this week in theater

THE SUPPLIANTS PROJECT: UKRAINE

Who: Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe, David Strathairn, Kira Meshcherska, Dmytro Zaleskyi, Lyudmila Yankina, Olena Martynenko, Tatiana Tolpezhnikov, Roman Tolpezhnikov, Bryan Doerries, Oksana Yakushko
What: Live, dramatic reading followed by community discussion
Where: Theater of War Zoom
When: Saturday, July 16, free with RSVP, 1:00
Why: “Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands / Look down benign on us who crave / Thine aid — whom winds and waters drave / From where, through drifting shifting sands, / Pours Nilus to the wave. / From where the green land, god-possest, / Closes and fronts the Syrian waste, / We flee as exiles, yet unbanned / By murder’s sentence from our land; / But — since Aegyptus had decreed / His sons should wed his brother’s seed, — / Ourselves we tore from bonds abhorred, / From wedlock not of heart but hand, / Nor brooked to call a kinsman lord!” So the chorus chimes at the beginning of Aeschylus’s The Suppliants, the 460s BCE play involving immigration, the military, borders, and political activism.

Theater of War Productions, which performs Greek tragedies and contemporary texts with all-star casts, followed by community discussions on topics related to the works, including climate change, the pandemic, racialized police violence, caregiving, mental health, incarceration, substance abuse, and homelessness, now turns its attention to the emergency situation in Ukraine. On July 16 at 1:00, Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe, Kira Meshcherska, and David Strathairn will headline a staged reading on Zoom of The Suppliants, part of Aeschylus’s Danaid Tetralogy, after which Theater of War artistic director Bryan Doerries will facilitate an interactive discussion with Dr. Dmytro Zaleskyi of the Mobile Medical Center of Ukrainian Territorial Defense, Lyudmila Yankina of the ZMINA Human Rights Center in Ukraine, Kyiv-based communication manager Olena Martynenko, and Mariupol refugees Tatiana Tolpezhnikov and Roman Tolpezhnikov. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: RICHARD III

Robert O’Hara’s Richard III is set among moving gothic arches (photo by Joan Marcus)

RICHARD III
Central Park, Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through July 17, free, 8:00
publictheater.org

There’s a moment early on in Robert O’Hara’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard III that defines the rest of the play. When Richard (playwright and actor Danai Gurira), the Duke of Gloucester, is wooing Lady Anne (Ali Stroker) after having murdered her husband, the prince, and her father, the king, he gives her his dagger so she can kill him. “If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive, / Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed dagger, / Which if thou please to hide in this true breast / And let the soul forth that adoreth thee, / I lay it naked to the deadly stroke / And humbly beg the death upon my knee—” Richard says. She plunges the dagger into his chest, but alas, it is merely a prop that Richard takes back and fake stabs himself with a few times.

Richard smiles and the crowd laughs, but it prepares us for a different kind of Richard III, and a different kind of Richard. The scene is key to the success of the play; if Richard can woo Lady Anne, who passionately despises him, then he can in turn win over the audience to root him on while he treacherously lays waste to anyone and everyone in his way on his journey to acquiring the crown.

Richard is usually portrayed by a white man with a humped back and a menacing limp. But here he is played by a Zimbabwean American woman, looking magnificent in black leather with gold details and a closely shaved head with ominous designs. There’s no limp and no hunch, recalling Jamie Lloyd’s recent staging of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac at the BAM Harvey, where a stunning James McAvoy wore no embarrassing proboscis, perhaps the hottest Cyrano in history.

So it’s a hard sell when Gurira admits, “I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, / Nor made to court an amorous looking glass; / I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty / To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, / Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, / Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time / Into this breathing world scarce half made up, / And that so lamely and unfashionable / That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.”

