this week in theater

ALISON LEIBY: OH GOD, A SHOW ABOUT ABORTION

Alison Leiby shares her the details of her own abortion in comic routine at the Cherry Lane (photo by Mindy Tucker)

OH GOD, A SHOW ABOUT ABORTION
Cherry Lane Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Through June August 26, $37-$61
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

Nearly every night, the opening lines of Alison Leiby’s Oh God, a Show About Abortion change as the debate over abortion rages even hotter since May 2, when the draft opinion in which the Supreme Court appears to be ready to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked. The day I attended, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin had announced that he would not vote for a bill to codify abortion rights, so he made it into the beginning of Leiby’s show, and not favorably.

Extended through August 26 at the Cherry Lane, Oh God is really more of a themed comedy monologue than a one-person show. For seventy-five minutes, Leiby, who has written for such series as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, uses her recent abortion to talk about her career, her relationships with men and her family, and the need for reproductive freedom in America.

“Welcome to what my dad calls my ‘special show,’” she says. “My parents are very supportive. My mom texted me, ‘kill it tonight!’ and I’m like, I already did, that’s why the show exists.”

On an empty stage save for a mic stand, a stool, and a glass of water, the classic stand-up set, Leiby talks about “all of the unprotected sex I have had,” getting pregnant while on the road in Missouri, deciding not to keep the baby, and going to Planned Parenthood in New York City to have the procedure done. “So I had an abortion three years ago. I’m still trying to lose the no baby weight,” she explains.

She also notes, “I was thirty-five years old. I thought my eggs were just Fabergé at this point: feminine, but decorative. But this positive test brought into light all of the intense anxieties I have been feeling as a woman for years.” Many of those anxieties stem from her mother. “When I was thirty, she told me, ‘The best time in your life is when you’re married and you don’t have kids.’ I am her only child.”

Leiby uses the central narrative as the impetus to make tangential one-liners that perhaps are meant as comic relief from the main topic, but too many miss the mark or feel unnecessary, including digressions about Oreo flavors, Michael Jordan, Al Gore, Ashanti, and falafel. For comparison, in March, I saw Alex Edelman’s hysterical Just for Us, about his infiltration of a white supremacist meeting in Queens, and that was more theater than stand-up, with relevant detours about dating and family that were insightful and pushed the story forward, not one-off jokes; when he described certain events, you could see it in your mind, even though it was also an empty stage. And although Oh God credits the immensely talented Lila Neugebauer (Morning Sun, The Wolves) as director, her contributions are not clearly visible.

But the Brooklyn-based Leiby does have a lot to say about birth control, Barbie dolls, sex education in schools, period trackers, reproductive ads, doctors, Richard Gere, Jennifer Aniston, drunk sex, and womanhood in the twenty-first century. A story about receiving a nerve shot for her back is both very funny and representative of our patriarchal society. “The medical community has abandoned women,” she declares. She also delves into how “the culture seems to pit women who are mothers against women who aren’t all the time. TV shows, magazines, influencers all perpetuate this fake divide between mothers and non-mothers so we are left fighting about that while men go to space in their cock rockets? Fuck. That.”

But amid all the sociopolitical controversies and the gender gap, perhaps the most important question she asks is “If I’m not a mother, then who am I?” It’s a matter of personal choice, one that is as fraught today as it ever was, in myriad ways.

Oh God, a Show About Abortion is presented by Ilana Glazer (Broad City, The Afterparty), who, on May 22 at 7:00, will join Leiby for a conversation about the production in Buttenwieser Hall at the 92nd St. Y; in-person tickets are $30-$35, or you can watch the livestream for $20.

EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

Detention turns existential in new play by Dave Harris (photo by Joan Marcus)

EXCEPTION TO THE RULE
Black Box Theatre
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
111 West 46th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Sunday through June 26, $30
www.roundabouttheatre.org

The Breakfast Club meets Waiting for Godot and Five Characters in Search of an Exit in Dave Harris’s electric Exception to the Rule, which opened tonight at Roundabout Underground. Originally meant to mark Harris’s New York debut but delayed because of the pandemic, Exception now follows on the heels of the breakout success of Tambo & Bones, which was written after Exception.

