this week in theater

PRIMARY TRUST

Kenneth (William Jackson Harper) has difficulty facing reality in Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust (photo by Joan Marcus)

PRIMARY TRUST
Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 2, $56-$147
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Eboni Booth’s sensational Primary Trust is an Our Town — or, more accurately, a My Town — for this very moment in time, in the twenty-first century. It beautifully captures the feelings of longing and loneliness so many of us experience in this digital age, especially coming out of a global pandemic permeated by isolation. Instantly a Best Play of the Year favorite, the ninety-five-minute show is anchored by a gorgeous performance by William Jackson Harper as Kenneth, our thirty-eight-year-old unreliable narrator and protagonist.

Primary Trust unfolds in the fictional community of Cranberry, New York, forty miles east of Rochester. Marsha Ginsberg’s lovely set is a miniature version of the town, with a bank, a tiki bar, a vacant shoe store, and a church; it is essentially Anywhere, USA. As the audience enters the theater, Chicago-born singer-songwriter and actor Luke Wygodny, is onstage, playing guitar. He later moves to keyboards off stage left, where he serves as the piano player at Wally’s and adds incidental music throughout.

The play begins with Kenneth addressing the audience. “This is what happened,” he says tentatively but with immense charm. “This is the story of how if you had asked me six months ago if I was lonely, I would have said . . . This is the story of a friendship. Of how I got a new job. A story of love and balance and time. And the smallest of chances.”

It’s clear from the start that Kenneth has social issues and is not well educated. He is haunted by the death of his mother, who died when he was only ten years old; he was raised in an orphanage and several foster homes. But instead of being angry or looking for excuses for his relative lack of success — he doesn’t see himself as a failure, seemingly enjoying his simple life — he is a gentle soul with a tender view of the world, or at least Cranberry, which is his entire world.

He’s been working as a clerk at a bookshop on Main St. for twenty years; his boss, Sam (Jay O. Sanders), treats him well. Every night, Kenneth goes to Wally’s, a tiki hut where he drinks mai tai after mai tai until the bar closes. He orders for two; he is always there with Bert (Eric Berryman), a married man with two daughters. Kenneth is not religious, but he explains, “I don’t really believe in God or heaven or hell, but I do believe in friends, and Bert is the best friend around.” They do just about everything together, but there’s one problem.

Kenneth (William Jackson Harper) spends most of his nights in a tiki bar with his best friend, Bert (Eric Berryman) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Bert is imaginary, and Kenneth knows it.

“He exists only in my head,” Kenneth reveals. “But that doesn’t make him any less real. He has arms and legs. A face, a heart — a good heart.”

Kenneth is generally an easygoing guy, but he becomes distressed when Sam tells him that he and his wife have sold the bookstore and are moving to Arizona. Desperate to find a job, he learns from Corinna (April Matthis), a waitress at Wally’s, that there’s an open position at the Primary Trust bank; Kenneth is interested because his mother used to work at Mutual Loan. Kenneth has trouble making important decisions without Bert, so he brings him along on the interview with Clay (Sanders), a good-natured bear of a man who takes a shine to Kenneth, as we all do, wanting him to succeed. “I have a brother,” Clay tells him. “Got into a car accident in high school, hit his head pretty bad. You remind me of him.”

Kenneth gets the job, but when he has one awful day, he’s not sure he’ll ever get over it as the careful life he’s created in his head is suddenly thrown off-kilter.

Kenneth’s (William Jackson Harper) life takes a new turn when he meets Corinna (April Matthis) (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Bronx-born Booth, who worked in bars and restaurants and has spoken about having a drinking problem, appeared in the terrific Dance Nation and Fulfillment Center, and her previous play, Paris, was set in a superstore in the fictional Paris, Vermont; she writes in a clear, familiar style that sucks you right in, offering a sweet affection for small-town living. In Primary Trust, she takes great care in every detail; even the names of the banks offer insight into Kenneth’s situation: His mother worked at Mutual Loan, evoking his need to be with her and not be alone, while he gets a job at Primary Trust, where he has to build confidence that he can handle life on his own and trust others.

Director Knud Adams, who helmed Paris and such other ensemble pieces as Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize–winning English and Gracie Gardner’s hard-hitting I’m Revolting, guides the narrative with a touching and warmhearted hand that will have even the most cynical city dwellers feel sentimental about small town life, at least for an hour and a half. Qween Jean’s costumes, Isabella Byrd’s lighting, and Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound further immerse you into the bittersweet ups and downs of Cranberry.

Berryman (Toni Stone, The B-Side: Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons) plays the kind of imaginary friend anyone would be lucky to have, even as we learn about where he came from. The always stalwart Sanders (Uncle Vanya, King Lear) is superb as Sam and Clay, two understanding father figures to Kenneth, as well as a funny garçon. Matthis (Help, Toni Stone) is a whirlwind playing multiple Wally’s waitresses and bank customers. Wygodny gets bonus time by occasionally interacting with Kenneth.

