying to spend three hours with the supremely dysfunctional First (Fictional) Couple of American Theater. In the magnificent Steppenwolf production that opened at the Booth on October 13, exactly fifty years after Albee’s iconic work made its Broadway debut at the Billy Rose, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Tracy Letts is a marvel onstage as George, an intensely cynical, beat-down history professor at a small, prestigious New England college. George is married to the deliciously wicked Martha (a terrific Amy Morton), whose father is the college president; six years older than her husband, she never misses an opportunity to shred him. One very late night after a campus party, new biology teacher Nick (a wonderfully smug and smirking Madison Dirks) and his wife, the ditzy Honey (a splendidly quirky Carrie Coon), are invited for a nightcap at George and Martha’s home, where things go from bad to worse as George lights into Martha and Nick, Martha lights into George and lights up to Nick, and Honey has trouble holding her liquor, plenty of which flows throughout. As Honey and Nick are caught up in George and Martha’s extremely nasty games — actually, they are given no choice — secrets both big and small come out, creating an intoxicating tension that threatens to explode at any moment, and finally does.

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is as alive as ever after fifty years (photo by Michael Brosilow)

Director Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park) gives every marvelous word the prominence it deserves as the four characters make their way around Todd Rosenthal’s appropriately messy set, as much in disarray as the lives of the protagonists. (There’s even a working clock in one corner that keeps time within the show.) Playing roles that have previously been performed by such pairs as Arthur Hill and Uta Hagen in the original Broadway production, Ben Gazzara and Colleen Dewhurst in 1977, Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner in the 2005 revival, and, most famously, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Mike Nichols’s 1966 film, Letts and Morton give the dueling couple a unique resonance all their own, perhaps because they have been working opposite each other very often at Steppenwolf since 1999. They are a justly celebrated pair: Letts earned a Pulitzer for writing August: Osage County, while Amy was nominated for a Tony for her performance in the play. In his Broadway acting debut, Letts is a revelation, dominating the stage with his eyes as well as his razor-sharp barbs, although Morton manages to go toe-to-toe with him. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is an intricately woven web of love and hate, of marriage and infidelity, of loyalty and betrayal, as past, present, and future collide over way too much bourbon and brandy. It is no mere accident that George is a history professor, stuck in the past, and Nick is in the biology department, where science is delving into genetic research. Albee’s play holds up remarkably well; it might be fifty years old, but it feels as fresh as ever, cementing its place in the past, present, and future of American theater.

SOWA’S RED GRAVY

Belozah (Kene Holiday) and Windy Willow (Toni Seawright) discuss the devil and black magic in SOWA’S RED GRAVY (photo by Gerrie Goodstein)

Castillo Theatre
543 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Thursday – Sunday through November 18, $25
212-941-1234
www.castillo.org/sowa

Adapted from her 2002 book, Sowa’s Red Gravy Stories for Broken Hearted Gals, published by Harlem Writers Guild Press, Diane Richards’s Sowa’s Red Gravy is more a collection of interrelated character sketches and brief skits than a cohesive play. Presented by Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre at the Castillo on West 42nd St., the show centers around a narrator named Sowa (Lonette McKee), a 110-year-old voodoo woman who is in love with Sapphire (Jonathan Peck), a man who can’t stop his cheating ways with Luwana (Kimberly “Q”), a practitioner of black magic. Sowa’s best friend, Windy Willow (Toni Seawright), is a lesbian witch who wants her to dump Sapphire; she also refuses to help Anxiety Man (Aaron Fried), a white man looking for something to cure his ills. Overseeing it all is the devilish griot Belozah (Kene Holiday), resplendent in a dazzling red suit and dark hat and glasses. The characters go back and forth between addressing the audience directly and participating in the onstage narrative, which often gets confusing. A few of the set pieces stand out, including an animal dance performed by Iris Wilson, Gary E. Vincent praising the lord as Reverend Mose Walker, and Matlock and Carter Country’s Holiday delightfully chewing up masses of scenery in several entertaining monologues. “I tell you what,” Belozah says in the play’s best speech. “There is no way in heaven or hell that I’ma do without my women, wine, and black juicy-ass cigars. I like me some big-booty women, I’m gone drank red-hot flaming wine and smoke me up some black juicy-ass cigars. Try and stop me. . . . Ain’t givin’ ’em up for nobody. So they can send all the angels, all the devas, and all the spirits, even send that favorite son and his weak disciples, stupid sissies, to start up shit. Hot dog! It’s on!” Unfortunately, Tony nominee McKee (Show Boat) is flat as Sowa; on the night we went, she scored her biggest laugh when she committed a very funny Freudian slip that she playfully acknowledged. Though good-natured and well meaning, Sowa’s Red Gravy, directed by King, turns out to be a mix of interesting ingredients that never quite come together to form a satisfying meal.

