this week in theater

A TALE OF TWO SHAKESPEARE ADAPTATIONS: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS / ROMEO AND JULIET

A fab cast sings and dances its way through exuberant production of The Comedy of Errors (photo by Peter Cooper)

PUBLIC THEATER MOBILE UNIT: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Multiple locations in all five boroughs
Through May 21, free (no RSVP necessary)
Shiva Theater, May 25 – June 11, free with RSVP
publictheater.org

Last Saturday, I did a Shakespeare doubleheader. In the afternoon, I saw the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit touring production of The Comedy of Errors, followed in the evening by NAATCO’s off-Broadway premiere of Hansol Jung’s Romeo and Juliet. The former turned out to be the most fun I’ve ever had at a Shakespeare play. The latter, by a writer whose previous show was wildly exhilarating and utterly unforgettable, started strong but couldn’t quite sustain it, ending up being not so much fun.

The Mobile Unit is now in its twelfth year of bringing free Shakespeare to all five boroughs, presenting works in prisons, shelters, and underserved community centers as well as city parks. On May 13, it pulled into the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, where part of the audience sat on the stage, on all four sides of a small, intimate square area where the action takes place; attendees could also sit in the regular seats, long concrete benches under the open sky.

Emmie Finckel’s spare set features a wooden platform and a bright yellow stepladder that serves several purposes. Lux Haac’s attractive, colorful costumes hang on racks at the back, where the actors perform quick changes. Music director and musician Jacinta Clusellas and guitarist Sara Ornelas sit on folding chairs, performing Julián Mesri’s Latin American–inspired score; Ornelas is fabulous as a troubadour and musical narrator, often wandering around the space and leading the cast in song. The lyrics, by Mesri and director and choreographer Rebecca Martínez, who collaborated on the adaptation, are in English and Spanish and are not necessarily translated word for word, but you will understand what is going on regardless of your primary tongue. As the troubadour explains, “I should mention that most of / this show will be performed in English / though it’s supposed to / take place in two states in Ancient Greece. / But don’t be surprised / if these actors switch their language.”

Trimmed down to a smooth-flowing ninety minutes, the show tells the story of a pair of twins, Dromio (Gían Pérez) and Antipholus (Joel Perez), who were separated at birth. In Ephesus, Dromio serves Antipholus, a wealthy man married to the devoted Adriana (Danaya Esperanza) but cheating on her with a lusty, demanding courtesan (Desireé Rodriguez). The other Dromio and Antipholus arrive in Ephesus and soon have everyone running around in circles as the mistaken identity slapstick ramps up.

Adriana (Danaya Esperanza) and Dromio (Gían Pérez) are all mixed up in The Comedy of Errors (photo by Peter Cooper)

Meanwhile, the merchant Egeon (Varín Ayala) is facing execution because he is from Syracuse, whose citizens are barred from Ephesus, per a decree from the Duchess Solina (Rodriguez); the goldsmith Angelo (Ayala) has made a fancy gold rope necklace for Antipholus but gives it to the wrong one; the Syracuse Dromio is confounded when Adriana’s kitchen maid claims to be his wife; the Syracuse Antipholus falls madly in love with Luciana (Keren Lugo), Adriana’s sister; and an abbess (Rodriguez) is determined to protect anyone who seeks sanctuary.

In case any or all of that is confusing, the troubadour clears things up in a series of songs that explain some, but not all, of the details, and the Public also provides everyone with a cheat sheet. Again, the troubadour: “In case you missed it / or took a little nap / Here’s what’s been happening / since we last had a chat / We’ll do our best / but we confess / this plot is really putting our skills to the test.”

It all comes together sensationally at the conclusion, as true identities are revealed, conflicts are resolved, and love wins out.

Martínez (Sancocho, Living and Breathing) fills the amphitheater with an infectious and supremely delightful exuberance. The terrific cast interacts with the audience, as if we are the townspeople of Ephesus. Gían Pérez (Sing Street) and Joel Perez (Sweet Charity, Fun Home) are hilarious as the two sets of twins, who switch hat colors to identify which brother they are at any given time. Esperanza (Mary Jane, for colored girls . . .) shines as the ever-confused, ultradramatic Adriana, Lugo (Privacy, At the Wedding) is lovely as Luciana and the duchess, Rodriguez is engaging as Emilia and the courtesan, and Ayala (The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew) excels as Angelo, Egeon, and Dr. Pinch.

But Ornelas (A Ribbon About a Bomb, American Mariachi) all but steals the show, switching between leather and denim jackets as she portrays minor characters and plays her guitar with a huge smile on her face, words and music lifting into the air. Charles Coes’s sound design melds with the wind blowing through the trees and other people enjoying themselves in the park on a Saturday afternoon. There are no errors in this comedy.

The Mobile Unit continues on the road with stops at A.R.R.O.W. Field House and Corona Plaza in Queens and Johnny Hartman Plaza in Manhattan before heading home to the Shiva Theater at the Public for a free run May 25 through June 11.

