this week in theater

CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY

Sisters Ermina (Malika Samuel) and Ernestine (Shanel Bailey) face an uncertain future following the death of their mother in Crumbs from the Table of Joy (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY
Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 1, $60-$85
www.keencompany.org

After watching Keen Company’s absolutely lovely revival of Lynn Nottage’s first play, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, which has not been seen in New York City since its 1995 world premiere at Second Stage, you’re likely to wonder, “What took so long?” Running at Theatre Row through April 1, it’s an intimate, relatable tale that smartly deals with loss, faith, and hope with a sweet-natured sense of humor.

No mere artifact from a playwright who has gone on to win two Pulitzer Prizes, Crumbs, despite its messy title, beautifully tells the story of the African American Crumb family, who have moved from Florida to Brooklyn following the death of Sandra, wife of thirty-five-year-old Godfrey Crumb (Jason Bowen) and mother to seventeen-year-old Ernestine (Shanel Bailey) and fifteen-year-old Ermina (Malika Samuel). Godfrey, who has a steady job in a bakery, has fallen under the spell of Father Divine, the real-life religious and civil rights leader who founded the International Peace Mission Movement and preached that he was God incarnate. His followers abstained from sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, and foul language; in the Crumb apartment, there’s a small photo of Sandra on top of the radio console but a much larger picture of Father Divine hanging above that on the wall.

Godfrey moved the family to Brooklyn to be closer to Father Divine; as Ernestine, who serves as the narrator, often speaking directly to the audience, explains, “Daddy thought Divine’s Peace Mission was in Brooklyn ’cause of a return address on a miracle elixir boasting to induce ‘peace of mind.’ Divine was not in Brooklyn or New York City. But that didn’t diminish Daddy’s love. No, he let Divine strip away his desire and demand of him a monk’s devotion. This a man who never went to church and never tipped his hat to a woman, until we got to . . . Brooklyn.”

Father Divine hovers over the Crumb family in Keen revival of Lynn Nottage’s first play (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Ernestine is a good student who is making her own white dress for her upcoming high school graduation; Ermina is more of a party girl, with a growing fondness for boys. Neither sibling is very happy with Godfrey’s devotion to Father Divine’s commands, which include new names for them all and “Virginity” symbols on their clothes. (The sharp costumes are by Johanna Pan, with lighting by Anshuman Bhatia and sound by Broken Chord.)

The unexpected arrival of Sandra’s sister, Lily Ann Green (Sharina Martin), shakes things up; Aunt Lily, who they haven’t seen in years, is a fun-loving Communist who wears flashy, sexy outfits and enjoy drinking, dancing, and staying out late with men. “Ya like my suit?” she asks Ernestine. “I bought it on Fifth Avenue, sure did, to spite those white gals. You know how they hate to see a Negro woman look better than they do. It’s my own little subversive mission to outdress them whenever possible. Envy is my secret weapon, babies. If ya learn anything from your Auntie let it be that.”

Godfrey is especially appalled that Lily has shown up with suitcases, ready to move in to fulfill a promise she had made to look after the girls. Lily stands for everything Godfrey is now against — although she is quick to remind him that that was not always the case. After a personal crisis, Godfrey heads out in search of Father Divine, but he creates chaos when he comes back home with Gerte Schulte (Natalia Payne), a white German woman.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy is exquisitely rendered from top to bottom. Brendan Gonzales Boston’s living room set features Godfrey’s chair at the right, where he fastidiously writes down questions to send to Father Divine, the kitchen table at the left, and, against the back wall, the radio, which Godfrey believes is a container of sin except when he listens to Father Divine on Sundays. “Ain’t no use in having a radio,” Ermina says. “Might as well be a log, ’least we could burn it to keep warm.” The dressmaker’s dummy on which Ernestine sews her graduation gown serves as a stand-in for the late Sandra, a constant reminder of her loss.

Lily (Sharina Martin) seeks to fulfill a promise in Crumbs from the Table of Joy at Theatre Row (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Directed by Colette Robert (Weathering, Egress), the two-hour play (with intermission) proceeds at a graceful, relaxed pace, with plenty of room for the characters to develop and the narrative to evolve. Bowen (Long Day’s Journey into Night, If Pretty Hurts . . .) gives Godfrey a subtle vulnerability as the conflicted widower trying to find his path in life, while Martin (Round Table, The Extinctionist) injects energy and excitement whenever she’s onstage. Payne (Fairview, Aliens with Extraordinary Skills) is splendid as the persnickety interloper. Samuel (Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, Bernarda’s Daughters) is charming as Ermina, a teenager ready to burst out from her confining existence.