Ratcliffe (Daniel J. Watts) has some stern words with Richard III (Danai Gurira) in Shakespeare in the Park production (photo by Joan Marcus)

Despite that anomaly, we are with Gurira’s Gloucester from the very start, in a prologue taken from the third part of Henry VI as he stabs the king. Gurira’s monologues to the audience are not as intense as we are used to; this is a more likable Richard, and that works, for the most part. Gurira, who is well known as Michonne on The Walking Dead and Okoye in Black Panther and has appeared on Broadway in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and at the Delacorte in Measure for Measure, has a charismatic mystique as she marches across Myung Hee Cho’s minimalist set, consisting of eleven large gothic arches that rotate around the stage and occasionally flicker with colored lights. (The lighting is by Alex Jainchill, with fashionable costumes by Dede Ayite and sound and music by Elisheba Ittoop.)

But O’Hara (Slave Play, Barbecue), who has previously directed Gurira’s Eclipsed and The Continuum, never finds the right pace as the show labors through its two hours and forty minutes (with a twenty-minute intermission). We are too often waiting for something to happen instead of it just happening; the electricity rarely sparks.

There are stylish moments, but too many scenes feel like set pieces that stand on their own but do not flow into one another. Tony winner Stroker (Oklahoma! Spring Awakening) is lovely as Lady Anne, especially when she shows up later in a blinged-out wheelchair. Monique Holt (Cymbeline, Romeo & Juliet), who is deaf, adds a unique aspect to the Duchess of York, but not everything she signs is translated. One of the assassins, played by Maleni Chaitoo, is also deaf. And Rivers is portrayed by Matthew August Jeffers, who has a rare form of dwarfism.

Danai Gurira and Matthew August Jeffers rehearse in masks for Richard III (photo by Joan Marcus)

Interestingly, while Gurira’s Richard has no physical disabilities, Richmond and King Edward IV are played by Gregg Mozgala (Cost of Living, Merchant of Venice), who has cerebral palsy, which affects how he walks; Mozgala starred as a high school version of Richard III in Teenage Dick at the Public in 2018.

Sharon Washington (Feeding the Dragon Wild with Happy), who portrayed Lady Anne at the Delacorte in 1990, brings down the house as Queen Margaret, who sees through Richard immediately. She lets loose after declaring, “I can no longer hold me patient,” making us yearn for her return after she exits. The cast also features Sanjit De Silva as Buckingham, Skyler Gallun as the Prince of Wales, Paul Niebanck as George, Michael Potts as Lord Stanley, Ariel Shafir as Lord Hastings, Heather Alicia Simms as Queen Elizabeth, Matthew August Jeffers as a standout among the ensemble, and Daniel J. Watts as Catesby / Ratcliffe.

Richard III kicks off the sixtieth anniversary season of Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte; the inaugural presentation, in 1962, was The Merchant of Venice with George C. Scott as Shylock and James Earl Jones as the Prince of Morocco. Richard III has been staged at the Delacorte in 1966 with Philip Bosco, 1983 with Kevin Kline, and 1990 with Denzel Washington. Among the others who have portrayed the devious duke onstage are Scott, Laurence Olivier, Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alec Guinness, Peter Dinklage, Mark Rylance, and Lars Eidinger, who was spectacular in Thomas Ostermeier’s adaptation at BAM in 2017. Gurira is a worthy addition to that list, even if the production itself leaves too much to be desired in a hopefully glorious summer.

EPIPHANY

Brian Watkins’s Epiphany takes place at an awkward dinner party (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

EPIPHANY
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 24, $92
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

In Brian Watkins’s Epiphany, continuing at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through July 24, Aran (Carmen Zilles) reads from a letter to guests at a dinner party, “‘A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. But we are living in a special . . . ’ — sorry — “‘we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day. It seems to me, I must confess, that we were living in a less spacious age.’ No, that’s not right: ‘that we are living in a less spacious age.’ Well, I can’t tell if it says are or were.”

The quote is taken nearly verbatim from James Joyce’s 1914 short story “The Dead,” which served as inspiration for Watkins’s play. But Watkins and director Tyne Rafaeli transport the tale, which also takes place at a dinner party, to modern times; in fact, though it premiered in 2019 in Ireland, the plot has been tweaked to comment on how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the way humans relate to one another in what may or may not be a less spacious age.