Romeo (Major Curda) and Juliet (Dorcas Leung) have a tough time of it at Lynn F. Angelson Theater (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ROMEO AND JULIET
Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East Thirteenth St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Monday – Saturday through June 3, $40
naatco.org

In February, I called Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play at MCC “the most exhilarating hundred minutes you will spend in a theater right now.” Alas, her follow-up, a profoundly perplexing adaptation of Romeo and Juliet making its off-Broadway premiere at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater through June 3, is unable to decide whether it is a wacky farce or a serious drama, ending up as its own kind of comedy of errors.

The confusion starts as the audience enters the space, where a handmade sign says to pick one side; the stage is a circular platform cut in half by a muslin curtain. Every person stops to consider which of the two sides might be better, asking the usher and looking back and forth at the possibilities. I watched as one woman, after selecting one side, got up several times to question whether she had chosen correctly. In this case, assigned seating might have been better, or instead dividing the sections into “Montague” and “Capulet.”

The play, a collaboration between the National Asian American Theatre Company and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On Shakespeare Project that debuted at Red Bank’s Two River Theater, begins with some funny slapstick as Daniel Liu fumbles with opening the curtains, which are tied by thick white rope to opposing scaffolds. Liu provides comic relief throughout the two-and-a-half-hour show, portraying multiple characters, including Lady Capulet in a white gown. (She’s later played by a coatrack.)

While a chorus delivers the prologue — “Two households, both alike in dignity / (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), / From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. / From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-cross’d lovers” — Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory engage in a conversation that makes sure we realize that this is not going to be a traditional production. “Gregory, I swear, man, we can’t be no one’s suckers,” Sampson says. “There’s some people I’d be happy to suck on,” Gregory responds. “Well, they can suck my cum and then succumb to my sword,” Sampson adds. The wordplay may be in the spirit of ribald Elizabethan theater, but it can feel like a pretty harsh divergence from the actual text. Jung and codirector Dustin Wills aren’t able to balance the juxtapositions as the story meanders; this adaptation assumes that the audience essentially knows what’s going to happen so necessary plot development can be skipped.

Juliet’s father has picked Count Paris (Rob Kellogg) to be her husband, but she has fallen head-over-heels for Romeo (Major Curda), scion of the Capulets’ sworn enemy, the Montagues. A swordfight between Romeo’s cousin, Mercutio (Jose Gamo), and Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt (Kellogg), lays the groundwork for more blood to follow, along with heartbreak and a classic finale that has never made complete sense.

But Jung (Wild Goose Dreams, Cardboard Piano, Human Resources) and Wills (Montag, Plano) get so caught up in theatrical hijinks — the actors climb the scaffold to operate spotlights, random props that had been tucked under the circular platform are suddenly crowding the stage, a soundboard spits out digital beats (the music is by Brian Quijada), the fourth wall is inconsistently broken — that it is hard for the audience to maintain focus and care about the characters. Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set also echoes NAATCO’s recent production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, in which rows of hundreds of glasses and books were visible underneath the stage but were not used in the play.

Peter (Daniel Liu), Potboy (Jose Gamo), and Servingman (Purva Bedi) engage in some silliness in Hansol Jung’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The mood goes from an irreverent send-up with contemporary language to a serious interpretation using Shakespeare’s original words; it’s like Jung is unable to decide which way to go, much like the audience entering the theater. It’s a shame, because the show has its clever moments of inspiration. Mariko Ohigashi’s random costumes include Juliet’s sweatshirt that says “Abbondanza” on two lines, while Romeo’s T-shirt proclaims, “Count Your Fucking Rainbows”; Juliet wears cute and fluffy animal slippers; Friar Laurence (Purva Bedi) is dressed in oversized pants with suspenders; and Mercutio is styled like a boy band star. (However, the Groucho glasses are confounding.) Two trapdoors allow Romeo and Juliet to escape from everyone else. When things get tense, Romeo often strums a few notes on his guitar, which elicits laughter.

Even with a makeout scene, Leung (Miss Saigon, Snow in Midsummer) and Curda (KPOP!) never catch fire. Kellogg (Red Light Winter, Twelfth Night) is stalwart as Paris, Bedi (Dance Nation, India Pale Ale) is an adorable Friar Laurence, and Lee Huynh (War Horse, A Clockwork Orange) is fine as Capulet, but NAATCO cofounder Mia Katigbak (Awake and Sing, A Delicate Balance) seems to be in an alternate version of the play, Gamo (The Great Leap, The Heart of Robin Hood) overdoes it as Mercutio and Potboy, and Zion Jang is too goofy as Benvolio, while poor Liu’s (You Will Get Sick, GIRLS) shtick grows repetitive by the second act as he alternates between Lady Capulet and Peter and screams in agony a lot.