The eighty-five-minute play takes place in a classroom open on three sides, with six chairs in addition to the teacher’s desk next to the door. The room has fluorescent borders, making it resemble a cage with no bars, a kind of existential prison. The audience sits on the three open sides in three rows, the first nearly on the set, as if on the brink of being jailed as well but just safe enough. One by one, five high school teenagers unabashedly enter and kid around with one another. They are there for detention, something they appear to be used to. Tommy (Malik Childs) puts the moves on Mikayla (Amandla Jahava), who wants nothing to do with him. The tough-looking Dayrin (Toney Goins) calls Dasani (Claudia Logan) “Aquafina” and “Poland Springs” to piss her off. Dayrin is none-too-happy when the moody Abdul (Mister Fitzgerald) shows up. But the freewheeling dynamic shifts immediately when Erika (Mayaa Boateng) arrives, looking for Mr. Bernie, the detention teacher. The others are shocked that she has been sent to Room 111.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Dasani says. “How did she end up in detention?” Mikayla asks. “You sure she supposed to be here?” Tommy says to Mikayla. “Every good girl gotta go bad at some point,” Dayrin offers.

Erika is dismayed by all the attention she is receiving as they derisively refer to her as “Smart Girl Erika,” “College Bound Erika,” and “Take the Test and Fuck Up the Curve for Everybody Else Erika.” She explains, “I thought detention was quiet. A place where everyone remembers the mistakes that got them here and then learns how to not make the same mistakes again. And you leave different than when you came in. Why else would they put you here?” After a brief silence, the others break out in hysterics.

“You might be the only person left in this school who’s never done some time,” Abdul says. “Still haven’t lost your innocence yet,” Dayrin adds.

College-bound Erika (Mayaa Boateng) makes a connection with Abdul (Mister Fitzgerald) in Exception to the Rule (photo by Joan Marcus)

As they wait for Mr. Bernie — if they don’t get their detention slips signed, they’ll receive more detention — the six teenagers bond, argue, fight, flirt, and reveal secrets about themselves, each trapped in a system set up for them to fail. They’re terrified just to go into the hall to find Mr. Bernie. “I heard this kid Roger left detention one time. You know what they did? They shot him on sight. He dead,” Tommy says. As apocryphal as that story might be, it holds the awful truth of what happens to so many innocent, unarmed people of color.

Meanwhile, there’s no cell service in Room 111 or anywhere in the school. Tommy points out, “Phones can’t even tell what time it is. Cuz the whole building is surrounded by an invisible force to keep us from calling for any —” Time, for Black and brown people, is a weighted concept; the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Intermittent announcements over the creaky PA remind them that it’s the Friday afternoon of the MLK holiday weekend and the school will be closed for the next three days, leading Dasani to reinterpret Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech for what is happening today; it’s one of the most powerful moments of a play constructed of myriad small touches that can nearly go unnoticed. Director Miranda Haymon always has something going on; the audience has to keep their eyes moving to catch everything, and you won’t want to miss a second of these well-crafted characters and potent situations as the clock winds down and the six teens have to make critical choices.

In Tambo & Bones, Harris investigated the history of Black performers entertaining paying white audiences, but it’s much more than a treatise on minstrelsy. While Bones wants to cash in, draping himself in stardom, Tambo wants to help change the world. In Exception to the Rule, takes on social injustice, inequities in education and employment, and a corrupt system that is rotten to the core, but he is also making it clear that there are ways out. Erika is a stand-in for the playwright, who pulls no punches. She’s a top student preparing for college, getting ridiculed for her desire to succeed; some of the others occasionally look like they also want to be better students with more opportunities, but that is frowned upon by their peers. Even their outfits — the costumes are by Sarita Fellows — play with stereotypes and expectations.

Six characters are in search of an exit in Roundabout Underground world premiere (photo by Joan Marcus)

Reid Thompson and Kamil James’s dynamic set seems to offer them an escape, as if they can just walk through the invisible bars and into another world, but that’s not something they’re considering; they’re scared enough of going through an unlocked door into a situation they’re already familiar with. “There’s no one keeping us in this room,” Erika says. Dasani responds, “We in detention. We gotta wait for Mr. Bernie. Then we can go, Sweet Pea. Then we can go.” It’s as if society has relegated them to an unending prison, where it doesn’t matter what they’ve done; they can’t even imagine being free.

The outstanding cast bursts with an energy that can barely be contained on the set; in fact, one fight nearly spilled into the audience (but didn’t), making the action all the more palpable and realistic.

Cha See’s lighting keeps the audience at least partly illuminated throughout the play; it is not lost on us, or the actors and playwright, that the crowd is predominantly white, watching six caged people of color. No wonder they are hesitant to walk through the invisible bars. But Harris is adamant that they must, that in order to better their lives, they need to go forward, to face what’s out there and not let the system, as well as cultural norms, hold them back. Tommy might be afraid of the dark, but there’s light ahead.