Morkan (a sensational Marylouise Burke) is a woman of a certain age who has invited a diverse group of people to a dinner party celebrating the epiphany: Freddy (C. J. Wilson), a disheveled math teacher whom Morkan is afraid might drink too much; Sam (Omar Metwally), a well-respected psychiatrist, and his partner, the younger Taylor (David Ryan Smith), who is in marketing; a second couple, lawyer Charlie (Francois Battiste) and pianist Kelly (Heather Burns); Ames (Jonathan Hadary), one of Morkan’s oldest and dearest friends; and Gabriel, Morkan’s nephew and a famous writer who has promised to present a new work and is the main reason everyone has trudged through a snowstorm to come to the party at Morkan’s large country house outside an unidentified major city. Morkan has asked the twentysomething Loren (Colby Minifie) to help her with the food and drinks.

While they’re waiting for Gabriel, Morkan tells them that they have to surrender their phones — she refers to them as “thingamajigs” — and puts them in a box that is tantalizingly close. The guests, none of whom is well acquainted with anyone other than Morkan and the person they came with, are instantly rattled, acting as if a part of their body has been temporarily removed. They feel even more uncomfortable after it becomes evident that no one read any of the attachments Morkan included with the invitation, so they’re not prepared for all the activities she has planned, and they don’t know how to tell her. In addition, no one, including Morkan, knows what the word epiphany means or refers to.

Marylouise Burke is sensational as a dinner party host forced to improvise (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Charlie: Where did the whole celebration idea come from anyway?
Morkan: Well, that’s the question! I actually have very little idea of what epiphany actually is.
Loren: Oh. I thought this was part of your religion or something.
Morkan: Oh no no no, not at all, it’s just sort of a new curiosity, because . . . well, it’s been an odd twelve months. . . . I’m really so forgetful these days, which is why Gabriel is going to do a whole . . . overview thingy and give a speech with the history and all the answers to the whole yadda yadda.
Taylor: Of course he is.
Kelly: Fucking . . . brilliant man.
Morkan: But so, ok, show of hands, who has celebrated Epiphany?
Kelly: Like the idea? The idea I guess, privately, yes — the what? Oh no.
Morkan: The holiday. The holiday. Show of hands for the holiday.

No one raises their hand.

Morkan: Alright so, before I sent you all the stuff with the invitation . . . who knew what epiphany was?
Kelly: The idea or the holiday?
Morkan: The holiday of Epiphany.
Taylor: The general concept or —
Morkan: The holiday.
Taylor: Oh. No.
Freddy: Not me!
Morkan: Ok. Well. I have no idea what Epiphany is. We have no idea what Epiphany is. But the thing that struck my head was, ya know like . . . creating a tradition . . . How does that work?! Or even just creating a reason, to ya know, get together in a terrible month like January to celebrate life!

As if that weren’t enough, Aran, Gabriel’s partner, soon shows up to explain that Gabriel will not be coming after all, which adds further disappointment and awkwardness. But Morkan is determined to soldier on with music, poetry, intellectual conversation, and the goose she has cooked, leading to some prickly physical and verbal exchanges as the snow keeps falling.

At nearly two hours without intermission, Epiphany is too long, and some of the awkwardness onstage leaks into the audience; at times you might feel like you’re at a dinner party that is going nowhere but you can’t leave. In addition to Joyce, it’s got a bit of Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie mixed in with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (without the murders), and the disastrous parties Mary Richards used to throw on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, all of which play with the idea of expectations.

A lot of those expectations have changed significantly since the pandemic lockdown, as people wrestle with who to gather with and where. Gabriel chooses not to go because of a deep depression; it’s not a stretch to think that it may have been caused, at least in part, by the coronavirus crisis and a fear of meeting up with people. I have great friends who still refuse to go to gatherings, whether indoors or outdoors. It can be hard to know when to hug, when to shake hands, when to kiss, and when to bump elbows, which is addressed in Epiphany.