The play completely loses its already tenuous focus when Peter inexplicably insists that the musicians play “Purple Rain,” which is more than just head-scratchingly bizarre but downright annoying. It’s as if Jung and Wills were so phenomenally successful with Wolf Play that nobody wanted to just tell them no, that the Prince song makes no sense in the context of this Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, it’s all too representative of what ends up being a lost opportunity, a would-be comedy of too many errors.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Beowulf Boritt’s New York, New York set is best thing about new musical (photo by Paul Kolnik)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK
St. James Theatre
246 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 30, $49-$259
newyorknewyorkbroadway.com

Start spreading the news: You’re not going to want to be a part of this.

The new Broadway musical New York, New York is a mostly tone-deaf tale inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 1977 flop, in which Robert De Niro starred as troubled sax man Jimmy Doyle and Liza Minnelli played the object of his affections, singer and actress Francine Evans. David Thompson and Sharon Washington’s book for the musical is built on the mere shell of that plot, and they proceed to craft a supremely dull love story as the two protagonists seek success in the big city, with or without each other. The whole mess feels like one giant excuse to feature the massively popular title song in a show, teasing the tune early before blasting it out in a fantastical grand finale.

World War II has just ended, and Colton Ryan is Jimmy, an Irish piano player known as Kid Wonder who keeps losing jobs because he can’t control himself (or his drinking). Anna Uzele is Francine, a Black singer from Philadelphia who was a USO star during the war, now looking to make a brand-new start of it in old New York. It’s love at first sight for Jimmy but not for Francine, who wants to prove herself on her own. Jimmy’s best friend is Tommy Caggiano (Clyde Alves), who provides comic relief as a tough-talking Italian with a heart of gold. “Listen, New York City is the greatest social experiment ever,” Tommy tells Francine upon meeting her. “Everybody lives here. And everybody’s natural enemy lives here. And we manage not to kill each other. For the most part.”

Jimmy cuts in, “Tommy, Tommy, let me. New York is a major chord! Not like Philly. That’s a minor chord. A major chord is when everything in your life works out perfectly. When you have everything in the right order. One is music. Two is money. And three is love.” Unfortunately, that weak metaphor comes back to haunt us later.

Francine Evans (Anna Uzele) and Jimmy Doyle (Colton Ryan) search for love in Broadway musical inspired by film (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Thompson and Washington populate this social experiment with a diverse mix of minor characters attempting to build, or rebuild, their lives in postwar 1946 New York City. Mateo Diaz (Angel Sigala) is a gay Cuban bongo player whose mother, Sofia (Janet Dacal), is abused by her always-angry husband, Luis (Leo Moctezuma), who carries a baseball bat with him wherever he goes. Jesse Webb (John Clay III) is a Black soldier and trumpet player who can’t find a music gig because of his race. Alex Mann (Oliver Prose) is a young Polish violinist desperate to study with master teacher Madame Veltri (Emily Skinner), whose son is missing in action. And Gordon Kendrick (Ben Davis) is a wealthy British producer who is interested in Francine, but not just for her vocal talent.

“Little dreams, little life. Big dreams, big life,” Francine tells Jimmy, speaking for all the people pouring into the melting pot that is New York, trying to better their lives but too often trapped by racism, classism, and misogyny.

New York, New York has big dreams itself, but it meanders all over the place. Lexington, Kentucky, native Ryan (Girl from the North Country, Dear Evan Hansen) is unconvincing as a New York jazzman and has no chemistry with Uzele (Six, Once on This Island), who lights up the stage when she sings, belting out “But the World Goes ’Round” and reminding us that Minnelli’s version of the title track is far superior to Frank Sinatra’s. An exceptional Jim Borstelmann (Chicago, The Producers) wins the hearts of the audience in multiple roles, from newspaper vendor to bassist. Tony nominee Skinner (Side Show, Billy Elliot) beautifully portrays the heartbroken violin virtuoso, but the other characters are lost in stereotypical, uninteresting plot devices.

Dance scene atop construction I-beam is highlight of New York, New York (photo by Paul Kolnik)

However, the show looks fantastic; Beowulf Boritt’s set ranges from clubs, Times Square, and a radio station to streets and alleyways laden with low-rent apartments and fire escapes; a highlight is a dance performed on a construction I-beam that references the famous photo “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” in which eleven construction workers enjoy a break sitting on a beam that appears to be floating above the city.

Susan Stroman’s (POTUS, Crazy for You) direction and choreography are surprisingly inconsistent, either lackluster or over the top. That lack of consistency extends to Sam Davis’s arrangements, Davis and Daryl Waters’s orchestrations, and Alvin Hough Jr.’s music direction, which is not surprising given how many hands stirred this melting pot, with songs by John Kander, Kander and Fred Ebb (who passed away in 2004), Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Kander, Ebb, and Miranda.

Ken Billington’s lighting and Kai Harada’s sound make sure we stay awake, while Boritt and Christopher Ash’s projections add to the metropolitan vibe, although a scene involving what is now known as Manhattanhenge feels anachronistic.