The centerpiece of the show is Ernestine, who is gorgeously portrayed by Bailey (The Book of Mormon, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies), a 2019 Syracuse graduate making her off-Broadway starring debut. Bailey instills the older sibling, who dreams about raising her station, with a soft, engaging tenderness. Several times she switches from her character in the play to her narrator/future self, explaining after a scene that it actually hadn’t happened that way: “At least I wish he had said that” or “Well, at least I wish she had,” she corrects, but she refuses to be held back by what might have been.

In this coming-of-age memory play, Nottage (Sweat, Mlima’s Tale, Intimate Apparel) touches on themes that will show up in her later works, from institutional racism, workplace inequality, and sociocultural change to the act of sewing itself; her great-grandmother was a seamstress in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. Ernestine’s almost desperate desire to finish her graduation dress is not only a metaphor for the challenges her family faces but for the glorious career Nottage began stitching together with Crumbs.

THE GOOD JOHN PROCTOR

Betty Parris (Sharlene Cruz), Abigail Williams (Susannah Perkins), and Mercy Lewis (Tavi Gevinson) get ready for another day of drudgery in The Good John Proctor (photo by Ashley Garrett)

THE GOOD JOHN PROCTOR
Connelly Theater
220 East Fourth St. between Aves. A & B
Tuesday – Saturday through April 1, $55-$85
bedlam.org

Arthur Miller’s 1953 The Crucible, the semifictionalized story of the 1692–93 Salem witch trials that was also an allegory about the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and the McCarthyism of the late 1940s and early 1950s, centers around what happened after a group of young girls are spied dancing naked in the woods of a Puritan town. Among those involved were John Proctor, a prominent landowner who was ultimately accused of witchcraft, along with his third wife. Court records referred to him as “Goodman Proctor,” while a local petition testified that “they lived [a] Christian life in their family and were ever ready to help such as stood in need of their help.”

Talene Monahon’s The Good John Proctor, which opened this afternoon at the Connelly Theater on the Lower East Side from the city-based Bedlam company, is a decidedly feminist exploration of what might have occurred leading up to that evening in the woods, ultimately resulting in the witch trials and the death of twenty-five people. It’s telling that despite the title, John Proctor never appears in the play, and that irony grows when it is revealed just what Proctor did.

The Good John Proctor begins with nine-year old Betty Parris (Sharlene Cruz) and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams (Susannah Perkins) in their shared makeshift wooden bed. Betty, whose father is a minister, tells her best friend and cousin about a dream she had in which she flew over the forbidden woods. Abby advises that she should keep that dream a secret for fear of what others might think. “I wasn’t on a pole or a stick or anything or a broom!” Betty argues. “Did you feel wicked?” Abby asks. “I felt amazing,” Betty responds.

The world of the play is exclusively the world of the girls, described in their language (complete with some purposeful anachronisms). Neither adults nor men appear, yet the narrative is utterly convincing. References to both class and gender are subtle, clear, or sly, never heavy-handed. The cousins like to play-act as king and peasant, emphasizing the hierarchical division in the town. Foul-mouthed fourteen-year-old Mercy Lewis (Tavi Gevinson) stops by to gossip, drink cider, and rail against sin and Satan; her words are the window into the social and religious constructs of Salem. “There is wickedness everywhere,” Mercy, who is a servant for George Borroughs, another minister, proclaims. “I actually can’t believe how wicked this town has become.”

Betty Parris (Sharlene Cruz) is frightened by Mary Warren (Brittany K. Allen) in Bedlam production at the Connelly (photo by Ashley Garrett)

Soon Abby is at work serving John Proctor, while Betty plays with her rag doll, an alter ego that she has named Bangwell Put. Betty is surprised when a stranger, eighteen-year-old Mary Warren (Brittany K. Allen), shows up, listening to the birds sing, talking about looking for “something beautiful,” and wanting to fly through the woods.

The girls seem almost feral; mothers are dead or too depressed to care. Shortly after menstruating for the first time — she has no idea why she has bled, having never been taught about what a period is — Abby gets promoted, spending more time with John Proctor, much to the dismay of his jealous wife, Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Mercy continues to spread rumors and Mary gets closer to Betty as the girls consider taking their chances and heading into the woods.