“Just imagine. If life was all tingly and nice. . . . If closing my eyes was just closing my eyes,” Tommy says. Erika replies, “You’d still be in detention when you opened them.”

GOLDEN SHIELD

Anchuli Felicia King’s Golden Shield questions language and communication by individuals, corporations, and governments (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

GOLDEN SHIELD
Manhattan Theatre Club
MTC at New York City Center – Stage I
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 12, $59-$89
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Anchuli Felicia King uses a volatile court case as a battleground for complex ideas about communication and translation involving family, corporations, governments, and the internet in Golden Shield, which opened tonight at MTC at New York City Center – Stage I.

The two-and-a-half-hour play (including intermission) begins with the Translator (Fang Du) laying some of the ground rules. Discussing the difficulty of translating a Chinese proverb into English, he tells the audience, “I can try to find an English equivalent, if one exists. But of course, I risk making false parallels, unwittingly engaging in an act of . . . linguistic imperialism. Or I can really spell it out. . . . But you do lose some of the beauty of the original. It’ll be much the same with this job, I suspect. . . . Just settle into it. Trust that your mind is a machine. Eventually, it’ll find a focal point. Having said that, it is essential that you concentrate.”

The Translator is speaking about the language in the play as much as the language of the play, which takes place nonchronologically between 2006 and 2012 in Washington DC, Beijing, Yingcheng, Dallas, Palo Alto, and Melbourne. In fact, he’s only a character in the plot a few times; instead, he is primarily an observer, standing off to te side, making certain things clearer for the audience, including filling in details of some characters’ pasts. He also has the innate ability to know when someone is lying.

As lawyer Julie Chen (Cindy Cheung) points out, “There’s a lot of jargon in this case. A lot of legal jargon and a lot of technical jargon.” She’s not kidding, so we need the Translator.

Julie, a managing partner in a firm with Richard Warren (Daniel Jenkins), also needs a translator, for a class-action lawsuit in which eight Chinese dissidents are charging ONYS Systems with criminal collusion with the Chinese government, based on a single bullet point in a document regarding the Golden Shield, a real-life surveillance project involving the Great Firewall of China.

Sisters Eva (Ruibo Qian) and Julie Chen (Cindy Cheung) consider working together in Golden Shield (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Julie wants to hire her younger sister, Eva (Ruibo Qian), who is in the midst of a long bad streak, as her translator. Eva balks at first — something happened at their mother’s recent funeral that has driven them further apart than they already were — but she ultimately signs on. Their main task is to find one of the eight dissidents to be willing to testify in the United States; their last hope is Li Dao (Michael C. Liu), a professor at the Beijing Institute of Science and Technology who has kept his actual activities secret from his devoted wife, Huang Mei (Kristen Hung). Accompanying the legal team as an adviser on their journey is Amanda Carlson (Gillian Saker) of the Digital Freedom Fund.

The trial is scheduled to be held in Dallas, using the Alien Tort Statute in the Judiciary Act of 1789, implemented, in part, because of piracy on the seas. ONYS is attempting to avoid responsibility — the “onus,” as it were — for its part in the creation of a decentralized firewall that was ultimately, surprise surprise, used by the government to track down citizens they believe to be traitors.

Marshall McLaren (Max Gordon Moore), the smarmy ONYS president of China operations, has no respect for the Chinese and their culture and traditions, refusing to keep quiet even when his VP, Larry Murdoch (Daniel Jenkins), begs him to stay in line as they meet with deputy minister of public security Gao Shengwei (Kristen Hung). He’s the classic ugly American, looking to profit off of others, no matter the cost. “They’re giving us shit,” he tells Larry. “It’s polite Chinese shit, but it’s shit nonetheless, and what I’m saying is, is — if we could have a meeting, one meeting, in an office, in an office with desks, I don’t need another, another fucking five pots of steamed whatever or a fucking egg that’s been fermented for a hundred years in a silk basket at the foothills of Mountain Fing-fong-fang.”

Li Dao (Michael C. Liu) and Huang Mei (Kristen Hung) face dangerous consequences in MTC world premiere (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ONYS’s chief legal officer, Jane Bollman (Gillian Saker), wants to just buy off the plaintiffs, but Julie wants this case to make a point, to have an impact on international law and take big business and big government to task.

Through it all, the Translator keeps the audience apprised of what is really going on. When Eva tells her sister in English, “Like, I’m okay,” he translates that to “I’m not okay.” When Larry, listening to Marshall read from the document in question, says, “I think it’s a bit of a mistranslation,” the Translator says to us, “It’s not.” As the trial continues, the importance of language and communication remain at the heart of the play and not just from a legal standpoint. “There’s enough miscommunication in the world,” Amanda tells Eva. “I don’t want to spend all night reading between the lines and, like, searching for a sign, or symbol, like, a sexual visual metaphor, because if you just like say, upfront, what you mean, then like, you don’t need to translate, you know?”