In the film, “Happy Endings” is a fantasy sequence, but in the show it is a tired trope; the actual ending onstage is a different kind of fantasy, meant to melt away those little town blues, but, like too much of this musical, it just burns credulity.

CAMELOT

Guenevere (Phillipa Soo) and Arthur (Andrew Burnap) contemplate their future in Camelot (photo by Joan Marcus)

CAMELOT
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through July 23, $58-$298
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

You know there’s a problem when you cringe every time the conductor at a musical signals to the orchestra that the next song is going to begin. That was my experience at the current revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Camelot, running at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater through July 23.

To make matters worse, director Bartlett Sher, who has given us delightful stagings of South Pacific, The King and I, and My Fair Lady in recent years, and book adapter Aaron Sorkin, the author of A Few Good Men and a contemporary rereading of To Kill a Mockingbird, have drained all of the magic out of the show, literally and figuratively, leaving us with the ghost of a beloved musical journey.

Based on T. H. White’s 1958 best-selling novel The Once and Future King, Camelot is the story of young King Arthur (Andrew Burnap), his promised bride, French princess Guenevere (Phillipa Soo), and the brave knight Lancelot Du Lac (Jordan Donica), who swears to defend Arthur while coveting Guenevere. In the opening scene, the king’s three closest knights, Sir Dinadan (Anthony Michael Lopez), Sir Sagramore (Fergie Philippe), and Sir Lionel (Danny Wolohan), are furious when the carriage carrying Guenevere breaks protocol and stops at the bottom of a hill, the princess escaping into the woods.

Guenevere (Phillipa Soo), Arthur (Andrew Burnap), and Lancelot (Jordan Donica) are involved in a dangerous love triangle in Lincoln Center revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

“A thousand-year-old tradition, Merlyn — royal brides are greeted at the top of the hill,” Lionel says. Merlyn (Dakin Matthews), Arthur’s mentor, answers, “Alright, well, in the name of Arthur, King of all England, it is decreed that royal brides will henceforth be met at the bottom of the hill. A new tradition. Does that do it?” It is as if Sher and Sorkin are announcing that they are creating a new tradition with this updated interpretation of the old-fashioned musical, but they are unable to inject life into this venerable warhorse.

Songs such as “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood,” “The Lusty Month of May,” “If Ever I Would Leave You,” and “Fie on Goodness” are flat and lifeless, corpses dug up from the past. Merlyn is not a mage but a wise adviser; as in the 1993 Broadway revival, the same actor also portrays Pellinore, a ratty, doddering old man who takes Merlyn’s place in Arthur’s life.

Arthur’s former lover, Morgan Le Fey (Marilee Talkington), is not a witch or an enchantress but a brilliant scientist. “In the new century, science is going to crack the world wide open. And I wouldn’t want to see your face when you realize it didn’t make a difference,” Morgan tells Arthur, as if trying to convince him to follow Dr. Anthony Fauci and not Fox News and get vaccinated. “There’ll be greed and injustice and hate and horror,” she adds.

The words justice and injustice appear about a dozen times throughout this Camelot: “If we’re to care about justice, we have to care more about injustice,” Arthur tells Lancelot and Pellinore. The Sorkinization extends to equality as well: “Equality is a myth made by the less-than-equal,” Sir Lionel says to Dinadan and Sagramore. It’s safe to say that this Camelot is not stuck in the Middle Ages.

Talking to Guenevere about human nature, Arthur espouses, “It has an impulse to be generous and it has a fierce desire for fairness.” But when it comes to a final decision Arthur must make, he instead hews inflexibly to his ethics: No one is above the law, not even a king and his queen.

Sher and Sorkin are so focused on contemporary standards of correct behavior that no electricity ever develops among Tony winner Burnap (The Inheritance, This Day Forward), who is a nice, kind Arthur; Tony nominee Soo (Into the Woods, Hamilton), who is a strong, charming Guenevere; and Donica (My Fair Lady, The Phantom of the Opera), who is a brash, overbearing Lancelot.

Sorkin goes out of his way to make Arthur a regular man of the people; instead of celebrating how he miraculously became king, he invents the following exchange: “You’re talking to a man who pulled a sword out of a stone. I was the ten thousandth person to try. How do you explain that?” Arthur asks Guenevere, who responds, “Nine-thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-nine people loosened it.” Guenevere then adds, for good measure, “We have greatness in our grasp, humanity does. But for some reason, every time we see it, we assign the responsibility to some supernatural force. Or to God,” as if Sorkin is railing against modern-day belief systems.

Taylor Trensch (Bare the Musical, Matilda the Musical) is miscast as Mordred, Arthur’s miserable son, but Talkington (A Nervous Smile, The Middle Ages) stands out as his mother, even if she’s way ahead of her time. Camden McKinnon (A Raisin in the Sun, Renfield) never has a chance as twelve-year-old Tom of Warwick, who gets caught up in the didactic conclusion as Arthur — or, if you will, Sher and Sorkin — promise a better, more equitable future.