Miller wrote in his notebook, “It has got to be basically Proctor’s story.” While Monahon (Jane Anger, or . . . , How to Load a Musket) fills the play with references to such other historically documented figures as the Putnams, Giles Corey, and the Goodwin sisters, we only meet the four “afflicted” girls. But The Good John Proctor is not just about this quartet; while Miller’s play was a parable about McCarthy’s obsession with the Red Scare, Monahon’s is about the plight of women from biblical times to the present day.

Betty, Abby, Mercy, and Mary are uneducated children whose feminine desires are considered sinful and blasphemous. Blood flows throughout the play, almost exclusively related to childbirth, from Betty’s horrific memories of her mother’s miscarriage (she has no idea what it actually was) to Abby’s menstruation, from Mary miming cutting the umbilical cord when they pretend Betty has given birth to Bangwell Put to Betty getting whipped for saying a bad word. “You might wake up one day and everything is red,” Mercy tells Abby, which recalls the game Abby played with Betty when Abby showed off her nonexistent royal robe. “It’s so big and red!” Betty shouted with glee. “Yes, yes it is red. The reddest robe in all the land,” Abby proudly declared.

The name Bangwell Put itself is a reference to a real rag doll a relative made for five-year-old blind girl Clarissa Field in 1770 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Clarissa kept the doll until her death in her eighties; it is believed to be the oldest extant rag doll in America, so it represents the struggle and survival of women over the centuries.

Betty (Sharlene Cruz) holds Bangwell Put aloft in The Good John Proctor (photo by Ashley Garrett)

In a sly comment on the dominance of men in the Bible, the name of Betty’s goat is Abraham, the father of Judaism; Betty wants to use the goat as a donkey she rides into town on, evoking how Jesus entered Jerusalem.

The cast is exceptional, with Perkins (The Low Road, The Wolves) portraying Abby with a delightful sense of wonder; Cruz (Sanctuary City, Mac Beth) appealing as the serious Betty; Gevinson (This Is Our Youth, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow), who played Mary in Ivo van Hove’s 2016 Broadway adaptation of The Crucible, appropriately dour as the ever-suspicious Mercy, and Allen (Human Resources, Redwood) infusing Mary with a captivating mystery. As a unit, they conjure various stages of a young girl on her way through adolescence to womanhood.

Directed by Caitlin Sullivan (Ohio, Panopticon) with a sure hand, the play does get a bit repetitive, even at only ninety-five minutes, but the staging, with dark, atmospheric lighting by Isabella Byrd, eerie sound by Lee Kinney, and effective period costumes by Phuong Nguyen, puts you right in the middle of 1691 Salem, especially when the girls finally enter the woods. Bedlam has previously put its mark on plays based on Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility in addition to George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan and Pygmalion, Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and the Chekhov-Shakespeare mashup Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet; in 2019 the troupe presented its version of The Crucible. With The Good John Proctor, they have successfully silenced the men, taking back the story from Miller and McCarthy, letting us hear the female voices that have so long been muted, to better understand what witchery is really about.

ÁGUA

Performers enjoy a drink of water in Pina Bausch’s Água at BAM (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ÁGUA
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave. between St. Felix St. & Ashland Pl.
March 3-19
www.bam.org
www.pina-bausch.de/en

Dance-theater pioneer Pina Bausch would probably agree with Nobel Prize–winning Hungarian biochemist Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi, who said “Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

In such dazzling pieces as Vollmond (Full Moon), Nefés, and “…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…” (Like moss on a stone), Bausch repeatedly explored the role of this element, the elixir of life.

Water again takes center stage in the US premiere of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch’s Brazil-inspired Água, which debuted in 2001 in Rio de Janeiro and has at last come to BAM, the company’s exclusive New York home since 1984. Água, which means “water,” is a nearly three-hour masterpiece (with a far too long intermission), combining music, comedy, storytelling, video, props, and, of course, sensational dance. Peter Pabst’s stark white stage features three large curved screens on which he projects footage of palm trees blowing in the wind, a team of drummers playing in the street, and adventures through the rainforest.