Harper (After the Blast, All the Way) is unforgettable as Kenneth, instilling in him a childlike sense of wonder and innocence; in many ways Kenneth is still that ten-year-old boy even as he realizes that he needs to start becoming an adult and accept his own responsibilities. Harper was nominated for an Emmy for his role on The Good Place portraying Chidi Anagonye, a moral philosopher and bundle of neuroses unable to make a decision; Kenneth feels like a natural progression for him. Kenneth is such a nice, well-meaning guy that you’ll want to be by his side, go with him to Wally’s and gulp a few mai tais, then comfort him when his loneliness overtakes him. You don’t have to have lost a parent, a job, or a best friend in order to relate to the isolation that envelops him. You just have to have empathy and compassion for other human beings, as well as yourself. There’s a reason why this town’s motto is “Welcome, Friend, You’re Right on Time!”

GREY HOUSE

Max (Tatiana Maslany, second from right) meets a creepy family in Grey House (photo by MurphyMade, 2023)

GREY HOUSE
Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45ht St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 30, $74-$278
greyhousebroadway.com

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with 1970s horror movies set in houses. I couldn’t get enough of Bad Ronald, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Burnt Offerings, The Legend of Hell House, and the scariest of them all, the “Amelia” section of Trilogy of Terror, in which Karen Black portrays a woman who is terrorized by a Zuni doll. I saw all of them on television, with commercials, but they still terrified me.

I got the same chills watching Levi Holloway’s thrilling Grey House, live and in person on Broadway.

It’s a classic setup: A young couple, Max (Tatiana Maslany, but I saw understudy Claire Karpen) and Henry (Paul Sparks), crash their car during a snowstorm and seek refuge in a strange house in the woods. The creepy, creaky, cluttered structure is run by Raleigh (Laurie Metcalf), “mama” to five children, each of whom has their own proclivities: Marlow (Sophia Anne Caruso), Bernie (Millicent Simmonds), A1656 (Alyssa Emily Marvin), Squirrel (Colby Kipnes), and the Boy (Eamon Patrick O’Connell). They wear gothic dressing gowns and pajamas, speak in mysteries, and occasionally break out into ritualistic songs.

“It’s a call coming from your house / She’s yelling from the window frame / You want to ignore it but there’s nothing else / No one, no one, no one, no one left to play,” A1656 sings early on. It’s a 2018 tune by Mountain Man, “Stella,” that references horror-movie tropes.

The kids scatter when they hear a knock at the door; Max enters the living room and picks up the phone, but the cord has been cut. Henry sits on a couch, worrying about his ankle, which might be broken. “I’ve seen this. All this. I’ve seen this movie,” he says. “What happens?” Max asks. “We don’t make it,” Henry replies. For added effect, there’s a ghoulish doll leaning against a small television on the floor.

Max (Tatiana Maslany) and Henry (Paul Sparks) find themselves trapped in a cabin in the woods in Grey House (photo by MurphyMade, 2023)

When she meets the children, Max tells them, “You don’t need to be afraid.” Marlow responds, “Neither do you,” as she pulls a knife on Max.

To help him heal, the kids offer Henry “the Nectar of Dead Men,” which Raleigh explains is one of the types of moonshine they make and sell.

Impressed by the children’s general efficiency, Max tells Raleigh, “Your daughters are very independent.” Raleigh answers, “They are willful creatures.” They soon show just how willful they can be.

Over the course of one hundred intermissionless minutes, the wind howls. Blood drips. The lights go off and then on again. A devilish glow and smoke seep out of the basement. Characters suddenly appear and disappear. A rocking chair rocks. A game called Show and Hell involves a demonic chalk circle. What’s in the refrigerator changes every time it’s opened. The entire house lets out ghastly groans as if it might collapse at any moment. An old woman (Cyndi Coyne) sings. Every move anyone makes is filled with possibility: trepidation, fear, dread, conjuring, and, perhaps, care and love. Even when you think something bad is coming, you’ll still jump in your seat when it happens.

Successful and original scary plays are extremely rare on Broadway; there have been plenty of frightful musicals — Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Young Frankenstein — but at their heart they are often romances filled with dark humor.

Grey House contains references to numerous horror classics (photo by MurphyMade, 2023)

Grey House is pure, unadulterated horror. Two-time Tony-winning director Joe Mantello (The Humans, The Boys in the Band) masterfully maintains a constant state of foreboding as the plot unfolds. Like most 1970s horror movies, not everything makes sense; several loose knots are left untied, but more than enough answers are supplied. Holloway and Mantello also expertly sprinkle references to such other frightening classics as Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Beguiled, Misery (a great book and film but failed play, starring Metcalf), and Ju-On.

Scott Pask’s set is a character unto itself, stuffed to the gills with endless objects and secrets; the rafters seem to be closing in on everyone, ready to collapse at the next drop of blood. Rudy Mance’s costumes capture the feel of people trapped in a cabin in the woods, while Natasha Katz’s lighting and Tom Gibbons’s sound honor the genre well.

The cast is exceptional, their perfomances perfectly modulated to prey on the audience’s fears, led by two-time Tony winner Metcalf (Three Tall Women, A Doll’s House, Part 2), who plays Raleigh with just the right amount of perplexity. Karpen (Sylvia, Into the Woods) and Emmy nominee Sparks (At Home at the Zoo, The Killer) are terrific as the couple who have no idea what they have gotten themselves into, their lives changed forever by one harrowing event.

Caruso, who at twenty-one has already excelled in such shows as Lazarus, Beetlejuice, The Nether, and Blackbird, all of which contain some level of terror, is again outstanding as a girl who knows much more than she is letting on, playing Marlow with a cool and eerie self-confidence.