The show also plays with the idea of time, something that was difficult to keep track of during the lockdown and still today, when many of us are working from home. Although the story appears to unfold in something close to real time, Morkan makes several confusing references near the end about how much time has passed that will leave you scratching your head and wondering whether her statements are plain mistakes or have another, not immediately clear meaning.

You’re unlikely to reach any epiphanies while at the Newhouse, but it’s not so bad when you’re spending time with such a terrific cast, comprising some of the city’s finest character actors. Drama Desk winner Burke (Ripcord, Fuddy Meers), in the starring role, is phenomenal, short of stature but long on doddering charm and effervescence, her creaky voice reaching poetic heights. Tony nominee and Obie winner Hadary (Gypsy, As Is) excels as Ames, especially after suffering what could be a serious injury that is handled with slapstick humor. Tony nominee and Obie winner Metwally (Sixteen Wounded, Guards at the Taj) is smooth as silk as the curious neuroscientist. And Minifie (The Boys, Punk Rock), dressed in a yellow outfit that just might have been the old color of the dining room, is wonderful as Loren, who has no idea what she has gotten herself into. (The costumes are by Montana Levi Blanco.)

John Lee Beatty’s set has a gothic charm to it, bar carts and tables hovering close to the audience seated in the first row, who could reach out and grab a drink or snack (but shouldn’t). The snow can be seen through two large windows; mysterious stairs go down to the front door and up to the bedrooms and bathroom, lending the house a ghostly atmosphere. Isabella Byrd’s moody lighting reminds everyone that the storm might knock out the electricity at any second, while Daniel Kluger’s sound often adds a chill to the air.

“Life has just felt so wobbly, so even though I’ve lived here over forty years I feel . . . dislocated . . . exiled, I suppose . . . And I’m not sure why,” Morkan says, essentially speaking for many in the theater. “But maybe that’s the world, I dunno . . . I feel like I’m not making any sense.” Perhaps the same can be said of our “thought-tormented age” itself.

FIAF’s BASTILLE DAY 2022

BASTILLE DAY
French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)
Madison Ave. between Fifty-Ninth & Sixty-Third Sts.
Sunday, July 10, free – $75, noon – 5:00 pm
fiaf.org

On July 14, 1789, a Parisian mob stormed the Bastille prison, a symbolic victory that kicked off the French Revolution and the establishment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Ever since, July 14 has been a national holiday celebrating liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In New York City, the Bastille Day festivities are set for Sunday, July 10, on Madison Ave. between Fifty-Ninth & Sixty-Third Sts., where the French Institute Alliance Française hosts its annual daylong party of food and drink, music and dance, and other special activities. The celebration features free live music by Paul Beaubrun, street dance by Cal Hunt, a dance party with DJ Orson, and an excerpt from the French musical Notre Dame de Paris on the main stage at Fifty-Ninth St. from noon to 5:00; a Summer in the South of France Tasting in Tinker Auditorium from 12:30 to 5:00 ($35), with wines from Maison Antech, Château Maris, and Château Haut-Blanville, nonalcoholic wines from Le Petit Béret, gazpacho from Karine & Jeff, and cheese selections from cheese2u.com; a sneak preview screening of Matthieu Rozé’s Azuro starring Valérie Donzelli in Florence Gould Hall at 5:30 ($17); and the elegant Champagne & Musette Party at 1:30 ($65-$75) in Le Skyroom, with live music by Chloé Perrier & the French Heart Jazz Band, Champagnes from Billecart Salmon, Delamotte, and Henriot, macarons from Thierry Atlan, and hors d’oeuvres from Miss Madeleine.

A sneak preview of Matthieu Rozé’s Azuro is part of FIAF Bastille Day festivities

The French Garden between Sixtieth & Sixty-First consists of booths from Thermomix, Thierry Atlan, Stephane Koerwyn, Angelina Paris, Bichon, OCabanon, Oliviers & Co, Opinel, Payot, Silpat, and Tissage Moutet, while Market Booths between Sixtieth & Sixty-Third include Brasserie Cognac, Maman Bakery, Mille-feuille Bakery Cafe, Hanami Designs, Barachou, Miss Madeleine, and dozens more. The FIAF Language Center Booth between Fifty-Ninth & Sixtieth will present special activities for children and a trivia contest for adults from 1:00 to 4:00. And this year’s prize drawing can win you skincare baskets, a wellness collection, a FIAF Premier Membership, a two-night stay at Sofitel New York, or a Dream Getaway for Two to France’s Occitanie region.