Men in everyday clothing and suits and women in gorgeous, colorful gowns — Marion Cito’s costumes are stunning — perform a series of vignettes to songs by a wide range of artists, including Mickey Hart, Tom Waits, the Tiger Lillies, PJ Harvey, Amon Tobin, Susana Baca, Caetano Veloso, David Byrne, Gilberto Gil, Bebel Gilberto, Nana Vasconcelos, and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Tsai-Wei Tien is lifted off the ground and passed hand to hand by Dean Biosca, Oleg Stepanov, and Denis Klimuk, clad only in bathing suits and platform shoes, Christopher Tandy rows across the stage in a palm leaf, Tsai-Chin Yu asks several people in the first row where they are from and then uses a boot to predict the weather there, and a dancer in a lush red dress falls to the ground and reveals her long legs as men pass by, ignoring her. Performers break out into sudden solos that meld with the projected images that envelop them. The screens rise to reveal a surprise behind them. The women all have long hair that they use inventively as an object of sex and power.

Fire plays a continuing function, as dancers light cigarettes and candles and original Água cast member Julie Shanahan tries to set the place ablaze, explaining, “I wanted to do something really beautiful for you, but I don’t know how. . . . I wanted to go crazy. But it’s not possible.” The cast, which also features Emma Barrowman, Naomi Brito, Maria Giovanna Delle Donne, Taylor Drury, Letizia Galloni, Nayoung Kim, Reginald Lefebvre, Alexander López Guerra, Nicholas Losada, Jan Möllmer, Milan Nowoitnick Kampfer, Franko Schmidt, Ekaterina Shushakova, Julian Stierle, and Sara Valenti, attends a cocktail party, pulls out white couches to take a break, and uses hilariously patterned towels at a beach resort. They bounce off walls. They spray water at each other. They use microphones as if they’re comedians.

A handful of scenes feel extraneous, and Bausch’s highly gendered choreography can be perceived as out of date in 2023, though the company has its first trans dancer (Brito). But Água is still hugely entertaining.

Bausch, who died in June 2009 at the age of sixty-eight, displayed a passion for life and all that it offers in her work, from light to dark, creating a mélange that ranged from Café Müller and The Rite of Spring to Kontakthof and Bamboo Blues. Artistic director Boris Charmatz continues her legacy with this international tour of Água, which is, contrary to what Shanahan said, “something really beautiful.”

THE JUNGLE

Salar (Ben Turner) makes his case to Sam (Jonathan Case) in The Jungle (photo by Teddy Wolff)

THE JUNGLE
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Through March 19, $39-$149
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org
www.goodchance.org.uk

Amid an ever-growing global immigration crisis, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s bold, breathtaking The Jungle makes a triumphant return to St. Ann’s Warehouse before heading to Washington, DC. It’s political theater of the highest order, avoiding preaching while immersing audiences in all-too-real and frightening situations.

In 2015, Murphy and Robertson visited the Calais Jungle, a makeshift refugee camp where thousands of men, women, and children temporarily lived, erected on a former landfill. Over their seven months at the site, they helped construct a geodesic dome where the people could gather as a community and present plays and poetry. The two writers document the story in The Jungle, which ran at St. Ann’s in 2018–19 but had to delay its encore engagement, scheduled for March 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s now back, and it’s as thrilling as it is heart-wrenching.

St. Ann’s has transformed itself into Zhangal, or the Jungle, with geographical markers, the Good Chance Dome (filled with photographs and artwork from camp residents), tents, graffiti, and a re-creation of Salar’s (Ben Turner) restaurant, which actually received a starred review from food critic AA Gill in the Sunday Times. The large central area features long communal tables and an interconnected series of raised platforms; the diverse cast of twenty-two (some of whom were migrants themselves) weave in and out of the audience, which is seated in sections designated by the countries the refugees escaped from. The framing premise is that we are all attending an emergency meeting “to talk about another proposed eviction of the Jungle.” The narrative then unfolds in flashback.

Beth (Liv Hill) and Safi (Ammar Haj Ahmad) try to help Okot (Rudolphe Mdlongwa) in immersive show at St. Ann’s (photo by Teddy Wolff)

“When does a place become a place?” asks the Aleppo-born Safi (Ammar Haj Ahmad), one of the leaders of the camp and the show’s narrator. “By November in the Jungle I could walk from Sudan through Palestine and Syria, pop into a Pakistani café on Oxford Street near Egypt, buy new shoes from the marketplace, Belgian cigarettes from an Iraqi cornershop, through Somalia, hot naan from the Kurdish baker, passing dentists, Eritrea, distribution points, Kuwait, hairdressers and legal centers, turn right onto François Hollande Street, turn left onto David Cameron’s Avenue, stop at the sauna, catch a play in the theater, service at the church, khutba in a mosque, before arriving at Salar’s restaurant in Afghanistan.” He then poignantly adds, “When does a place become home?”