While I can imagine watching Grey House on television on a snowy Saturday night, the place to catch it now is on Broadway; it is scheduled to occupy the Lyceum Theatre through September 3.

THE SHYLOCK AND THE SHAKESPEAREANS

Jacob (Jeremy Kareken, center) negotiates a deal with Antonio (Eric Oleson) and Bassanio (Chapman Hyatt) in The Shylock and the Shakespeareans (photo by Richard Termine)

THE SHYLOCK AND THE SHAKESPEAREANS
New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher St.
Wednesday – Sunday through June 17, $20 streaming, $30 in person
www.untitledtheater.com
newohiotheatre.org

The premise for Edward Einhorn’s The Shylock and the Shakespeareans is filled with intriguing possibilities: a reimagining of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in which the Bard is the hero of a ragtag mob of racists and anti-Semites. Unfortunately, the execution doesn’t quite live up to the promise.

As the audience enters the New Ohio Theatre (for what will be the venue’s final full-length presentation before it closes), musician and composer Richard Philbin is in a corner, playing wonderful Klezmer/medieval-tinged tunes on flute, clarinet, and bassoon, which he continues doing throughout the show. Mike Mroch’s set is a dark alley with graffiti on concrete walls — “The Jews Will Not Replase Us,” misspelled to immediately establish the ignorance of the bigots — along with dozens and dozens of pictures of Shakespeare, many with his eyes ripped out, evoking one of the playwright’s most famous and controversial soliloquies, which begins, “Hath not a Jew eyes?”

What Einhorn calls “A Comedy with Tragic Elements” starts with a prologue in Venice in which the Jewish Jessica (Yael Haskal) and the Asian Christian Lorenzo (Chase Lee) are spotted together making out by Salarino (Ethan Fox) and Salarina (Janine Hagerty), who are wearing white hoods that we soon learn are the mark of the Ku Klux Klan–like Shakespeareans. “They have witchcraft in their lips,” Salarina says about the couple. “Lorenzo loves not wisely.”

The central plot of The Shylock and the Shakespeareans is similar to that of The Merchant of Venice. Bassanio (Chapman Hyatt) is in love with heiress Portia (Nina Mann) and wants to flaunt his love by gifting her diamonds that cost three thousand ducats. Bassanio has no money, so he asks his older cousin Antonio (Eric Oleson), a rich merchant, to loan him the cash, but Antonio explains that his wealth is all tied up in ships that are out at sea. Instead, Bassanio convinces Antonio to meet with Jacob (Jeremy Kareken), a Jewish jeweler, to make a deal.

“How many times have I told you? Never trust a Jew,” Antonio tells his cousin. “They are sneaks. They are liars. And they are cannibals.” When Bassanio questions Antonio’s belief that Jews are flesh-eating devils, Antonio explains that it all comes from Shakespeare, that the Bard “opened my eyes about a lot of things.” Bassanio responds, “I don’t know, Antonio. Some of the people at his rallies, they seem a little crazy. That Gobbo guy, he scares me.” A disappointed Antonio complains, “You always have to put him down. I don’t know why you have to do that.” The scene brings to mind Donald Trump’s defense of the people involved in the 2017 Unite the Right march in Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrectionists, with Gobbo (Craig Anderson) a kind of QAnon Shaman or Proud Boy leader. In addition, Gobbo has no love lost for Terach (Kingsley Nwaogu), a Black Jew who is Jacob’s only friend. Defending his hate, Gobbo, formerly Jacob’s servant, says, “I just say in public the things that most people say in private.”

Antonio refuses to call Jacob by his real name, instead referring to him by the derogatory term “shylock,” which he tells Bassanio means, according the Shakespeare, “don’t trust them.” Their initial meeting features the best exchange in the play.

Antonio: This is the shylock?
Jacob: Jacob is my name.
Antonio: I know who you are.
Jacob: I know who you are too. You and a gang of Shakespeareans vandalized our synagogue. You were one of the ring leaders.
Antonio: The synagogue, Bassanio, is where shylocks do their business.
Jacob: It’s where we pray.
Antonio: You prey upon us there and everywhere.
Jacob: I mean prayers. Like in a church.
Antonio: The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
Bassanio: Wait, I think I’ve heard that before. Who said that?
Jacob & Antonio: Shakespeare.

Portia’s (Nina Mann) suitors must choose from three boxes in reimagining of The Merchant of Venice (photo by Richard Termine)

Whereas in The Merchant of Venice it is Shylock who demands a pound of flesh if Antonio defaults on the loan, a troublesome plot point that to this day does no favors for Jews, painting them as vicious businessmen, Einhorn instead has Bassanio suggest it, offering, “If you are not paid, you can take a bite out of my Christian flesh. From wherever you like.” Antonio demands, “Not his flesh! Mine. You can eat mine. Or cook it into matzo.” Jacob argues, “Matzo is just flour and water.” Antonio cries out, “And Christian children.” They eventually arrive at an agreement in which Jacob will charge Bassanio three thousand ducats — the actual cost — for a diamond necklace, and Antonio will pay for it once his ships arrive back home. In lieu of interest, Antonio will have to tell his fellow Shakespeareans that Jews do not eat Christians, convincing them that the blood libel is a lie.