Developed at MTC’s Australia-based Next Stage Writers’ Program, Golden Shield is masterfully directed by May Adrales (Vietgone, Letters of Suresh), guiding us through the ever-shifting time periods and locations, with scene changes indicated by furniture rolling on- and offstage and different colors flashing behind walls with cut-out patterns. (The set design is by Dots, with lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, original sound and music by Charles Coes and Nathan A. Roberts, and costumes by Sara Ryung Clement.)

King (White Pearl) does an excellent job defining the characters and sifting through the jargon to make her points about communication, and not just in the digital age. There’s a kind of poetry to the language, a melding of corporate- and tech-speak, legalese, English, Chinese, and everyday talking. King has called the play itself “a valuable political act,” and that’s just what it is.

The Translator (Fang Du) keeps the audience informed as he watches the action onstage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

And it all starts with Fang Du (Golem, Low Power), who is eminently likable as the Translator, a kind of version of the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. If he doesn’t capture our attention, it becomes a completely different experience. In the script, King notes, “The Translator is an intermediary between the audience and the action. They intervene in the action only when their presence becomes essential. They are otherwise engaged in an act of self-abnegation.” That self-abnegation stands in direct counterpart to the desires of most of the characters, who can be selfish, grating, mean-spirited, uncaring, passive-aggressive, and self-defeating. In this digital surveillance age where less and less communication occurs in person, face-to-face, Fang Du’s good-natured portrayal of the bright and cheery, ever-smiling Translator is a necessary respite from the hard points the narrative makes. That’s why we need the Translator.

WHO KILLED MY FATHER (QUI A TUÉ MON PÈRE)

Édouard Louis’s Who Killed My Father makes its US premiere at St. Ann’s this week (photo by Jean-Louis Fernandez)

WHO KILLED MY FATHER (QUI A TUÉ MON PÈRE)
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Tuesday – Sunday, May 18 – June 5, $49-$59
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org
www.schaubuehne.de

In November 2019, St. Ann’s Warehouse presented History of Violence, a radical, highly inventive multimedia interpretation of the 2016 nonfiction novel by activist and artist Édouard Louis, directed by Thomas Ostermeier for Schaubühne Berlin. Ostermeier and Louis return to St. Ann’s with the US premiere of Who Killed My Father (Qui a tué mon père), an adaptation of Louis’s 2018 book, starring the twenty-nine-year-old Paris-based Louis himself in his debut as a professional performer. A coproduction of Schaubühne Berlin and Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Who Killed My Father deals with how the French government’s treatment of the working class broke Louis’s alcoholic, conservative, homophobic father. “Throughout my entire childhood, I hoped you’d disappear,” Louis writes. “You can no longer get behind the wheel, are no longer allowed to drink, can no longer shower unaided without it presenting an enormous risk. You’re just over fifty. You belong to the precise category of people for whom politics has envisaged a premature death.”

Ostermeier always brings something new to the table, as displayed in such works as Returning to Reims and Richard III, so prepared to be awed in many ways. Who Killed My Father features video design by Sébastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez, stage design by Nina Wetzel, costumes by Caroline Tavernier, lighting by Erich Schneider, and music by Sylvain Jacques.

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE

David Morse, Mary-Louise Parker, and Johanna Day (center three) reprise their roles in Broadway debut of How I Learned to Drive (photo © Jeremy Daniel 2022)

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 12, $79-$299
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

“I’m just a very ordinary man,” Peck says in Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, making its stunning Broadway debut at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through June 12.

“I’ll bet your mother loves you, Uncle Peck,” his teenage niece, Li’l Bit, replies.

The beauty of Vogel’s Pulitzer-winning drama is in its simplicity, the very ordinariness of a complex story about child sexual abuse and its lasting effects on the survivor.

In 1997, forty-three-year-old David Morse and thirty-two-year-old Mary-Louise Parker starred in How I Learned to Drive, he as Peck, she as Li’l Bit, both named after their genitalia. The play primarily takes place in backward chronology from 1969, when he is fifty-two and she is seventeen, except for two key detours to 1970 and 1979. Twenty-five years later, the actors have returned to the parts they originated, joined by the same director, Mark Brokaw, and Johanna Day, who, as Female Greek Chorus, also portrays Li’l Bit’s mother; joining the cast is Alyssa May Gold as Teenage Greek Chorus and Li’l Bit’s grandmother, and Chris Myers as Male Greek Chorus and Li’l Bit’s grandfather, among other characters.