The dome is named the Good Chance because the refugees believe they have a “good chance” of making it to the promised land, England, either via boat or truck, often arranged by Ali (Waleed Elgadi), a smuggler who charges exorbitant rates for his services. Several Caucasian British citizens work at the camp to help the migrants: Derek (Dominic Rowan), who almost always carries a clipboard with him, trying to organize things; Beth (Liv Hill), who pours her heart and soul into the camp; Paula (Julie Hesmondhalgh), who takes a more practical approach; and Sam (Jonathan Case), who is committed to build as many housing shelters as possible.

They treat the people of the Jungle with dignity, but there are limits to what they can accomplish. They also have the option at any time to go back to their homes, a choice not available to the migrants, who have left because of violence, extreme poverty, religious persecution, military juntas, and other reasons, seeking a better, safer life in the west.

Amal (Aisha Simone Baez) seeks a new life filled with hope and promise in The Jungle at St. Ann’s (photo by Teddy Wolff)

Among the key subplots are Okot’s (Rudolphe Mdlongwa) attempt to be smuggled into London; a deal between French journalist Henri (Max Geller) and Sam to exchange important information; the bitter Norullah’s (Twana Omer) racism; the plight of the adorable Amal (alternately Aisha Simone Baez or Annabelle Tural), a nine-year-old girl from Syria who has been separated from her family; and Salar’s refusal to let his restaurant be torn down when the French government announces that the southern half of the camp will be evicted. Boxer (Pearce Quigley) and Helene (Mylène Gomera) sing; Omar (Mohamed Sarrar) plays the drums; Amin (Habib Djemil) performs daring gymnastics; Maz (Fedrat Sadat) is desperate to get out. Amid all the horror and pain, the ragtag community still finds ways to celebrate life and their unique heritages through music, dance, food, and clothing.

“Great is the hope that makes man cross borders. Greater is the hope that keeps us alive,” Safi says.

Miriam Buether’s set, which extends into the garden outside St. Ann’s, also includes flags, a working kitchen, wall hangings, and other deft touches; there’s a ketchup bottle on every table, but don’t expect to get anything to eat. Catherine Kodicek’s costumes alternate between functional and traditional, highlighting the similarities and differences among the nations. The lighting by Jon Clark and sound by Paul Arditti further immerse the audience into the Jungle, especially at night when the characters use flashlights and whisper in the darkness. The music, ranging from celebratory to mysterious, is by John Pfumojena, with video by Tristan Shepherd and Duncan McLean of real-life news reports projected on several small monitors, instilling a chilling dose of reality.

The cast is extraordinary, embodying the fear that the refugees experience on a daily basis, never knowing what tomorrow might bring. Turner is bold and defiant as Salar, a man who has lost nearly everything but refuses to surrender his restaurant. Haj Ahmad is cool and calm as Safi, who is desperately trying to hold things together but knows it might be a lost cause. Hill excels as the emotionally involved Beth, who represents rescue workers who invest so much of themselves to save others. Omer is stalwart as Norullah, who is balancing that fine line between wanting to escape to England and doing the best one can in the meantime. And Baez is delightful as the little girl who can’t help but smile as chaos surrounds her.

Directors Stephen Daldry (Skylight, Billy Elliot) — who has won two Emmys, an Olivier, and three Tonys and has been nominated for three Oscars — and Justin Martin (Low Level Panic, Prima Facie), who previously collaborated on the 2021 pandemic film Together and are used to working with proscenium stages, do a marvelous job orchestrating the nonstop action, maintaining a furious pace as the injustice builds over nearly three hours (with one intermission). Murphy and Robertson’s dialogue is distinct and powerful, creating well-drawn characters who will touch your soul.

A program insert contains information about how to donate to Good Chance Theatre and the Brooklyn Community Foundation’s Immigrant Rights Fund as well as additional resources about immigration services. (The show is a coproduction of the National Theatre and the Young Vic with Good Chance.)