Meanwhile, Morocco (Nwaogu) and Aragon (Fox) join Bassanio as suitors for Portia’s hand, having to choose the correct box out of three: a gold one that says, “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire,” a silver one that says, “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves,” and a lead one that says, “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.” Portia, who also is an unscrupulous cross-dressing judge, is assisted by her servant, Nerissa (Stephanie Lichtfield), who sleeps in the stables and lusts after Gratiano (Thomas Shuman), who works for Antonio.

There’s much to admire in the first half of the play, with solid character development, strong dialogue, and terrific music. Kareken, who cowrote the Broadway play The Lifespan of a Fact, is stalwart as Jacob, portraying him as a bold and brave man with high principles who is not about to let others get the best of him, a stand-in for the Jewish people around the world, particularly today, when the rise of anti-Semitism is everywhere. Oleson gives Antonio just the right edge, an intelligent man who should know better but has fallen under the spell of the Shakespeareans. Ramona Ponce’s costumes, which meld medieval with modern, are highlighted by the Elizabethan ruffs worn by the bigots around their necks and the yellow circles on the lapels of the Jews, a reference to the rotas that Jews had to wear in Europe beginning in 1217 and which became the Star of David under the Nazis.

The play — a follow-up to Einhorn’s 1997 A Shylock, the first full play from his troupe, Untitled Theater Company No. 61 — loses steam as Einhorn (Alma Baya, City of Glass) turns the focus on Jessica, who has converted to Christianity and eloped with Lorenzo. She is disappointed that Lorenzo is friends with Antonio even though Antonio believes that “Venice is for the Venetians. Not for foreigners and certainly not for Jews.” Not only are the Shakespeareans — the Middle Ages version of the America First movement — anti-Semitic and racist but they also despise immigrants while controlling the narrative. “Your friends spread hate,” Lorenzo tells Antonio, who replies in classic bigot projection, “We are the victims of hate. No one is hated more unfairly than the Shakespeareans.”

Although Einhorn calls attention to critical matters that are still relevant today, the tale grows ever more choppy, with overblown and repetitive slapstick competing with poignant drama. Jessica’s interaction with Portia feels forced, and what happens after Jacob speaks the famous words “I am content” is confounding in multiple ways as Einhorn attacks the current scourge of white supremacy, perhaps born in part from the legacy of Shakespeare’s play. The work also raises important questions about the future of Jewish culture amid so much hatred and intermarriage, lamenting what Shakespeare and others have wrought over the centuries, but those discussions seem squeezed in.

“We know a threat when we see it,” Antonio warns Jacob. “You want us to be blind, but Shakespeare has opened our eyes.” After all these years, it’s a tragedy that so many still need their eyes opened to the truth.

THE RETURN OF THE RISE AND FALL, THEN BRIEF AND MODEST RISE FOLLOWED BY A RELATIVE FALL OF . . . JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME

Joe Cordaro and John Harlacher star in Timothy Haskell’s semibiographical play about Jean Claude Van Damme (photo by Nathaniel Nowak)

THE RISE AND FALL, THEN BRIEF AND MODEST RISE FOLLOWED BY A RELATIVE FALL OF . . . JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME AS GLEANED BY A SINGLE READING OF HIS WIKIPEDIA PAGE MONTHS EARLIER
Brooklyn Art Haus
24 Marcy Ave., Brooklyn
Sundays, June 11 – July 16, $25 (opening night $20 with code FACEKICK23), 7:00
www.bkarthaus.com

Last June, I saw — well, experienced might be a better word — Timothy Haskell’s spectacularly titled The Rise and Fall, Then Brief and Modest Rise Followed by a Relative Fall of . . . Jean Claude Van Damme as Gleaned by a Single Reading of His Wikipedia Page Months Earlier at the Pit Loft. It’s now back for an encore run on Sunday nights at the Brooklyn Art Haus, from June 11 through July 16. Below is my original review, but you don’t need to read it if the name of the show already has you hooked. Just go, especially with tickets only twenty-five bucks (plus, you can save a fin on opening night with code FACEKICK23). But do tell Mr. Haskell that twi-ny sent you.

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I’ve seen so many meticulously researched plays about real-life figures and situations, wondering what is actually true and what has been tweaked — or just plain made up — for dramatic effect, that Timothy Haskell’s new work is a breath of fresh air. The title explains exactly what you’re in for: The Rise and Fall, Then Brief and Modest Rise Followed by a Relative Fall of . . . Jean Claude Van Damme as Gleaned by a Single Reading of His Wikipedia Page Months Earlier. Haskell checked out Jean Claude Van Damme’s relatively lengthy Wikipedia entry, then, a few months later, wrote a play based only on what he could remember, without doing any further reading or fact checking. “Absolutely no research was put into learning anything about the subject at hand,” we are told early on. “It was all gleaned from one cursory glance at his Wikipedia page, and just general knowledge of the man based on tabloid headlines.”

The result is a breezy, extremely funny look at fame, ambition, gossip, and celebrity, gleefully codirected by Haskell, set designer Paul Smithyman, and puppet master Aaron Haskell (Timothy’s brother). For about an hour, John Harlacher and Joe Cordaro, standing behind makeshift podiums, share the not-necessarily-true story of the Muscles from Brussels. Between them is an angled table with slots where they place cardboard cutouts on Popsicle sticks of Van Damme and people who have been part of his personal life and professional career — or have nothing to do with him. Behind them is a small “screen” on which they project photos and a few choice film clips, including a fantastic moment from 1984’s Breakin’ with Van Damme as an uncredited background extra.