Having Morse and Parker reprise their roles is a stroke of genius; over the last quarter century, their stature as consummate actors has grown, so we are immersed in their characters immediately. Parker, in particular, is a wonder, embodying the teenage Li’l Bit with small gestures and movements that make us forget that she is some forty years older. But the casting also reminds us that in the last twenty-five years, child abuse and pedophilia is still one of society’s most shameful ills, brought to light again in the #MeToo era.

When Peck tells Li’l Bit, “I have loved you every day since the day you were born,” the audience lets out an audible gasp.

Li’l Bit (Mary-Louise Parker) gets life lessons from Female Greek Chorus (Johanna Day) and Teenage Greek Chorus (Alyssa May Gold) (photo © Jeremy Daniel 2022)

Inspired by Nabokov’s Lolita as well as the sexual abuse that she herself suffered, Vogel uses driving lessons as a metaphor for Peck’s grooming of Li’l Bit as his potential victim. The Greek Chorus announces shifts in scenes with such phrases as “Safety First — You and Driver Education,” “Idling in the Neutral Gear,” “You and the Reverse Gear,” and “Implied Consent,” along with subtle changes in lighting by Mark McCullough and sound and original music by David Van Tieghem.

Rachel Hauck’s streamlined set features constantly changing furniture — chairs, tables, a bed — with the only constant a tall wooden post that evokes telephone poles along the road as well as a cross. Dede Ayite’s costumes are straightforward dress; the characters can be anyone, at any recent time.

Li’l Bit’s dilemma is exacerbated when she begins growing breasts, larger than her classmates’. She is teased and made fun of not only by the boys and girls in school but by her own family, who sexualize her with dangerous lessons. “I told you what my mother told me! A girl with her skirt up can outrun a man with his pants down!,” her grandmother says. Her grandfather warns, “If Li’l Bit gets any bigger, we’re gonna have ta buy her a wheelbarrow to carry in front of her.” Her mother teaches her, “Never mix your drinks. Stay with one all night long, like the man you came with . . . damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

Li’l Bit knows from the very start that what Uncle Peck is doing is wrong, but he is so calmly persuasive that she keeps sticking around him. In a key scene, she watches as Peck teaches her cousin Bobby how to fish, essentially a primer for how a man can lure a woman into something she doesn’t want to do. “We’re going to aim for some pompano today — and I have to tell you, they’re a very shy, mercurial fish. Takes patience, and psychology. You have to believe it doesn’t matter if you catch one or not,” he says.

In a car, Uncle Peck tells Li’l Bit, “Put your hands on the wheel. I never want to see you driving with one hand. Always two hands.” After hesitating, she replies, “If I put my hands on the wheel — how do I defend myself?”

Uncle Peck (David Morse) grooms Li’l Bit (Mary-Louise Parker) in powerful revival of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer winner (photo © Jeremy Daniel 2022)

Peck is a knowledgeable fisherman, understanding just how to approach his prey. Tony nominee Morse (The Iceman Cometh, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin) is so successful in the role that, at the talkback that followed the matinee I saw, several women embarrassingly admitted that they were taken in by his character, that they had trouble seeing him as a predator but instead thought he was just a nice guy. That’s precisely what sexual abusers do, fool the observers, and Morse nails it. We want to like him, want him to be our cool uncle too, until we don’t.

Tony winner Parker (The Sound Inside, Proof) is astonishing as Li’l Bit; her timeless, youthful qualities once again shine as she ages seventeen years in the play. Our hearts ache for Li’l Bit as her uncle’s pursuit of her intensifies, but Parker, as ravishingly beautiful as ever, uses her age and experience to give the teenage girl added depth; the audience can’t help but feel her every emotion and search their own lives to examine mistakes they might have made or situations in which they looked the other way. It’s one of the best performances of an adult as a child you’re ever likely to see.

Day (Sweat, The Nap) is excellent as always as the enabler in all of us, while Gold (Taking Woodstock, Our Dear Dead Drug Lord) is a marvel in multiple roles, including a powerful surprise at the end.

Vogel (Indecent, The Baltimore Waltz) and Brokaw (Heisenberg, The Lyons) have done a superb job reimagining this hard-hitting yet delicate, crucial work for these times, a play that in itself is a primer for how to recognize sexual abuse and, hopefully, be able to reach for the brakes. As Li’l Bit warns us, “Sometimes to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson.”

POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive

Ann all-star cast of women create mayhem in Selina Fillinger’s POTUS(photo by Paul Kolnik)

POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE
Shubert Theatre
225 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave
Tuesday – Sunday through August 14, $39-$250
potusbway.com

I can’t remember the last time I consistently laughed so long and hard at the theater. For 110 minutes — including an intermission during which the joyous tears kept falling as we rehashed what we had just experienced in the first act — Selina Fillinger’s outrageous farce, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, had everyone in the Shubert Theatre rolling in the aisles. It’s the funniest play on Broadway in years, but what makes it truly exceptional is that it also has a lot to say about the potential end of the white male patriarchy in America.

The very first word of the play is the “c” slur, the most derogatory term a woman can be called. That’s what the president called his wife, Margaret (Vanessa Williams), at a press conference in front of the world — and the first lady herself. His casual insult sets into motion the behind-the-scenes machinations inside the White House, which is run by his harried chief of staff, Harriet (Julie White), a “walking kegel” with a mannish haircut, and his humorless press secretary, Jean (Suzy Nakamura), who finds turtlenecks to be universally flattering. They rev up to deal with the immediate fallout, but that’s only the start of their berserk day.

Time magazine journalist Chris (Lilli Cooper) is in the West Wing, breast pumps pumping away, as she prepares to interview Margaret for the Women of Excellence series. The young and perky Dusty (Julianne Hough) is wandering around spewing blue vomit and explaining that the president is waiting for her, but no one knows who she is. Stephanie (Rachel Dratch), his hapless secretary and the low dog in the pack, has a photographic memory and speaks five languages, but she’s terrified that Dusty has been called in to replace her. And then Bernadette (Lea DeLaria), the president’s drug-dealing sister and Jean’s former lover, surprises everybody when she suddenly arrives from prison with an ankle monitor, claiming that her brother has pardoned her.

“We’ve talked about this! You can’t pardon someone just because she’s your baby sister!” Margaret says to Harriet. “Our ratings would plummet! We would be crucified! She’s wanted in three countries, Harry. . . . Not to mention all the holidays we’d have to start spending with her if she were to get out — You know, Bernadette bought my daughter a dildo for her sixteenth birthday? And stole my ruby earrings, probably wears them as nipple piercings now.”

Harriet (Julie White) and Jean (Suzy Nakamura) have to negotiate around presidential ass play in Broadway farce (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Harriet and Jean are also dealing with an important endorsement POTUS is scheduled to make, a speech he has to give to the FML (er, Female Models of Leadership Council), and the anal abscess that is preventing him from sitting down.

Jean: How does a person even get an anal abscess?
Harriet: Jerry told him it can happen sometimes from ass play. . . . Ass play. When it’s rough. Ass play.
Jean: I know what ass play is
Harriet: When it’s rough ass play.
Jean: Stop saying ass play. . . . Is that particular activity a plausible cause for this anal abscess?
Harriet: How would I know?
Jean: You’re his right-hand.
Harriet: Not for that activity.

Soon Stephanie is floating through the White House covered in post-it notes and blood with a pink inflatable donut around her waist as the seven women have to band together if they ever want to get out of the West Wing alive, or at least with any remaining stitch of dignity.

Dusty (Julianne Hough), Bernadette (Lea DeLaria), and Jean (Suzy Nakamura) all have different agendas in hysterical comedy (photo by Paul Kolnick)

In a script note, Fillinger (Something Clean, Faceless, The Armor Plays: Cinched/Strapped), who is only twenty-eight, writes, “At least three of these women should be WOC. Actors can be cis, trans, or non-binary. Age is flexible. Beauty is subjective. So long as they’re fast, fierce, and fucking hilarious.” All seven actors are indeed fast, fierce, and fucking hilarious as the nonstop laughs keep swirling past at such a dizzying pace that you’re likely to miss more than a few. Bernadette, upon meeting Dusty, who has a blue mouth: “What’d you do — blow a Smurf? . . . I banged one of those Blue Man guys once — you know, in my experimental phase: stamina like a bull but I was queefing cobalt for days.” Jean: “Is this day about to become an oozing pustule on the anus of my week?” Margaret to Bernadette: “I should have known you were here by the smell of lies and yeast infection.”

But they’re also not past criticizing their own administration. “I don’t think a government as cozy with Saudi Arabia as Bahrain’s can really pass judgment on ours,” Jean says after hearing that “Bahrain is pissy” about the president’s use of the “c” word about his wife.