BroadwayCon 2022

Who: Anthony Rapp, LaChanze, Andrew Barth Feldman, Carolee Carmello, Ben Cameron, Erin Quill, Fredi Walker-Browne, Julie White, Telly Leung, Ilana Levine, Jacqueline B. Arnold, Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Vanessa Williams, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, Nik Walker, Ryann Redmond, Thayne Jasperson, Hillary Clinton, more
What: BroadwayCon 2022
Where: Manhattan Center, 311 West Thirty-Fourth St., and the New Yorker Hotel, 481 Eighth Ave.
When: July 8-10, day passes $80, general pass $200, gold pass $425, platinum pass $1,250
Why: BroadwayCon is back with an in-person edition taking place July 8-10 at the Manhattan Center and the New Yorker Hotel, right by Madison Square Garden and Penn Station and just a few blocks south of the Theater District. This year’s edition includes panel discussions, interviews, live performances, podcasts, a cosplay contest, workshops, photo and autograph sessions, singalongs, meetups, and celebrations of and inside looks at such shows as A Strange Loop, Six the Musical, Chicago, POTUS, Dear Evan Hansen, Beetlejuice, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Kimberly Akimbo, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Kite Runner, Assassins, and Hamilton.

Among those participating at the three-day festival are Anthony Rapp, LaChanze, Carolee Carmello, Ben Cameron, Erin Quill, Julie White, Telly Leung, Vanessa Williams, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, and Hillary Clinton, talking about such topics as racial and gender diversity, disability, understudies, anxiety, body positivity, and Stephen Sondheim.

Below are select highlights for each day:

Friday, July 8
Ensemble screening, with Telly Leung, 10:00 am, followed by a talkback at 11:20, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel

BroadwayCon 2022 Opening Ceremony, with Ben Cameron, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 12:40

Here’s to the Ladies: Hillary Rodham Clinton Live at BroadwayCon, with LaChanze, Julie White, and Vanessa Williams, moderated by Hillary Clinton, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 1:00

Making a Living and Having a Life in Theatre Production, with Jameson Croasdale, Mary Kathryn “MK” Blazek, Rebecca Zuber, Lauren Parrish, and Gary Levinson, moderated by Naomi Siegel, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 2:20

Lights, Overture, Stage Fright! Breaking Down Performance Anxiety, with Kira Sparks, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 3:40

POTUS is one of several Broadway shows that will be featured at BroadwayCon (photo by Paul Kolnick)

Saturday, July 9
Black Lives Matter on Broadway, with T. Oliver Reid, Britton Smith, Emilio Sosa, Michael Dinwiddie, and Lillias White, moderated by Linda Armstrong, New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom, 10:00

Broadway Livestreaming: Expanding the Reach of Live Theatre, with Timothy Allen McDonald, Sean Cercone, Luke Naphat, Tralen Doler, Nathan Gehan, and Jen Sandler, moderated by Joshua Turchin, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 11:20

Getting the Show Back on the Road: The Pandemic and Its Impact on Touring Broadway, with Jacob Persily, Sutton Place Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 2:20

Paul Gemignani and Sondheim’s Musical Legacy, with Margaret Hall and Meg Masseron, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel, 3:40

BroadwayCon Cabaret, with special secret guest, hosted by Ben Cameron, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 5:00

Sunday, July 10
Cheers to Understudies: The Broadway Cast Live!, with Amber Ardolino, Mallory Maedke, Tally Sessions, and Lauren Boyd, hosted by Ben Cameron, New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom, 10:00

Body Liberation on Broadway, with Amara Janae Brady, Shantez M. Tolbut, and Evan Ruggiero, moderated by Stephanie Lexis, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 10:00