Both actors play multiple roles, but the hirsute Harlacher (Bum Phillips, Dog Day Afternoon) is mainly the narrator, meandering through his overstuffed, disorganized notebook, while Cordaro (The Foreigner, The Tiny Mustache) is mostly the former Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, reacting to what the narrator says and occasionally taking center stage to act out various scenes, including JCVD’s infamous barfight with Chuck Zito.

Timothy Haskell and the narrator make no bones about what went into the scattershot though chronological show, which has a proudly middle school DIY aesthetic. Introducing the Breakin’ clip, the narrator explains, “There’s a pretty fun YouTube remix our author was lucky enough to stumble upon while limply researching another play about the movie Breakin’ that some guy did that looks like this.” The two actors dance along with JCVD, after which the narrator rhetorically asks, “Isn’t that fun?” Yes it is!

Repurposed action figures play a pivotal role in JCVD show at Brooklyn Art Haus (photo courtesy Aaron Haskell)

Commenting on JCVD’s battle with drugs, the narrator admits, “As for Jean Claude, he did that stupid thing in Breakin’ and then toiled away some more and did a ton of bullshit and got all kinds of high. Not on life either, brother. The man was a straight up smack head if smack head means you did lots of cocaine which the author is now not sure it does. Fed up and high as a Romanian glue-huffer he decided to make some bold moves. He decided to case Joel Silver’s office. Joel Silver was the producer of Road House starring Patrick Swayze that was later turned into a hit play by Timothy Haskell who thought after that he could do serious work but was wrong.”

As JCVD’s career rises and falls and rises and falls and so on, we (sort of) learn about his siblings, his wives, his martial arts mentors and heroes, his perhaps partially fabricated tournament record, and his hotly anticipated confrontation with Steven Seagal. We go behind the scenes of such films as Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Universal Soldier, and Timecop. Oh, and there is plenty of fighting, carried out by Cordaro and Harlacher with repurposed action figures, designed by Aaron Haskell, battling it out on a long, narrow fencing piste at the front of the stage. It’s like watching two young friends playing in the basement with their GI Joe dolls — the ones with kung fu grip, of course.

As a founding member of Psycho Clan, Haskell has presented such immersive horror experiences as This Is Real, Santastical, and I Can’t See. He has also directed James and the Giant Peach, Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy, Road House: The Stage Play, and the upcoming graffiti drama Hit the Wall.

In an April 2014 twi-ny talk about his interactive Easter-themed eggstravaganza, Full Bunny Contact, I asked him, “What happened to you as a child? Based on the kinds of shows and events you write, produce, direct, and create, there had to be some kind of major trauma involved.” He replied, “Nothing unusual. My mother says she dropped a toy Ferris wheel on my head, and anytime I do something unusual she blames herself for dropping a heavy toy on my noggin.” That could explain this new work as well.

The show concludes with an extended monologue by JCVD, who begins by warning, “I know what happened. I am me. I don’t need to read a Wikipedia page to know who I am. I did, however. Thoroughly. Ya know, for safety.”

There’s nothing safe about The Rise and Fall, Then Brief and Modest Rise Followed by a Relative Fall of . . . Jean Claude Van Damme as Gleaned by a Single Reading of His Wikipedia Page Months Earlier. But there is a whole lot that is hilariously entertaining. And that person sitting behind you, laughing even harder than you, just might be Timothy Haskell himself.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

Kirsten (Kelli O’Hara) and Joe (Brian d’Arcy James) hold on for dear life in Days of Wine and Roses (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 16, $112-$252
atlantictheater.org

There’s no sign of Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini’s lush, overdramatic Oscar- and Grammy-winning title song from Blake Edwards’s 1962 film, Days of Wine and Roses, in the world premiere musical adaptation that opened tonight at the Atlantic. While its inclusion might not have helped, it certainly couldn’t have hurt.

Written by JP Miller, Days of Wine and Roses was initially performed live on Playhouse 90 in 1958, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Cliff Robertson as Joe Clay and Piper Laurie as Kirsten Arnesen, eager young corporate colleagues whose burgeoning love is fueled by the bottle. Miller adapted the play for the screen, with Jack Lemmon as Joe and Lee Remick as Kirsten.

Composer and lyricist Adam Guettel and book writer Craig Lucas, who previously collaborated on the smash hit The Light in the Piazza, which won six Tonys, have now turned Days of Wine and Roses into an all-wet, thorny musical, supremely disappointing especially given its star power, with Brian d’Arcy James as Joe and Kelli O’Hara as Kirsten. It starts off promising, on board a yacht where Joe, a fast-talking New York City PR man, is entertaining male clients by hustling them into a back room and plying them with booze and babes. He assumes that Kirsten is one of his procured good-time girls, but she’s actually the secretary to his boss. A narrow pool of water at the front of the stage casts shimmering reflections across the characters, and a series of movable doors change colors like a mood ring (the set is by Lizzie Clachan, with lighting by Ben Stanton), but a life preserver ring in the corner is a harbinger of their fate.