Five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman, who has directed and/or choreographed such musicals as Crazy for You, Show Boat, The Music Man, and The Producers, brings that sensibility to Potus; the actors’ movements are so carefully choreographed that it’s almost like a whirlwind dance, and several times, during extremely frantic moments, the performers, in Linda Cho’s colorful costumes and Cookie Jordan’s fab hair and wigs, aren’t afraid to put their bodies in harm’s way if they don’t hit their marks just right, filling each minute with added tension. Beowulf Boritt’s spectacular revolving set takes us from the press briefing room to the bathroom to various offices — but never inside the Oval itself, a space that is sadly still occupied by men only.

Chris (Lilli Cooper) and Margaret (Vanessa Williams) are not sure what Stephanie (Rachel Dratch) is up to in the West Wing (photo by Paul Kolnik)

In their Broadway debuts, Emmy winner Hough (Footloose, Dancing with the Stars) holds her own with the all-star veteran cast, Nakamura (Dr. Ken, The West Wing) stands tough even when up against the wall, and Dratch (SNL, Ripcord) nearly steals the show as she roams the White House on puppy uppers and doggie downers. But Fillinger and Stroman allow plenty of room for anyone to steal any scene, which leads to glorious mayhem from Grammy, Emmy, and Tony nominee Williams (Into the Woods, The Trip to Bountiful), spoofing Michelle Obama; DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black, The Rocky Horror Show) living up to her title of go-to raging butch; Cooper (Tootsie, The Wildness) as a single mother trying to keep her life and career in balance; and Tony winner White (The Little Dog Laughed, Airline Highway) as Harriet, who sacrificed it all so she can now steer a sinking ship. “Room full of men, talking about weapons and war, not a woman in sight,” Harriet points out.

The atmosphere in the Shubert is electric from the very second you enter, with pop songs by woman superstars blasting through the speakers, from Rihanna, Heart, and Annie Lennox to Pat Benatar, L7, and Bikini Kill, a playlist that is referred to as BitchBeats in the show; the centerpiece is Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” in which the rock goddess screams out, “Hey man, bet you can’t treat me right / You just don’t know what you was missin’ last night / I wanna see you beggin’, say, ‘Forget it’ just for spite / I think of you every night and day / You took my heart, and you took my pride away.” After POTUS, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and Broadway, might never be the same again.

THE MINUTES

Assalone (Jeff Still), Superba (playwright Tracy Letts), and Breeding (Cliff Chamberlain) form a decidedly white triumvirate in The Minutes (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

THE MINUTES
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 24, $39-$249
212-719-1300
theminutesbroadway.com

Tracy Letts skewers tribal politics and political correctness in the cancel culture age in his acerbic black comedy The Minutes, running on Broadway at Studio 54 through July 24. Letts, who won the Pulitzer Prize for August Osage Country, which deals with a dysfunctional family and a missing patriarch in Oklahoma, now turns his razor-sharp pencil — which the character he portrays, Mayor Superba, actually sharpens during The Minutes — on the small Midwest town of Big Cherry, where truth appears to be a Kafka-like concept.

The ninety-minute play takes place at a city council meeting, where the members are arranged in a semicircle; they are like a dysfunctional family with Superba at the head of the table. Mr. Oldfield (a riotous Austin Pendleton) is the curmudgeony, doddering grandfather, Ms. Innes (Blair Brown) is the Dianne Feinstein–like matronly grandmother, Mr. Superba is the strict father, Mr. Matz (Sally Murphy) is the disheveled, ditzy sister, Mr. Breeding (Cliff Chamberlain) is the snooty, privilege-flaunting younger brother, Mr. Assalone (Jeff Still) is the unscrupulous older brother, Mr. Hanratty (Danny McCarthy) is the good-natured but misguided uncle, Mr. Blake (K. Todd Freeman) is the oddball uncle unable to make decisions for himself, and administrative assistant Ms. Johnson (Jessie Mueller) is the niece trying to keep the family together.

The newest councilmember, the fresh-faced Mr. Peel (Noah Reid), has returned to the chambers after having attended his mother’s funeral; he arrives like it’s the first day of school, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But he is taken aback when he sees that Mr. Carp’s (Ian Barford) space at the table is empty and no one will tell him why. “I’m sure you’ll learn what you need to know,” Johnson tells him before things get underway.

Hanratty is looking for support for his accessible public fountain restoration project, which will be highlighted by a bronze statue of a local war hero. Blake is pushing his Lincoln Smackdown idea. Innes wants to read into the record a statement about the Big Cherry Heritage Festival.