Directors on Debuts, with Zhailon Levingston and Tina Satter, moderated by Zeynep Akça, Crystal Ballroom, the New Yorker Hotel, 1:00

Tell Me More! Tell Me More!, special guests TBA, Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, 2:20

Broadway Anecdotes II: Golden Age Gossip, with Kenneth Kantor, Joshua Ellis, and Mimi Quillin, moderated by Ken Bloom, Gramercy Park Suite, the New Yorker Hotel, 5:00

MEET MISS BAKER: CHAINS

Charley (Jeremy Beck) and Lily Wilson (Laakan McHardy) face a turning point in Chains

CHAINS
The Mint Theater at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 17, $35-$80
minttheater.org
www.bfany.org

As live theater slowly emerged from the long pandemic lockdown, I waited with bated breath for the return of the Mint, one of New York City’s genuine treasures. For the last two years, the Mint, founded in 1992 to resurrect lost or forgotten plays, has been streaming recordings of such relatively recent successes as Conflict, Katie Roche, and Women without Men. Artistic director Jonathan Bank and the troupe are now back with its first live presentation since 2019, an exquisitely rendered adaptation of Elizabeth Baker’s 1909 working-class drama, Chains.

The second part of the Mint’s “Meet Miss Baker” series, which began with The Price of Thomas Scott, Chains was originally scheduled for the spring of 2020; the production finally opened on June 23, and the events of the past two years make it feel excitingly fresh and timely, as if it were written yesterday.

During the lockdown, many New Yorkers were overcome with wanderlust, heading to less-dense areas of America, sometimes for good. As the coronavirus crisis declined — it is still with us, of course, one example of which are the vaccine checks and masks required to enter Theatre Row, where Chains continues through July 17 — people across the country began reexamining their lives and careers, suddenly leaving their jobs, even without other prospects, what has become known as the Great Resignation. According to a Pew Research survey released this past March, “Low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement, and feeling disrespected at work are the top reasons why Americans quit their jobs last year.” Also cited was a better balance between work and family responsibilities.

All of those aspects are at play in Chains, which is elegantly directed by Jenn Thompson with a cunning wit — she also helmed Conflict and Men without Women — and impeccably performed by a nine-person cast, most of whom portray characters who are chained down in one way or another, whether they realize it or not, primarily by capitalism and social convention.

When Fred Tennant (Peterson Townsend), a kind lodger renting a room from Charley Wilson (Jeremy Beck) and his devoted wife, Lily (Laakan McHardy), announces that he is emigrating from England and starting a new life in Australia, friends and neighbors are mostly shocked and stunned. Tennant is single and on a career path to become head clerk at his firm.

“I’m sick of the whole show. I can’t stand it any longer,” Tennant tells Charley, who, a moment later, asks, “Do you mean you are just going out because you want a change?” Tennant replies, “That’s about it. I’ve had enough of grind.” Charley points out, “Well, perhaps you’ll get grind somewhere else.” Tennant responds calmly, “It’ll be a change of grind then. That’s something.”

Elizabeth Baker’s Chains is gorgeously revived by the Mint (photo by Todd Cerveris)

The Wilsons’ big, boisterous neighbor, Morton Leslie (Brian Owen), comes bounding over the fence of Charley’s small backyard vegetable garden and chimes in, believing Tennant’s a fool for giving up his cushy gig. “He’s going to throw it away!” he proclaims. “And then I suppose he’ll be out of work over there, and we shall be hearing of the unemployment in the Colonies! It’s just this sort of thing that makes a man a Conservative. It’s what I call getting off the ladder and deliberately kicking it down.” Ironically, Leslie has a problem with the garden ladder as he tries to get home.

Lily’s twenty-two-year-old brother, Percy Massey (Avery Whitted), is in love with Sybil Frost (Claire Saunders) and wants to marry her, while Lily’s sister, Maggie (Olivia Gilliatt), is being courted by wealthy but dull-as-a-doornail widower Walter Foster (Ned Noyes). When Charley’s coworker, Thomas Fenwick (Christopher Gerson), shares some unfortunate news with him, Charley starts thinking that maybe it’s time for him to give up the daily monotony, the awful commute, the nonstop grind and head to Australia for better opportunities, then send for Lily after he’s settled. The men’s discussion is eerily contemporary, centering on “low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement, and feeling disrespected at work,” exactly what the Pew study exposed workers complaining about more than a century later.