Michael Yeargan’s sets are spare but attractive, with doors, tables, desks, and royal chairs rolled on and off by the cast, although an iron gate used for Arthur’s privacy gets confusing and the “round table” is actually rectangular; the shadowy lighting is by Lap Chi Chu, with effective sound by Marc Salzberg and Beth Lake, uncomplicated choreography by Byron Easley, colorful costumes by Jennifer Moeller, and projections by 59 Productions that identify location and the weather, from the castle to a forest.

At one point, Arthur insists, “This is Camelot. People don’t run from here, they run to here.”

I cannot in good faith recommend that anyone run to Lincoln Center to see this Camelot.

RACE: THE MOVIE: THE PLAY

Wyatt Saveyer (cowriter Bret Raybould) and Gene Yus (producer Dean Edwards) go for quite a ride in Race: The Movie: The Play (photo by Eddie Merino)

RACE: THE MOVIE: THE PLAY
Soho Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Varick St. & Sixth Ave.
Wednesday – Saturday through May 27, $41 ($31 with code RACISMSOLVED)
www.racethemovietheplay.com
www.sohoplayhouse.com

For more than two years, beginning during the pandemic lockdown, I’ve spent many Tuesday nights watching the livestreamed “This WAS The Uncle Floyd Show,” in which master pianist, puppeteer, and vaudeville-style comedian Floyd Vivino revisits his no-budget television program that ran on various stations from 1974 to 1998. A collection of haphazard, unrehearsed sketches pushing the limits of good taste, performed by a ragtag, close-knit cast and featuring impressive musical guests, it was beloved by a devoted cult that included David Bowie, John Lennon, and Paul Simon.

This past Tuesday night, however, I found myself at the Soho Playhouse watching Race: The Movie: The Play, which has a similar comic sensibility as The Uncle Floyd Show and deserves just a devoted following. Taking on the enormous issue of racism in Hollywood, RTMTP spoofs, references, and/or skewers such high-profile films as Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Get Out, The Help, Hidden Figures, Black Panther, Django Unchained, Bamboozled, Moonlight, Driving Miss Daisy, Blazing Saddles, and others.

Written by Cristian Duran and Bret Raybould, directed by Duran, and produced by Ted Alexandro, Dean Edwards, and Raybould, RTMTP began life as an award-winning film script, but when the producers couldn’t get funding to make a movie, they turned to the theater. Edwards stars as the distinguished Gene Yus, a gay Frederick Douglass–like character who is about to embark on a concert tour through the Deep South. Raybould is Wyatt Saveyer, a lanky Italian who is hired by Interracial Cab Company head Don Freeman (Andre D Thompson) to drive the stagecoach, led by the white horse Meta and the black horse Phor. Instead of money, Wyatt will receive a solid gold OOTGO badge, confirming that he is “One of the good ones,” which he recognizes as “a distinction white allies, and me an Italian one, can earn from the Black community.” Don explains, “With this OOTGO badge, you will get lifetime access to any cookout.” Wyatt adds, “And you get to say the N word one time,” to which Don quickly replies, “No the fuck you don’t.” Who gets to use the N word is a running gag throughout the ninety-eight-minute play.

A white-coated narrator (Patrice Battey-Simon) shares fun facts in Race: The Movie: The Play (photo by Eddie Merino)

On the road, Gene and Wyatt meet racist hillbilly repairman Wyatt Devil (David Healy), racist white plantation owner Ray Cist (Nick Whitmer) and his daughter, Jen Trifier (Amanda Van Nostrand), prison guard Tuwoke (Patrice Battey-Simon), Black plantation owner Pyler Terry’s Damea (Thee Suburbia), wannabe rapper Stretch (Eagle Witt), touchy-feely Doctor Bukkake (Healy), strapped Black cowboy D-Jango (Menuhin Hart), Kawanda king T’Challa-Latte (Quan Wiggins), evil villain Thanus (Rhyis Knight), mouth breather Max Hayte (Derek Humphrey, who also portrays the squeaky Mick E. Mouse), and Judge Hughbythecolorofyourskin (R. Alex Murray).

Gene and Wyatt encounter racism in many forms while confusingly shifting between time periods, breaking the fourth wall, and poking fun at themselves as Wyatt learns how to be an ally, proudly proclaiming his growth as a human being. When Gene asks Wyatt for help amid a fight, Wyatt admits, “Oh yeah. Sorry, I got lost in a brief spat of character development.” Early on, Wyatt says to Gene, “Hmm . . . a lot of your accomplishments are making me question my preconceived notions about you.” Later, Gene yells at Wyatt, calling him “quite possibly the most helpless, hapless, shiftless shit-for-brains idiot I’ve ever met! What’s your great struggle, what’s your cross to bear: Learning to be less racist and understand privilege? BOO FUCKING HOO!” And Wyatt tells himself with wonder, “Maybe it is harder to be a Black man in America . . . NAH!”