Peel (Noah Reid) shares his issues with Johnson (Jessie Mueller) in sharp Tracy Letts satire (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Peel is intent on finding out why Carp is no longer part of the council, but no one is sharing any details. When Superba skips over the reading of the minutes from the prior week, Peel pushes back, determined that the rules of order be followed and the information be made available. It’s clear that something bad happened that the others have decided to bury, so he attempts to rectify it. However, getting to the bottom of things is not going to be easy, but as secrets are revealed, bit by bit, a clearer picture of what went on the prior week starts coming into focus, a stark portrait of where America is today in 2022, where facts are just another opinion.

Letts, who has written such previously plays as Mary Page Marlowe and Man from Nebraska and starred on Broadway in such classics as All My Sons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, tweaked The Minutes, which debuted at Steppenwolf in 2017, during the pandemic; the play had just begun previews at the Cort in March 2020 when Broadway closed down.

It now feels up to the moment as the play turns toward such controversies as whitewashing history, the validity of monuments, colonialism, and cultural appropriation. In addition, the show replaced the original Peel, scandal-ridden Armie Hammer, with Reid, making his splendid Broadway debut as an idealist who believes that he and the council can really make a difference. (Ha!)

Letts nails the constant frustration of government as the council goes about its activities, which are filled with personal and financial interest and a complete lack of care for the public good. The often surreal conversations reveal the utter hypocrisy and endless nonsense underlying it all as the characters pretend to discuss the underrepresented and argue over nomenclature. Peel regularly corrects the others for strange mispronunciations; “I’m not sure you’re saying that right,” he tells several of the others, but they ignore him as he learns that both what they say and how they say it just doesn’t matter.

When Breeding suggests that it is not the right time for her to read her statement, Innes declines to wait. “It is a statement I’d like to read to the council. About the council,” she says. Breeding responds, “I wonder if it might be more appropriate to read in a meeting of the Council Rules Committee.” Everyone looks at Matz, who has a problematic attention span. “Ms. Matz?” Superba says. “Yes?” she answers. Superba: “You’re chairperson of the Council Rules Committee.” Matz: “Yes, I am.” Superba: “Is there a committee meeting scheduled in the near future?” Matz: “That would depend on your definition of future.” Superba: “‘Events that will happen in the time to come.’” Matz: “Then yes, of course.”

Peel (Noah Reid) finds out more than he ever wanted to know about local politics in The Minutes (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Another hysterical exchange, which would make Beckett proud, occurs between Superba and Oldfield:

Superba: Before we begin, any announcements?
Oldfield: I have an announcement.
Superba: All right, go ahead.
Oldfield: Well, let’s talk about parking.
Superba: Is that an announcement?
Oldfield: I’m announcing that I’d like to talk about parking.
Superba: George, that’s not an announcement.
Oldfield: I believe it is.
Superba: Announcing what you’d like to talk about is not an announcement, any more than announcing that you’re going to the bathroom.
Oldfield: Well, that’s embarrassing. I didn’t think when I came in here tonight I would have to hear the word “bathroom.”
Superba: That might not be the last time tonight you hear that word.
Oldfield: Let me go on the record as saying, “I hope it is.”
Superba: Are there any other announcements?
Oldfield: I would like to announce that there is an unclaimed empty parking space available to this council.
Superba: What are you saying, that you want the parking space?
Oldfield: No, I’m not saying that. Even though I most definitely want the parking space. . . . .
Superba: I still don’t consider this even remotely in the realm of “announcements.”

Over the course of the last few years, with the proliferation of smartphone cameras and the need to record everything, Americans have been privy more than ever to the circuslike atmosphere of town meetings, statehouse discussions, and congressional debates. We see elected representatives butcher the English language, deliver grandstand speeches chock-full of inaccuracies, and misinterpret the law every day. In The Minutes, Letts and director Anna D. Shapiro (Straight White Men This Is Our Youth), who helmed August Osage Country, present the Big Cherry council meeting as if we’re watching C-SPAN, with David Zinn capturing the essence of a council meeting chamber, complete with ridiculous local art, framed proclamations and photographs of former members, and a large U.S. flag. (The costumes are by Ana Kuzmanić, with lighting by Brian MacDevitt and sound and original music by André Pluess.)

In his superbly understated Broadway debut, Reid, the Canadian singer and actor best known for his role as Patrick Brewer on Schitt’s Creek, is a stand-in for the audience, as if he’s our elected representative (voted in by our ticket purchases?), aghast at what he’s seeing; democracy is unraveling right before his, and our, eyes, and no one else in the room seems to care.

Every word matters to Peel, as it does to Letts the playwright, who leaves us with a bizarre finale that is likely to leave your mouth agape, at a loss for words. The title applies not only to the omitted meeting records but also to the short time we have left to fix the mess we’ve made of the great American experiment.