Charley asks his wife, “Don’t you ever get sick of it? It’s jolly hard work sometimes.” But Lily seems content with being a homemaker, following the predictable lower-middle-class suburban lifestyle, as if there was nothing else to consider.

Learning of Charley’s wanderlust, Lily’s parents (Anthony Cochrane and Amelia White), who are just fine with the status quo, are surprised and disappointed. Mrs. Massey offers, “Suppose we all stopped work when we didn’t like it? A pretty muddle the world would be in. Charley is forgetting there is such a thing as duty. . . . We’ve got to do our duty, and the more cheerfully we can do it, the better for ourselves and everybody else.” Mr. Massey argues, “Father was a plumber, and if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me.”

The only one who recognizes what Charley is going through is Maggie, a free spirit who appreciates that there is more than the never-ending cycle of school, work, marriage, kids, retirement. She tells Charley, “I can never understand why a man gets married. He’s got so many chances to see the world and do things — and then he goes and marries and settles down and is a family man before he’s twenty-four.” Charley replies, “It’s a habit.” Maggie adds, “If I were a man I wouldn’t stay in England another week. I wouldn’t be a quill-driver all my life.”

Puffing away on his pipe, Charley has a major decision to make that affects more than just him, a choice that many in the audience can relate to.

Wealthy but dull Walter (Ned Noyes) woos Maggie (Olivia Gilliatt) in Chains (photo by Todd Cerveris)

Chains switches between two locations: the Wilsons’ sitting room in Hammersmith, with a fireplace on the right, the kitchen table at the center, and a parlor in the back, and the Massey living room, with a comfy couch, a cozy nook, and a piano. Both sets are gorgeously designed by John McDermott; one of the Mint’s trademarks is its consistently beautiful stage design and its magical change of sets, which is usually done during intermission but here is saved for the beginning of the second act so everyone can experience its wonder. The Edwardian costumes are by David Toser, with lighting by Paul Miller and sound by M. Florian Staab. To further Charley’s sense of captivity, there are repeated images of small chains on the Wilsons’ wallpaper.

Beck, who starred in two of the Mint’s best recent productions, Conflict and Hindle Wakes, is sublime as Charley, bringing a Daniel Craig–like quality to the role of a man who abruptly decides that he needs more out of life, unsatisfied with his current circumstances and unhappy that it’s precisely what’s expected of him. When he looks at Tennant’s map of Australia, we are examining it with him, as if searching for our own possibilities of seeking something new.

The rest of the cast is superb, led by McHardy (The Wolves, Mac Beth) in her off-Broadway debut as the gentle, doe-eyed Lily and Gilliatt (Pushkin, Mother of the Maid) as her far more adventurous sister. Owen (Dog Man: The Musical, Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery) nearly shakes the house as Leslie, towering over everyone else.

Thompson’s (The Gravedigger’s Lullaby, Abundance) direction is richly harmonic, allowing former stenographer Baker’s words to sing. It’s a song many of us have listened to, and many more are terrified of or reject outright. At one point, Fenwick says to Charley, “What can I do? Stay, of course — what else is there?”

What else is there? As Baker (Edith, Partnership), in her first play, reveals, there’s a whole world out there to be explored, onstage and off. And as we now know, sometimes it takes a pandemic for people to break out of the chains of their self-imposed bondage.

SNOW IN MIDSUMMER

Classic Stage Company’s Snow in Midsummer bites off more than it can chew (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

SNOW IN MIDSUMMER
Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 9, $70
www.classicstage.org

As an aficionado of Asian ghost stories — I’ve seen more than my fair share of horror flicks from Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines — I was looking forward to Classic Stage Company’s Snow in Midsummer, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s adaptation of Guan Hanqing’s thirteenth-century Yuan dynasty drama The Injustice to Dou Yi That Moved Heaven and Earth. The play was originally presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2017 as part of its Chinese Translations Project; CSC’s version, directed by Zi Alikhan, can’t find its way out of Cowhig’s overstuffed, undercooked narrative. While the central ghost story, involving grave injustice, works well, every aspect of the rest of the tale is overwhelmed by myriad social justice elements that just keep coming from every direction.