The artistic directors of Good Chance, Murphy and Robertson also turned the young girl in The Jungle into Little Amal, a twelve-foot-tall puppet that traveled around the world in The Walk, spreading her message about refugees: “Don’t forget about us.” It’s impossible to forget about Little Amal, just as it’s impossible to forget about The Jungle.

MISTY

Arinzé Kene’s Misty is making its North American premiere at the Shed (photo by Maria Baranova / courtesy the Shed)

MISTY
The Griffin Theater at the Shed
The Bloomberg Building at Hudson Yards
545 West 30th St. at Eleventh Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 2, $29-$88
646-455-3494
theshed.org

On opening night of Arinzé Kene’s thoroughly inventive and unpredictable Misty at the Shed, the fashionable crowd sipped wine and cocktails as photographers snapped pictures of attendees posing in front of large orange balloons and balls. The balloons and balls are key props in the show, which debuted at the Bush Theatre in London in March 2018 and moved to the prestigious West End that September. The play is a screed against gentrification, what Kene calls “virus invasion . . . modern day colonisation,” in addition to being a fascinating exploration of the creative process itself. Although it is set in London, its themes relate directly to New York City.

In the first scene, Arinzé, standing front and center at a mic, raps, “Here is the city that we live in, / Notice that the city that we live in is alive, / Analyse our city and you’ll find, that our city even has bodily features, / Our city’s organs function like any living creature, / Our city is a living creature, / A living breathing city creature broken into boroughs, / Mostly living creatures are broken into organs, / For the city creature each borough is an organ, / And if we’re saying that the boroughs be the organs now, / You might liken the borough that I live in to the bowel.” A few beats later he adds, “But all is well, / Cos blood cell to blood cell there’s nothing to fear.”

His character is a virus battling against the red and white blood cells, trying to survive in a city undergoing urban renewal, a Black artist getting lost in a world being reconstructed around privilege.

A fight on the night bus sends him on the run from the law, hiding and finding out who his friends are. The story is inspired by something that happened to his childhood friend Lucas; about halfway through the play, we hear a recording of Arinzé talking to Lucas, who promises to “keep honest.”

Balloons thwart Arinzé Kene throughout Misty (photo by Maria Baranova / courtesy the Shed)

Meanwhile, Arinzé is writing the play about the virus and blood cells, hitting various obstacles, including criticism from two of his closest friends, Raymond, a chef, and Donna, a schoolteacher, a married couple portrayed respectively by keyboardist Liam Godwin and drummer Nadine Lee, who perform on opposite ends of the stage, flanking Arinzé. Rajha Shakiry’s set features angled empty frames and cubes sinking underground and a long, rectangular translucent screen with silhouetted furniture behind it. Daniel Denton’s often psychedelic, abstract projections and shots of empty city streets appear on multiple surfaces.

Arinzé uses the structure of the play to comment on Black performance itself, and his narrator suffers a crisis of confidence when Donna and Raymond attack his work-in-progress, calling it a “ni–a play.” Donna thinks it is yet another show about a “generic angry young black man!” written for white people. “I looked around and most of the audience were . . . most of them don’t look like us,” Raymond points out. “They seemed to love it!” Donna adds. Raymond continues, “As soon we walked out Donna turned to me and said ‘Arinzé sold out and wrote a ni . . . an inner city play.’” Donna corrects him, “Nah that’s not what I said. I said ‘Arinzé sold out and wrote a ni–a play.’ You wrote a ni–a play so your work would get put on.” Raymond concludes with a sly note: “The two musicians were dope though.”

As the virus runs for his life and Arinzé gets feedback from his producers (existing audio clips from a pair of very famous speakers) and a little girl (either Ifeoluwa Adeniyi or Braxton Paul) — in addition to several hilarious appearances by the stage managers — Arinzé becomes swamped by orange balloons and rubber balls, surrounded and trapped by the blood cells attempting to destroy what they believe to be a dangerous contagion.

Imaginatively directed by Omar Elerian (Nassim, Islands) with artistic flair — there’s something new to see and hear in every scene, the names of which include “City Creature,” “Locked Out,” and “Jungle Shit” — Misty is a thrilling theatrical experience, loaded with surprises around every corner. Jackie Shemesh’s lighting is bold and provocative, while Elena Peña’s sound ranges from prerecorded messages to Arinzé, Shiloh Coke, and Adrian McLeod’s score, which jumps from subtle, soothing synths to propulsive thumping.