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

The cast of NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 toasts creator Dave Malloy, who also plays Pierre (photo by Ben Arons)

Ars Nova
511 West 54th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through November 17, $30, 8:00
212-352-3101
www.arsnovanyc.com

Inspired by a section of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 epic, War and Peace, Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 is a rousing and rollicking immersive rock opera filled with treachery, deceit, romance, humor, and food and drink. Scenic designer Mimi Lien has transformed Ars Nova into an 1812 Moscow club, where patrons are seated together at small tables, banquettes, and a long, curved bar and greeted by a complimentary bottle of vodka and a plate of potato pierogis and pumpernickel bread. The action takes place everywhere, as the actors pop up on the bar, sit at a table, and wander through the audience, Bradley King’s expert lighting and Matt Hubbs’s sound design helping people locate the actors. Russian epics can get rather complicated, so the show opens with a prologue in which the characters introduce themselves one by one and set up the story, which involves a beautiful young woman, Natasha (Phillipa Soo), who is engaged to Andrey, who is off fighting the war against Napoleon, but Natasha soon falls for engaging cad Anatole (Lucas Steele), who is the brother of town tart Hélène (Amber Gray), who is married to the hapless cuckold Pierre (Malloy, who also plays piano in the live band, which is scattered throughout the space). “Everyone’s got nine different names,” the cast sings, “but look it up in your program / We’d appreciate it / Thanks a lot.” Indeed, the program includes a plot synopsis as well as a map of who’s who and how they are connected.

Natasha (Phillipa Soo) is caught in a dangerous love triangle in rollicking new rock opera (photo by Ben Arons)

The talented cast also features Brittain Ashford as Natasha’s well-meaning cousin Sonya; a scene-stealing Blake DeLong as Andrey’s crotchety father, Prince Bolkonsky; Amelia Workman as Natasha’s overprotective godmother, Marya D; Gelsey Bell as Andrey’s very serious sister, Mary; Nick Choksi as Anatole’s best friend, Dolokhov; and associate musical director Paul Pinto as troika driver Balaga. The bawdier first act is followed by a mellower second act highlighted by a show-stopping performance by Bell as Sonya laments what has befallen Natasha. The rock-solid music is played by cellists Brent Arnold and Raymond Sicam III, clarinetist Mark Dover, bassist John Murchison, oboist Sally Wall, and violist Pinky Weitzman, giving a Russian twist to the Jesus Christ Superstar-like score. Directed with flair and verve by Rachel Chavkin, who previously worked with Malloy (Beowulf — A Thousand Years of Baggage, Clown Bible) on the Obie-winning Three Pianos, the world premiere of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 offers adventurous theatergoers a fabulously good time, a unique experience that is fun for all in a wide variety of ways.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE ACCIDENTAL PERVERT

Andrew Goffman describes, in humorously graphic detail, how finding his father’s porn stash changed his life in THE ACCIDENTAL PERVERT

THE ACCIDENTAL PERVERT
13th Street Repertory Company
50 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Fridays & Saturdays through December 8, $30, 7:00
www.theaccidentalpervert.com

It’s a seminal moment in the life of many a young boy: the discovery of Dad’s porn stash. Such was the case for Andrew Goffman, who has turned his experience of finding his father’s XXX VHS tapes at the age of eleven into the hit one-man show The Accidental Pervert. Goffman, a stand-up comic who has appeared in such productions as Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral, has been performing the ninety-minute show since 2005, entertaining audiences all over the country. “You don’t think of your dad having sex,” he says. “Your dad is supposed to have . . . naps.” Meanwhile, his mother calls out, “Don’t touch yourself down there or your hand will stick to it!” But it is not played simply for dirty yuks. “It’s really what all of, I think, everybody can relate to in growing up and how to deal with sex and how to deal with maturity,” he explains in a promotional video. “It’s really about having good relationships.”

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Tickets are selling out faster than a teenage boy’s first sexual experience for The Accidental Pervert, which can seat only sixty-nine people (really) a night at the 13th Street Repertory, but twi-ny has four pairs to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite porn title to contest@twi-ny.com by Thursday, October 18, at 5:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; four winners will be selected at random.

GRACE

Craig Wright’s Broadway debut features an all-star cast examining faith and belief (photo by Joan Marcus)

Cort Theatre
138 West 48th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through January 6, $32 – $132
www.graceonbroadway.com

Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote that “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” That statement is one of the central points of playwright Craig Wright’s award-winning Broadway debut, Grace. Born-again couple Steve (Paul Rudd) and Sara (Kate Arrington) have moved from Minnesota to Florida in order to open the first of what Steve hopes to be a major chain of evangelical gospel hotels. They are living next door to the reclusive Sam (Michael Shannon, Arrington’s real-life partner), a NASA scientist with a severely disfigured face as a result of a horrific accident in which he lost his wife. Steve and Sara are in love with life and all the possibilities offered by Jesus, while Sam is on a downward spiral; a computer genius, he seems to have lost all of his digital photos of his last vacation with his wife, battling over the phone with a customer service representative in a final, desperate attempt to recover his fading visual memories. As Sara tries to become friends with Sam despite his loud, nasty protestations to be left alone, Steve’s deal is not as solid as he originally thought, leading to a violent conclusion — which is actually repeated from the first scene of the play, as everything that happens is a flashback explaining the horrific beginning. Built around four strong performances — Oscar nominee Shannon is particularly mesmerizing as Sam, a deeply troubled soul who has lost his faith, and multiple Emmy winner Ed Asner offers strong, if brief, support as talkative exterminator Karl, who shares a dark secret from his days growing up in Germany during the Holocaust — Grace is an intriguing exploration of belief, in both love and religion, as well as humanity’s endless search for something bigger than themselves.