Three years earlier, in the remote factory town of New Harmony in Jiangsu Province, Dou Yi (Dorcas Leung) was executed for a crime she claims she did not commit. “If we still live on a planet that hates injustice, / Snow will fall from the clouds and shield my remains. / May that snow be the last water that falls on New Harmony until / Justice is brought to Dou Yi,” she proclaims, awaiting her death. “Officers — / Do you see the white flag flapping overhead? / If I am innocent, / Not a drop of hot blood will spill onto the green earth or / Stain my clothes, no matter how many bullets pierce this flesh / My blood will fly towards the Blue Sky and / Stain the white flag flying above. . . . I promise you — / It is the hottest time of the year, / But soon snow will tumble down like cotton / And New Harmony will experience the wrath of a drought for three years. / They say Heaven has no sympathy for the human heart — / The Blue Sky will answer my prayers. / Mother! / Wait until snow falls in June and drought lasts three years. / Only then will my innocent soul be — ”

In the present, a drought is threatening the very existence of the town. Tianyun (Teresa Avia Lim), a single mother who grew up in a nearby village, has returned to the area and purchased the factory previously owned by Master Zhang (Kenneth Lee), who Dou Yi was accused of murdering. Tianyun rose from teenage migrant to assembly line employee to operating the largest synthetic flower company in the country. As Master Zhang’s son, Handsome Zhang (John Yi), prepares to propose in public to Rocket Wu (Tommy Bo), his true love, Tianyun’s six-year-old daughter, Fei-Fei (Fin Moulding), warns, “Don’t propose during Ghost Month! It’s an invitation for spirits to visit!” Nurse Wong (Wai Ching Ho), who runs the local bar, replies, “Wasn’t the Cultural Revolution supposed to wipe out rural superstition?”

Things are set in motion when the ghost of Dou Yi appears to Fei-Fei and they declare in unison, “Heart of Sorrow, Tears of Suffering. How will you redeem my three-year rotting bones? / No rain and not an inch of grass has grown. Injustice killed this girl of youth and spring. No one on earth has avenged me. / Earth — why have you only mourned but not fought for me?” As Tianyun and Fei-Fei attempt to find out what really happened to Master Zhang, they are continually thwarted by citizens of a town who have a lot to hide, from Mother Cai (Wai Ching Ho), Nurse Wong, Doctor Lu (Kenneth Lee), and Judge Wu (Lee) to a trio of factory workers (Paul Juhn, Julian Leong, and Alex Vinh), the local police, and Handsome himself.

There are several creepy, eerie moments involving Dou Yi as she seeks her revenge, but they get lost amid a sea of social justice tropes immersed in overdramatized and overacted melodrama. Instead of focusing on the misogyny and abuse that led to the execution of Dou Yi and its extensive cover-up, Cowhig and Alikhan throw in police and government corruption, homophobia, illegal organ harvesting, income inequality, class and gender differences, deforestation, the death penalty, generational trauma, climate change, and other issues. This kitchen-sink approach drowns a play that otherwise has a solid core. The spare sets by dots are effective in their simplicity, and Jeanette Yew’s lighting maintains an otherworldly quality. Leung (Miss Saigon, Hamilton) and Lim (Junk, The Alchemist) stand out among the uneven cast, who are dressed in Johanna Pan’s unflattering costumes.

Perhaps Snow in Midsummer would have been more successful if it had been significantly cut down from its outstretched two-and-a-half-hour length (with intermission) and did not try to tackle most of the world’s current problems all at once; I could see it working well in a kind of modern-day Kwaidan omnibus, concentrating on Dou Yi’s tragic but, unfortunately, universal story.