Throughout the show, musical director Andrew Hink, gleefully sitting at his keyboard stage right, plays an eclectic collection of instrumentals, from Britney Spears’s “Baby One More Time” to Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” (Every episode of The Uncle Floyd Show featured Vivino performing old standards on piano, though with vocals.)

A wacky cast explores racism and white supremacy in fun spoof at Soho Playhouse (photo by Eddie Merino)

Is RTMTP wildly uneven? You betcha. Do they sledgehammer home their points? Sure, but they are pretty important points. Do more jokes miss than hit their targets? Probably — I wasn’t keeping score — but there are a ton of one-liners, and even the very best baseball players reach base only forty percent of the time.

The depiction of what happens when someone gets canceled is pure genius, the danger of telegraphing while driving is made clear, and T-shirts are emblazoned with playful but serious political messages. Throw in some S&M, a bit of blackface, goofy costumes and props, some improvising in response to audience reaction, low-rent projections that show where the action is taking place, and a cast that is ready, willing, and able to laugh at itself and you have the ingredients of a lively, enjoyable evening, though I would skip the chicken cutlet sandwich. (Plus, if you’re white, you’ll feel like you’ve earned another notch toward your own OOTGO badge.)

One of the highlights the night I went was when Edwards was unable to get a line right after trying several times, so he asked Wiggins, as T’Challa-Latte, for help; it was almost too perfect that the sentence he couldn’t get out was “Let me get this straight, so the only way for us to unlock the power of diversity is if we fulfill the white q’uota?”

Race: The Movie: The Play might not run for a quarter-century and four thousand episodes like The Uncle Floyd Show did — it’s scheduled to close May 27 — but Duran and Raybould are still hoping to make that film, which will, of course, be called Race: The Movie: The Play: The Movie.

GOD OF CARNAGE

Two couples can’t reach a genuine understanding in God of Carnage (photo by Carol Rosegg)

GOD OF CARNAGE
Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 20, $72.50
www.tbtb.org

“Why does everything always have to be so exhausting?” Veronica (Christiane Noll) asks in Theater Breaking Through Barriers’ (TBTB) splendid off-Broadway premiere of Yasmina Reza’s 2008 dark comedy, God of Carnage, running at Theatre Row through May 20. The prescient fifteen-year-old show feels even more relevant today as we deal with exhaustion of all kinds on a seemingly endless basis.

Before the actors take the stage, they identify themselves in voiceover: what they’re wearing and what the set looks like, the words projected onto the back wall, which Veronica explains “is composed of approximately twenty square and rectangular panels and is painted bright red. Because the panels are all different sizes and overlap each other, the wall presents as fractured with an illusion of depth to it. It is reminiscent of the cubism movement of the early twentieth century.” In this revival, “illusion of depth” and “cubism” would be two ways to describe what happens over the course of ninety minutes.

Founded in 1979, TBTB is “dedicated to advancing artists and developing audiences of people with disabilities and altering the misperceptions surrounding disability”; thus, some of the actors have disabilities (that are not necessarily noticeable and aren’t the point), and the dialogue is projected through the entire play for those who are hard of hearing (though often a distracting second or two behind the action). God of Carnage is an excellent choice for TBTB, as part of the plot involves a drug that might be causing side effects that mimic certain disabilities.

Michael Novak (Gabe Fazio), who runs a wholesale household goods company, and his wife, Veronica, a writer who works in an art history bookstore, have invited over Alan Raleigh (David Burtka), a hotshot corporate lawyer, and his wife, Annette (Carey Cox), who’s in wealth management, to discuss an unfortunate situation: The Raleighs’ eleven-year-old son, Benjamin, struck the Novaks’ eleven-year-old, Henry, across the face with a stick in Cobble Hill Park, knocking out two of his teeth. For legal and insurance purposes, the parents are drafting a document explaining precisely what happened. The disagreements begin from the very start, when Veronica states that Benjamin was “armed with a stick” but Alan objects to that word and they decide on “furnished” instead.

The narrative plays out like a courtroom drama as the audience shifts its sympathies among the four characters, who eventually all show their true colors, some of them unexpected. Alan spends much of his time on his cell phone, handling a crisis for a pharmaceutical company in a bind because of serious issues with one of its drugs. He remains in the living room, speaking loudly to his colleagues and clients, oblivious to whether or not everyone hears what he’s saying because he’s sure that it’s far more important than arguing about a couple of boys being boys.

Gabe Fazio, David Burtka, Christiane Noll, and Carey Cox star in off-Broadway debut of Tony-winning play (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Annette is furious at her husband’s disrespect and neglect and is at first insistent that Benjamin must apologize in person to Henry. But as more facts come out, she starts pulling back and pointing fingers. Veronica is appalled at this change, although she at times seems more concerned about her collection of rare art volumes and the book she’s writing on Sudan. Meanwhile, Michael sees nothing wrong with how he disposed of his daughter’s beloved hamster, while his mother keeps calling on the landline, worrying about her own health situation.