Despite recognizing him as a player, Kristen agrees to have dinner with him, where he talks her into having her first alcoholic drink ever, a Brandy Alexander. That single indulgence leads them down a dark path of lies and deception as they get married, have a daughter, Lila (Ella Dane Morgan), and struggle personally and professionally because of their alcoholism. While Joe attempts sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous with his sponsor, Jim Hungerford (David Jennings), Kirsten seeks refuge with her strict Norwegian father (Byron Jennings), who never liked Joe. The set opens up to reveal a seemingly impossible greenhouse, where Mr. Arnesen grows plants for sale, but it only spells more trouble for Joe and Kirsten, whose own growth is stunted by the bottle.

Days of Wine and Roses explores love and alcoholism at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

In the show’s first song, “Magic Time,” Joe charmingly sings his dialogue to various people on the boat, including his assistant, Rad (Ted Koch), a client, Delaney (Byron Jennings), and Kirsten. “I’m not here for the fun,” she tells Joe, who replies in song, “Might be why you aren’t having any.” She answers, “Or . . . it might be you.” Their repartee is fast and witty, with sweet music by Guettel, but it quickly devolves after that as the score becomes laborious and the lyrics mundane. “Now I have / all I need / now that I’m your mama,” Kirsten sings to Lila. “There is a man who loves you / as the water loves the stone / and the stone adores the hillside / where the wind has always blown,” Joe sings to Kirsten. “Look, Daddy / Do you see the sun / the circle getting smaller / going to bed now / tucked in safe for the night,” Lila sings to Joe.

Tony nominee d’Arcy James (Into the Woods, Something Rotten!) is excellent channeling Lemmon as the outgoing Joe, but the small theater can’t contain O’Hara’s powerful, operatic voice. Tony nominee Lucas (Amélie, An American in Paris) stuffs too much plot into ninety minutes; the story jumps around, not allowing relationships to be properly nurtured. Tony-nominated director Michael Greif (The Low Road, Dear Evan Hansen) is unable to find enough balance in the characters or the bumpy narrative, which feels like a series of barely related vignettes and repetitive scenes. In addition, the only ones who sing are Joe, Kirsten, and Lila, adding to the arbitrariness.

Miller named the play after a line in the 1896 poem “Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam,“ in which Ernest Dowson writes, “They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, / Love and desire and hate; / I think they have no portion in us after / We pass the gate. / They are not long, the days of wine and roses: / Out of a misty dream / Our path emerges for a while, then closes / Within a dream.” The title of the poem comes from an ode by Horace: “The brief sum of life denies us the hope of enduring long.” Guettel and Lucas’s adaptation lacks the poetry of its inspirations. In order for the story to work, you have to believe in the love between Joe and Kirsten, beyond their dependence on drink, but in this case it’s hard to make that connection.

Kirsten (Kelli O’Hara) and Joe (Brian d’Arcy James) get lost in the darkness of alcoholism in Days of Wine and Roses (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

In the show, Kirsten is reading Draper’s Self Culture, a 1907 educational series that her father started her off on when she was a child. She’s up to the fourth volume, Exploration, Travel, and Invention; in the introduction, Tufts president Frederick William Hamilton writes, “Exploration, Travel, and Invention are three phases of man’s unceasing search for the unknown. One of the most remarkable of human instincts, one of those also which most sharply differentiate man from other animals, is this constant desire to penetrate the unknown, to solve the mysteries which lie all about us. Humanity has never learned to be quiescent in the face of mystery.”

Theater is all about exploration, travel, and invention, taking audiences on journeys of the heart, mind, body, and soul, penetrating the unknown and confronting life’s endless mysteries. Unfortunately, Days of Wine and Roses turns out to be a haphazard trip, with the main mystery being why it needs to be a musical at all.

THE COMEUPPANCE

Old friends gather for a pre-reunion reunion in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s The Comeuppance (photo by Monique Carboni)

THE COMEUPPANCE
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West Forty-Second St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 9, $49-$159
thecomeuppance.net/info

At the end of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s The Comeuppance, making its world premiere at the Signature, there were tears in my eyes. I wasn’t sobbing because of something that had happened in the plot or to any specific character but because of how brilliant the play is; its sheer beauty, from the writing and staging to the acting and directing, simply overwhelmed me, and I needed time to gather myself before heading home.

The Comeuppance is a fiercely intelligent, diverse revision of the Breakfast Club for the twenty-first century, an alternate version of the Athlete, the Brain, the Criminal, the Princess, and the Basket Case looking back at their lives two decades later and not necessarily liking what they see. A small band of high school friends have gathered for a pre-reunion twentieth reunion — Emilio (Caleb Eberhardt), an ex-pat artist living in Berlin returning to the US with a piece in the Whitney Biennial; Caitlin (Susannah Flood), the smartest student in school, who married an older man with two kids; Kristina (Shannon Tyo), a military doctor with five children; and Ursula (Brittany Bradford), the host of the party who spent years taking care of her elderly grandmother and now lives alone in her grandmother’s house. As the characters slowly congregate on Ursula’s porch, they reveal hints about their past and foreshadowings of the future. The simmering conflicts are ignited when Kristina surprises everyone by bringing along Paco (Bobby Moreno), whose traumatic five tours of duty in the Marines have left him heavily medicated, which does not stop his boisterousness.