Drummer Nadine Lee also portrays Donna in Misty (photo by Maria Baranova / courtesy the Shed)

Kene (One Night in Miami, Get Up Stand Up!) is a sensational performer, whether rapping, delivering self-deprecating jokes, or fighting a giant orange ball. The play works best when he stays on his metaphorical journey and avoids delving into clichéd and overt sociopolitical rants, which pop up in the second act. (The play feels slightly too long and repetitive at two hours with intermission.)

He effectively argues, “When a virus shakes up a blood cell, the organ doesn’t cope well, the city creature goes pale, the body’s feveral, / Antivirals administered by hypodermic needle go on patrol, in search of us virus people, / As they police through the blood vessels, we scatter like roaches, we scuttle into the shadows like beetles, / They don’t want us roaming in the city creature, they don’t want us multiplying, they don’t want an upheaval.”

Kene is well aware of the jeopardy Black bodies face, and one of his final gestures onstage becomes a major statement, revealing the physical strength that is still not enough to protect him from constant threat that goes far beyond the night bus.

After the show, the crowd was treated to wine, popcorn, and crudités. I couldn’t help but think of the first monologue, when Arinzé declares, “The doors close, the night bus pulls away, so now there’s no getting off, / And if you’re wise enough! You’ll know not all of us! Aboard this bus! Are blood cells . . . / Nah, / One of us is virus. / Geh-geh.” And then, later, when one of the producers asks him, “Is it just me or does that feel a little excessive?”

ESTROGENIUS FESTIVAL: BAN(NED) TOGETHER

ESTROGENIUS FESTIVAL: BAN(NED) TOGETHER
The Kraine Theater, 85 East Fourth St.
UNDER St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Pl.
Arts on Site, 12 St. Marks Pl.
721 Decatur Street Community Garden, Bushwick
March 15 – April 2, sliding scale $20
www.estrogenius.nyc

Since 2000, the EstroGenius Festival has been celebrating “the artistry of femme, nonbinary, nonconforming, and trans womxn artists.” The 2023 edition, presented by FRIGID New York and Manhattan Theatre Source, launches March 15 with “Funny Women of a Certain Age,” an evening of comedy with Amanda Cohen, Jessie Baade, Laura Patton, and Carole Montgomery. The festival, curated by maura nguyễn donohue, Melissa Riker, and John C. Robinson, kicks into high gear March 18 through April 2 with nearly two dozen productions taking place at the Kraine Theater, UNDER St. Marks, Arts on Site, and the 721 Decatur Street Community Garden in Bushwick, from concerts and plays to discussions and burlesque.

On March 19 at 3:30, Joya Powell and Pele Bauch team up for the open dialogue “Who We Are | Ban(ned) Together,” getting to the heart of this year’s theme: “Ban(ned) Together,” a response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the violence being committed against trans and femme bodies.

Claire Ayoub heads down memory lane in her solo show The GynoKid. Marina Celander shares the family-friendly story The Tale of An-Noor, incorporating dance and puppets. In the duet Develop(ing) Together: BEAR, c/s movement projects investigates balance, exhaustion, and tolerance. Molly Kirschner’s BiPolar Brunch brings together four characters seeking connection. Alt-folkers Brokeneck Girls perform songs from The Murder Ballad Musical.

“An Evening with Peterson, Savarino & Wells” features Muriel “Murri-Lynette” Peterson’s Black Enough, Kim Savarino’s Blue Bardo, and Portia Wells’s Inside Flesh Mountain, Part II. Anabella Lenzu examines herself as a woman, a mother, and an immigrant in Solo Voce: The Night You Stopped Acting. Hip-hop takes center stage with Yvonne Chow’s #Unapologetically Asian and an excerpt from Janice Tomlinson’s PRN. There are also works by sj swilley, Emily Fury Daly, Vanessa Goodman, Donna Costello, Kayla Engeman, Leslie Goshko, Soul Dance Co., and Petra Zanki, among many others.

LOVE

Part of the audience sits onstage at Alexander Zeldin’s Love at Park Ave. Armory (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography/Park Avenue Armory)

LOVE
Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
Monday – Saturday through March 25, $54-$168
www.armoryonpark.org

Park Ave. Armory is home to dazzling theatrical productions and art installations that can happen nowhere else. It is also home to Lenox Hill Neighborhood House’s Women’s Mental Health Shelter. So there is extra relevance to its latest show, writer-director Alexander Zeldin’s staggering, simply titled Love.