Every time the Raleighs get up to go, something happens to keep them in the living room, reminiscent of Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel, in which people at a dinner party are unable to leave. And as the two couples’ discussions get more combative — there’s even a debate over the homemade clafouti Veronica serves — the parents get more and more cruel as things devolve into mayhem.

Translated from the original French by Christopher Hampton, who has translated five of Reza’s plays, including the Tony-winning ‘Art,’ God of Carnage debuted on Broadway in February 2009 with an impressive cast: Jeff Daniels as Alan, Hope Davis as Annette, James Gandolfini as Michael, and Marcia Gay Harden as Veronica. All four actors were nominated for Tonys; Gay Harden won for Best Actress and Matthew Warchus for Best Director, and the show took home the Best Play prize. Roman Polanski’s 2011 film starred Christoph Waltz as Alan, Jodie Foster as Annette, John C. Reilly as Michael, and Kate Winslet as Veronica.

TBTB’s adaptation might not boast huge names, but it is a small gem that celebrates the sharp writing, which is filled with hilarious absurdities while turning modern-day Brooklyn parenting inside out. The show takes place on the cusp of the social media revolution, when bullying was still mostly limited to physical rather than online interaction. The Novaks and the Raleighs are practically the opposite of helicopter parents; at one point, when Annette criticizes her guests’ parenting skills, Alan gives her permission to say anything she wants to Benjamin, something that is unlikely to happen today, especially in the Cobble Hill area.

Bert Scott’s set is centered by an off-white sofa and matching armchair, with a glass coffee table, beige rug, utility table with bottles of alcohol, Parson chair, and end table with a vase of yellow tulips; the soft lighting and projections are by Samuel J. Biondolillo, with sound by Eric Nightengale and appropriate bourgeois Brooklyn costumes by Olivia V. Hern.

Burtka (Gypsy, It Shoulda Been You) is strong and unflappable as Alan, a selfish man who cares more about his job than his wife and son. “I really wish you would just turn off your cell phone and focus on your family for a change,” Annette yells at him during TBTB’s added introduction. “There is nothing worse than someone who is so addicted to their cell phone that they can’t shut it off for a time and focus on what is right in front of them.” Cell-phone rudeness has only gotten worse since 2008, so Reza was right on target with Alan. When Annette says under her breath to the audience, “Blah blah blah, it’s the same nonsense all the time,” Alan asks, “Who are you talking to?,” as he is unable to see anyone else but himself, including the audience. (Echoing Alan and Annette, when Michael describes himself to the audience in the guise of testing out a new voice recorder, Veronica grumbles, “Michael, what are you doing?”)

Cox (The Glass Menagerie, The Handmaid’s Tale) kicks it into high gear as Annette, who is getting sick and tired of being pushed around by everyone because of her generally mousey demeanor; she is like the hamster, ready to break free from Alan, who calls her “Woof-woof” as if she is his pet. Meanwhile, Fazio (The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Good Nurse) captures Michael’s unpredictability, the character drifting in his own world, reaching for the fancy rum when things get rough. And Tony nominee Noll (Ragtime, Chaplin) holds nothing back as Veronica, whose carefully orchestrated existence is coming unhinged despite her best efforts to remain in control, even regarding her clafouti recipe.

TBTB artistic director Nicholas Viselli, who just received a Legend of Off-Broadway Award from the Off Broadway Alliance, builds the narrative at an ever-increasing pace as the Novaks and the Raleighs discover that they might be more alike than they ever imagined. No one is left unscathed in this spirited tale that begins as a taut psychological drama and slowly evolves into all-out physical chaos. These scenes of carnage may have been penned fifteen years ago, but in this stinging production it feels like they could have been written yesterday.

THE THANKSGIVING PLAY

D’Arcy Carden, Chris Sullivan, Katie Finneran, and Scott Foley star in The Thanksgiving Play on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)

THE THANKSGIVING PLAY
Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 11, $109-$169
2st.com/shows
www.playwrightshorizons.org

Call it The Thanksgiving Play That Goes Wrong.

In November 2018, I wrote that the world premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play at Playwrights Horizons was “a wild and woolly farce that takes on important indigenous issues — in real life and on the stage. [FastHorse] is attempting to level the playing field by increasing diversity and pushing an own-voices sensibility.”

Nearly five years later, the play is debuting on Broadway from Second Stage, with a different director, different cast, different set, and significantly tweaked script that make it all feel like so many dried-out leftovers.

The plot is the same. Logan (Katie Finneran) is a high school drama teacher directing a forty-five-minute Thanksgiving play for elementary school students. She has hired her overly politically correct boyfriend, local street performer Jaxton (Scott Foley), to star in the show, along with professional actress Alicia (D’Arcy Carden), whose experience has been primarily in Disney theme parks; elementary school history teacher and amateur writer and actor Caden (Chris Sullivan) is the research consultant. Logan has decided it will be a devised production, with everyone contributing in an improvised fashion, which delights Caden, who has come with plans for a major epic, but bores Alicia, who says, “I’m an actress. Could I come back when there’s a script? I just got to town and have a hundred things to do.”