The acerbic and direct Emilio makes his displeasure known, arguing that Paco was not in the same class with them and was not a member of their outsider “gang,” M.E.R.G.E., which stands for Multi-Ethnic Reject Group. “Does that spell ‘Merge’ or ‘Merg?’” Paco asks. “It’s a soft G,” Emilio, Ursula, and Kristina quickly bark out in unison. Kristina claims that Paco was an associate member because he was dating Caitlin, but that explanation doesn’t satisfy Emilio, who starts alluding to an incident that occurred between the couple. Meanwhile, Ursula, who has recently lost an eye so has difficulty with depth perception, is adamant that she will not be going to the reunion, and they are all upset that Simon has just canceled via text message. They also debate whether it is a good idea to arrive in a limo, which Kristina ordered, further establishing that the reunion has a different meaning for each of them.

“In high school, every stupid prom, every homecoming, we were always randomly showing up in a limo like somehow it was a thing that people did in real life,” Emilio says. “But we’re not teenagers anymore. Now we’re just adults showing up in a limo,” Caitlin contends. “But isn’t the point of this dumb event reliving high school for the night? I think people will think it’s funny. Maybe it is a little conceptual,” Emilio replies. Caitlin: “‘Conceptual?’ What does that mean?” Emilio: “Don’t worry about it. Listen: It’s just a little nostalgia.” Caitlin: “Well, you don’t still live around these people. I do.” Emilio: “So?” Caitlin: “So, for some of us, it may not be in our best interest to show up looking like shitheads.”

An ensemble cast excels in gorgeous world premiere at the Signature (photo by Monique Carboni)

They gossip about other students, talk about Zoom happy hours, defend the life choices they’ve made, and down glass after glass of spiked jungle juice as the late limo gives them time to explore who they were and who they are, while Emilio stirs the pot with his willingness to brutally criticize the others, loudly pointing out what he believes to be their flaws and their bad decisions. Early on, he shares three German words with Ursula: schadenfreude, torschlusspanik, and kuddelmuddel, which all come home to roost.

They also bring back an old method they used to cut off someone when they were rambling: pretend to snap their neck with a “KRK.” Little do they know how relevant that is, as throughout the 130-minute intermissionless play, every character delivers a monologue from Death, who lurks inside each of them. Their regular voices are joined by an otherworldly echo as Death, lit as if it is glowing from inside the body, directly addresses the audience, offering tidbits about its responsibilities and personal preferences.

The show begins with Death announcing from inside Emilio, “Hello there. You and I, we have met before, though you may not recognize me. People have a tendency to see me once and try hard to forget it ever happened — though that never works — not for very long.”

Later, inside Ursula, Death admits, “You’ll have to pardon me. I come and go. I get shy. Historically, I’ve been rarely met with anything other than fear or anger or regret and, as I’m sure you can imagine, that sort of energy gets . . . taxing. So I chose long ago to abandon any material form of my own and err on the side of the covert. I prefer now to move in and out of whatever vessel inspires me because, when I’m not working, I, like you, am a watcher. I like to watch. . . . I inhabit a body like this if my desire is to speak and, if I have one weakness, it’s for gossip. I suspect you share it. I don’t know what it is, but I find all creatures so interesting, their idiosyncrasies, their interiorities, their secrets. Their stories. These machines of will. And, like any good gossip, I’m always wanting to talk but, you know, finding the right listeners can be a challenge. So you should know you are very special.”

Death serves not only as a character in the play but as a vessel for Jacobs-Jenkins to espouse on the art of theater itself, the playwright as psychopomp. Jacobs-Jenkins, a two-time Pulitzer finalist and Obie winner whose previous works include Girls, Everybody, War, Gloria, Appropriate, Neighbors, and An Octoroon, tells stories that examine humanity’s idiosyncrasies, interiorities, and secrets, in search of an audience of watchers and listeners who are critical to the success of his craft. When Death says, “You should know you are very special,” it is Jacobs-Jenkins telling that to us.

In fact, the playwright continued to make changes throughout the rehearsal and preview process based on audience response; while that is not unusual, it was extensive in this case, and it shows. It’s a masterful production, radiantly directed by Obie winner Eric Ting (The Far Country, Six Apples), who maintains a steady, absorbing pace; you won’t even remember that there’s no intermission, not wanting to leave these characters even for a minute.

Ursula (Brittany Bradford) and Emilio (Caleb Eberhardt) wonder what could have been in The Comeuppance (photo by Monique Carboni)

Arnulfo Maldonado’s intimate set is practically in your lap, a cozy front porch with a few steps, a swing, a big chair, and wooden railings; a screen door leads into the house. Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting and Palmer Hefferan’s sound keep it all real, as do Jennifer Moeller and Miriam Kelleher’s naturalistic costumes.

Bradford (Fefu and Her Friends, Wedding Band) has a subtle power as Ursula, Flood (Make Believe, Plano) has a sensitive edge as Caitlin, Moreno (72 Miles to Go . . . , Lazarus) carries an impending sense of doom as Paco, Tyo (Regretfully, So the Birds Are, The Far Country) has a firm determination as Kristina, and Eberhardt (Choir Boy, On Sugarland) is a force as the sardonic, insensitive Emilio, who doesn’t know when enough is enough, especially when he’s right. Ursula might have studied mixology, but this group is like a toxic cocktail.