Originally presented by the National Theatre in London in 2016, Love takes place in a temporary housing facility in England. Natasha Jenkins’s creaky set features a shared kitchen on one side, a single, filthy bathroom on the other, and a pair of horizontal tables in the middle, behind which are two small apartments. In one, the fiftysomething Colin (Nick Holder) cares for his elderly mother, Barbara (Amelda Brown), who uses a cane and moves excruciatingly slowly. In the other, apprentice electrician Dean (Alex Austin) and his pregnant wife, Emma (Janet Etuk), who is studying to become a massage and wellness therapist, are packed together with Dean’s two children from his previous marriage, eight-year-old Paige (Amelia Finnegan or Grace Willoughby) and fourteen-year-old Jason (Oliver Finnegan).

Also staying at the facility are two lonely, solitary figures, Sudanese refugee Tharwa (Hind Swareldahab), who has been separated from her family, and Adnan (Naby Dakhli), an injured Syrian refugee who has recently been granted asylum.

Approximately ninety audience members are seated on the stage, either in a few rising rows on either side of the set or, mostly, in scattered chairs as if they’re also in the facility. Lighting designer Marc Williams keeps the house lights on for much of the ninety-minute play, implicating everyone in the homeless crisis, with jarring, sudden jolts of instant darkness at the end of some scenes. Josh Anio Grigg’s naturalistic sound and Jenkins’s costumes further immerse the audience in the bleak narrative.

Paige (Amelia Finnegan) shakes hands with new neighbor Colin (Nick Holder) as her parents (Alex Austin and Janet Etuk) look on in Love (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography/Park Avenue Armory)

Dean, Emma, Jason, and Paige are there due to a recent eviction and its aftermath, which embroiled them in bureaucracy. They are further dismayed when they learn Colin and his mother have been in the shelter for twelve months even though the legal limit is six weeks.

“They just cheat you like we’re waiting, fuck, we need somewhere adapted you know our place is like posh flats now,” the ineloquent Colin tells Emma, who responds, “Yeh no obviously I don’t want — the baby — to be born here.” But as time passes and Dean gets buried in red tape, that becomes more and more of a harsh possibility.

On a daily basis, Dean struggles to put any kind of nutritious food on the table, the characters fight over the use of the disgusting toilet, and they each search for the least bit of dignity they can manage. As Christmas approaches, the ever-hopeful and positive Paige practices for her role in the school holiday show, but the bitter and disgusted Jason wants no part of it.

Barbara (Amelda Brown) reflects on her dire situation in Love at Park Ave. Armory (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography/Park Avenue Armory)

Zeldin, whose other works include Beyond Caring and Faith Hope and Charity, did extensive research in developing Love, inspired by John Steinbeck novels; James Agee and Walker Evans’s seminal Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the 1941 book documenting the lives of three tenant families in the Deep South in words and photos; and the 2014 report “Christmas Families in B&Bs” from the housing charity Shelter, which revealed that more than ninety thousand children would be homeless that holiday season, focusing on twenty families. Zeldin met with them and incorporated their real-life stories into the play through home visits, workshops, and rehearsals. Meanwhile, the latest Shelter report says that 120,000 children are now “waking up in damp storage containers and cramped B&Bs.”

But Love is no mere melodramatic documentary work; instead it is a powerful, harrowing tale of inequality, unfairness, and an incompetent and uncaring government that turns its back on British citizens and refugees despite the laws. The uniformly excellent cast brings to brutal life the demeaning indignity so many unhoused families and individuals suffer through just to have a roof over their head and food on the table. The characters in Love are not asking for handouts or happy to be on the dole; Zeldin presents their disturbing plights with a humane understanding that calls for sociopolitical change without sentimental moralizing.

However, the Christmas angle grows a bit too saccharine, especially when Paige sings “Away in a Manger,” a song about Jesus’ humble beginnings, born in a trough without crib or bed.

Love might be set in England, but it’s all too relevant to what is happening in the United States right now and especially here in New York City, from refugees being bused and flown in from Texas and Florida to gentrification forcing families to leave their longtime communities. Housing insecurity is increasing at alarming rates, and the government can’t agree on any kind of effective action to turn the tide.

Throughout the play, Colin wears an Ed Hardy shirt that proclaims, “Erase All Fears.” It’s going to require a lot more than commercial slogans to institute necessary change.