Steve (Paul Rudd) and Sara (Kate Arrington) are wide-eyed dreamers following Jesus’ guidance in GRACE (photo by Joan Marcus)

By beginning with the end, Wright (Mistakes Were Made, The Pavilion) and director Dexter Bullard (Mistakes Were Made, Bug) cast an immense shadow over the story, as the audience knows how terribly things are going to turn out, yet getting there is still compelling if at times confusing, with several scenes being told both forward and in reverse, raising questions of free will and preordained destiny. Meanwhile, Beowulf Boritt’s set, a single apartment that doubles as Sam’s as well as Steve and Sara’s, with everyone occupying the same space at the same time, occasionally rotates, perhaps hinting at the endless spinning of the planet, perhaps just an inexplicable special effect. In the background is a trompe l’oeil painting of a cloudy but bright blue sky, which means something very different to the extremely religious Sam and Steve (who also is dedicated to the capitalist green god, money) and to nonbelievers Sam and Karl; the latter regularly refers to the earnest couple as “Jesus freaks.” Although it doesn’t quite reach all of its lofty expectations, Grace is still an engaging production that will have audience members carefully examining their own belief system long after they’ve left the theater.

LAST MAN CLUB

Poverty, destitution, and an overriding strangeness rule the day in Axis Company production of LAST MAN CLUB (photo by Dixie Sheridan)

Axis Company
One Sheridan Sq. between West Fourth & Washington Sts.
Thursday – Sunday through October 28, $18
866-811-4111
www.axiscompany.org

The Grapes of Wrath meets The Road Warrior in the excellent Axis Company production of artistic director Randy Sharp’s Last Man Club. In a depression-era middle America Dust Bowl that could double as a barren postapocalyptic landscape, a small family of ragged men and women tries to survive as sandstorms swirl around their deteriorating farm. Friends and kin took off with all the money, leaving the overly practical and far-too-trusting Major (David Crabb) in charge of the mumbling, OCD-riddled Pogord (Spencer Aste), who is waiting for the tank truck to show so that his dried-out sheets can be wetted down; the quirky, ultra-strange Wishful Hi (Lynn Mancinelli), who wears crazy goggles and sees ghosts; and would-be singer Saromybride (Britt Genelin), who wonders whether they should have all headed out to California with the others. As the worst dust storm in modern history approaches, two drifters arrive one at a time: first Middle Pints (George Demas), who has an idea he wants to present to the town’s local Last Man Club, then Henry Taper (Brian Barnhart), who says he’s a scientist on his way to the city to help figure out how to stop the terrible drought. “I can’t take it no more. I really can’t,” Pogord says. “It’s the end of the world,” Wishful Hi proclaims.

Writer-director Sharp’s (Hospital) unpredictable dialogue and subtle plot shifts bring a compelling elegance to the proceedings while also making the play relevant to such twenty-first-century concerns as poverty, unemployment, climate change, the housing crisis, war, and a lack of faith in government. Karl Ruckdeschel’s costumes and the simple but effective set cast the production in browns and grays that emphasize the growing destitution, while solid acting all around gives the play an honesty despite the surreal craziness going on. Last Man Club might be set in the past and hint at the future, but it is, sadly, also firmly rooted in the here and now.

THE PUBLIC THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY AND OPEN HOUSE

Lafayette St. between Astor Pl. & East Fourth St.
Saturday, October 13, free, 12 noon – 5:00
www.publictheater.org

The Public Theater will show off its $40 million renovated home, which includes a restored facade, new terraced steps and glass canopy, an expanded lobby and balcony with a lounge (the Library at the Public), and more, on Saturday with a free block party. Outside there will be live performances by Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess, Sasha Allen, banjo legend Tony Trischka, and Colombian band M.A.K.U. SoundSystem, while inside the Public will offer sneak peaks at several upcoming productions: the New York premiere of Giant, a musical by Sybille Pearson and Michael John LaChiusa based on the Edna Ferber novel; the world premiere of Fun Home, a musical by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron adapted from Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel; the world premiere of Here Lies Love, which features music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and choreography by Annie B-Parsons; and Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s The Total Bent. Inside, food will be available from their new menu designed by Andrew Carmellini, including pizza popcorn and kielbasa sandwiches on a soft pretzel roll, while seven food trucks will be outside, including Gorilla Cheese, Korilla BBQ, the Treats Truck, Solber Pupusas, Valducci’s Pizza, Rickshaw Dumplings, and Go Burger.