The Brooklyn-based Jacobs-Jenkins was born in DC in 1984, the year before John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club came out. He is the same age as the characters in The Comeuppance, who were rocked by Columbine and whose adulthood essentially began with 9/11, continued with the Iraq and Afghan wars, and then hit a peak with the Covid pandemic, death surrounding them every step of the way. Their youthful innocence is gone, even though a few of them are still trying to hold on to it.

But going back is not the answer, no matter how tenuous the immediate future might be, and just because you were friends in high school doesn’t mean you have to be friends now, in real life or on social media. The twenty years that have passed since prom were good to some and not so good to others, but all five M.E.R.G.E.rs have soul searching to do in order to face the personal demons buried deep within them.

The show is also likely to make you do some soul searching as well. All I know is that, while I wipe away these tears, I’m rethinking going to my next high school reunion.

BEES & HONEY

Maribel Martinez and Xavier Pacheco star in world premiere of Guadalís Del Carmen’s Bees & Honey (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

BEES & HONEY
MCC Theater
Susan & Ronald Frankel Theater
511 West Fifty-Second St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through June 11, $54-$74
mcctheater.org

“Love me as I love you, good mommy / Give me your love without measure / Look for me like a bee to the honeycomb / Remove the sorrow / Drink the honey of my life,” Dominican musician and multiple Grammy winner Juan Luis Guerra sings in Spanish with his group 4.40 on his 1990 song “Como Abeja al Panal” (“Like a Bee to Its Honeycomb”).

The bachata hit serves as the inspiration for Guadalís Del Carmen’s bittersweet Bees & Honey, a coproduction of MCC and the Sol Project running through June 11. The 130-minute play (with intermission) is like a Latiné telenovela directed by Douglas Sirk, infused with the rhythms of the Dominican music genre known as bachata, exemplified by Guerra’s “Bachata Rosa,” which is playing when the show begins.

“Oh my god, I love this song. So romantic. I know, right?” Johaira (Maribel Martinez) tells the audience. Manuel (Xavier Pacheco) says, “Damn. This song takes me back. Man, I love me a good bachata. Bailao ahí, bien pegaíto like glue. Ain’t nothing like it.” A moment later, Johaira explains, “Bachata brought me and Manuel together almost eight years ago.” The opening is a prelude to what is to come: a flashback of those eight years.

Johaira is in a white bathrobe, sitting on a couch with her feet up. Manuel is in a chair off to her left. They talk to the audience individually, as if they are unaware the other is there as they share their origin story. Reza Behjat’s lighting switches spots on one and then the other. They interact directly with the audience; when Manuel sticks out his fist to bump with a gentleman in the first row, he waits for the man to reciprocate before continuing.

Johaira (Maribel Martinez) and Manuel (Xavier Pacheco) face tough times in Bees & Honey (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Alternating between Spanish and English, Johaira and Manuel talk about what was going through their minds the night they met at a club near Dyckman St. in Washington Heights; the action then cuts to that encounter and follows the rest of their relationship chronologically. While the actors no longer address the audience directly, the connection has already been made.

Manuel, who has long, tight dreads and sometimes wears a doo rag, is a former drug dealer who is now a mechanic with plans to open his own shops in all five boroughs (“maybe a location in Staten Island,” he says tentatively). Johaira is a prosecutor working a high-profile case that she hopes will lead her to become chief deputy in a new sexual-assault division. Manuel likes playing online video games with his friends while Johaira tries to get him more interested in the rest of the world, beginning with having him read bell hooks’s The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love and teaching him about power structures.

As Johaira’s case approaches its conclusion, Manuel seeks loans for his business, and they plan to start a family, they encounter more and more roadblocks, some societal, some self-imposed.

Martinez (Black Joy Project, Will You Come with Me?) and Pacheco (The Tempest, Richard III) are terrific as the seemingly mismatched lovers; you can’t help but root for them even as Del Carmen (Not for Sale) heaps on the melodrama, throwing tragedy after tragedy at them that can’t be eliminated with a video game controller or a legal objection.

Shoko Kambara’s comfortable set is a kitchen and living room with a bookshelf, tchotchkes, window air conditioner, working sink, and silver fridge; part of the floor and two doors in the back are painted by Washington Heights artist and muralist Danny Peguero in bright colors, featuring graffiti-like characters and architecture, adding to the Dominican feel. (More of Peguero’s art is on view in the lobby.)

Director Melissa Crespo (Espejos: Clean, Native Gardens) uses the set to its fullest, although there is a lot of entering and exiting that grows tedious. Germán Martínez’s sound design warmly incorporates Dilson’s original score with the dialogue to maintain a compelling atmosphere.

Devario D. Simmons’s costumes help define the characters, from Manuel’s work shirt with his name on it to Johaira’s wardrobe — which shifts from all white to all black to a colorful island dress — while celebrating their bodies; a significant part of the show is dedicated to the couple’s appreciation of their physical beings. “Love watching you squeeze that ghetto booty into them fancy power suits,” Manuel tells Johaira. When Manuel explains that he will not wear skinny jeans, Johaira says, “Yeah, ya butt and thighs are too juicy for ’em.”

The soap-opera elements threaten to overwhelm the play, but Bees & Honey is a tasty confection filled with plenty of sting.