Logan, who is proudly vegan and refers to Thanksgiving as “the holiday of death,” has received the Race and Gender Equity in History Grant, the Excellence in Educational Theater Fellowship, a municipal arts grant, the Go! Girls! Scholastic Leadership Mentorship, and the Native American Heritage Month Awareness Through Art Grant and is determined to please all her funders. She is distressed when she discovers that Alicia, who she believed was Native American because of one of her head shots, is not. “So we’re four white people making a culturally sensitive First Thanksgiving play for Native American Heritage Month? Oh my Goddess,” Logan proclaims as if it’s the end of the world.

Alicia (D’Arcy Carden) and Logan (Katie Finneran) face some PC issues in The Thanksgiving Play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Each scene that they discuss unravels either because of length, cost, or political sensitivity. When Caden suggests starting the play four thousand years ago with the agricultural revolution and using lots of fire, Logan says, “I am conscious of not allowing my personal issues to take up more space in the room than the justified anger of the Native people around this idea of Thanksgiving in our postcolonial society. I want to make that crystal clear.” Alicia asks, “Was America even invented yet?” To which Jaxton replies, “It was not. Better times. That makes me wonder if using the word of the conqueror, ‘American,’ could be a trigger for people? What word do you prefer for naming this physical space? I’ve heard ‘Turtle Island’ used a lot. Do you prefer that?” Alicia chimes in, “I like turtles.”

They argue about casting, food, historical accuracy, prayer, Columbus Day, the depiction of violence, and “white people speaking for white people” as they try to figure out what actions they can take in good conscience in today’s equality-conscious culture.

The word “woke” began to take on its current meaning in 2014 following the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. In the October 2020 Vox article “A History of ‘Wokeness,’” Aja Romano writes, “In the six years since Brown’s death, ‘woke’ has evolved into a single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and critical race theory. This framing of ‘woke’ is bipartisan: It’s used as a shorthand for political progressiveness by the left, and as a denigration of leftist culture by the right.” This evolution of wokeness lies at the heart of the problems with this new iteration of The Thanksgiving Play; in the five years since it debuted off Broadway, the play has become a victim of its own wokeness.

In 2018, MacArthur Genius FastHorse (Cherokee Family Reunion, Urban Rez, What Would Crazy Horse Do?) was right on target, skewering how difficult it was to use the proper language to describe people and events. The battle between Logan and Jaxton’s progressiveness and Caden’s insistence on historical accuracy was hilariously spoofed by Alicia’s utter disinterest in what either side had to say, representing Americans who were fed up with partisan fighting over everything and instead just wanted to get on with it all. At one point, Jaxton says about Alicia’s lack of Native American heritage, “I think we could get away with using her before 2020, but now we’re post the postracial society. We can’t be blind to differences.”

At Playwrights Horizons, Jaxton said “a few years ago” instead of “before 2020,” and therein lies the conundrum. What was a clever, prescient satire in 2018 now feels stale and mean, revealing that the show is already dated. The cast is fine, led by Carden as a sexier Alicia, but Riccardo Hernández’s classroom set is confining, although it’s telling that posters on the wall promote such previous school productions as Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis, Euripides’s Medea, Sophocles’s Oedipus, and Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is, works that many school districts today would consider too controversial to put on.

The supremely talented Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) is unable to get a firm grasp on the proceedings, teetering between farce and a cautionary tale. I wrote about the PH show, “One of the main reasons why The Thanksgiving Play works so well, despite the occasional bumpiness, is because we recognize parts of ourselves in the four characters; of course, off-Broadway audiences tend to be significantly liberal — and often privileged — terrified of uttering or doing the wrong thing when it comes to people of color yet rather clueless about their own giant blind spots. Thus, there are moments in the show when you are likely to hesitate before laughing, wondering whether you are being insensitive by enjoying yourself too much.” That dichotomy is missing here.

The original production began with Logan (Jennifer Bareilles), Alicia (Margo Seibert), and Jaxton (Greg Keller) coming out dressed as pilgrims and Caden (Jeffrey Bean) as a giant turkey, singing, “The Twelve Days of Thanksgiving,” announcing that this was going to be a good-natured social comedy. The Broadway edition opens with a video of children, dressed in homemade costumes, singing the same song, but it is announcing that the debates over the validity of how and why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the entire DEI movement are poisoning the next generations. Each version concludes with the statement: “Teacher’s note: This song can do more than teach counting. I divide my students into Indians and pilgrims so the Indians can practice sharing.” At Playwrights Horizons, the audience laughed at that line; at the Hayes, they gasped. The Thanksgiving Play’s time has come and gone.

“This is a challenge, but we are the future of theater and education. Are we all in agreement?” Logan asks.

Not me.