this week in theater

THE DOCTOR

Juliet Stevenson delivers a ferocious performance of intense precision in The Doctor (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography / Park Avenue Armory)

THE DOCTOR
Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
Tuesday – Saturday through August 19, $54-$208
www.armoryonpark.org

“I’m a doctor,” neurosurgeon Ruth Wolff declares throughout Robert Icke’s The Doctor, while others keep categorizing her by her race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. Identity politics and cancel culture collide in complicated ways with faith and medicine in the riveting play, which also takes on conscious and unconscious bias and the battle between science and religion, in a freely adapted update of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 Professor Bernhardi.

Wolff, portrayed by a fierce, unstoppable Juliet Stevenson with boundless energy, is the founding director of the Elizabeth Institute, a well-funded private facility that specializes in treating Alzheimer’s patients. Wolff is currently caring for Emily, a fourteen-year-old girl dying of sepsis after an unregulated abortion; when a priest, Father Jacob (John Mackay), arrives unannounced to deliver last rites, Wolff refuses him entry, stating that whether to receive his visit is Emily’s decision, not that of the priest or the girl’s parents, who are not immediately available.

“Let me make it clearer. Emily is gravely ill. Emily’s parents asked me to be here and to attend to her. Is that not obvious?” Father Jacob demands.

Wolff responds, “It’s obvious when the patient has requested religious assistance, because it’s written on her medical notes. In this instance, there’s nothing of the sort. . . . I have no way of knowing whether she last attended church in a Christening gown. The only thing of relevance is what she herself believes — and I don’t know. I don’t know if you’ve ever met her.”

As Father Jacob attempts to force his way into Emily’s room, Wolff blocks his way — there is some kind of physical confrontation, so cleverly staged that it is impossible to tell who might have struck whom. Emily then dies an awful death, and the characters choose sides based on their personal and professional beliefs, seeing what they want to see, as public pressure builds against Wolff.

The board of the Elizabeth Institute meet to decide the fate of their chair and director in Robert Icke’s The Doctor (photo by Stephanie Berger Photography / Park Avenue Armory)

Senior consultant and deputy director Robert Hardiman (Naomi Wirthner) views the complex situation as a chance to seize power. Dr. Michael Copley (Chris Osikanlu Colquhoun) displays full confidence in Wolff, but Dr. Paul Murphy (Daniel Rabin), putting faith before medicine, is insulted by what Wolff has done, declaring, “This is a Christian country.” Roberts (Mariah Louca), the press liaison who is Jewish, is having trouble dealing with the media, particularly as the religious angle grows more volatile.

Minister for Health Jemima Flint (Preeya Kalidas) expresses support for Wolff and dangles critical government financing if she apologizes. The new junior staff member (Jaime Schwarz) is generally bewildered by the controversy, suddenly learning that being a doctor is more than just treating patients. Professor Cyprian (Doña Croll) endorses everything Wolff did regarding Emily. Meanwhile, the search for a new head of pharmacology becomes an object lesson in decisions based on identity instead of merit.

Whenever she’s at home, Wolff is visited by Sami (Matilda Tucker), a high school student who lives upstairs. The two talk about sex, witches, and death. “We’re all going to die, though,” Sami posits. “Like — a sell-by date for your soul. It’s a ‘when’ not an ‘if.’ Could be tomorrow. Or tonight. In here. Now.”

Meanwhile, Wolff’s partner, Charlie (Juliet Garricks), mysteriously shows up at the institute, introducing each scene. “It might be the moment to bring me up,” Charlie offers. “At work? They don’t get my life. They don’t get to be involved,” Ruth responds. Charlie: “They don’t get to know about me.” Wolff: “What?” Charlie: “You know.” Wolff: “And why would I not talk about you?” Charlie: “Because you are ashamed of the way it makes you seem.” Wolff: “I go in tomorrow and start talking about you, now it’s going to seem like — like I’m asking for my ‘I’m a human too’ badge — some get me off the hook scheme. No. Not doing it.”

In the shorter second act, Wolff must defend herself on television, facing a panel of presumed experts spouting off about religion, abortion and medical ethics, Jewish history and culture, race and privilege, and bias. Wolff sits in a chair with her back to the audience as she is grilled, her face projected on two large screens, looming behind the pontificating blowhards in front of her. “My identity isn’t the issue,” she argues again and again, but no one is listening. Wolff refuses to see herself as a hero or a villain, but there are certain truths that she’s not listening to either.

Hildegard Bechtler’s set is a semicircular wooden wall that serves as a kind of protective barrier, keeping the characters trapped in rooms the way they are trapped by their minds, locked in judging others, with a turntable that rotates agonizingly slowly, unlike the wheels of justice in the court of public opinion; tables and chairs are moved around and Natasha Chivers’s lighting shifts intensity to signify changing from the institute’s bright conference room to Wolff’s much darker apartment. Bechtler also designed the costumes, primarily doctors’ white coats over everyday wear that tends toward black. Tom Gibbons’s sound design flows from board arguments to television show debate to intimate personal discussions, with Hannah Ledwidge adding drums and percussion from an open cube perched over the stage in the back.

Icke (Judas, Animal Farm) knows the Wade Thompson Drill Hall well, having previously presented Hamlet/Oresteia and Enemy of the People there in just the last two years, making fine use of the grand space. The show is extremely talky, with lots of explication and more than enough didacticism, particularly in the second act, and a late scene between Wolff and Father Jacob is sentimental overkill. In addition, during the TV segment, Wolff uses a racist word that ignites further altercation, but it feels forced to add unnecessary verbal fisticuffs.

The excellent cast challenges stereotypes and categorization by portraying characters that don’t look like them (except for Ruth and Flint); for example, whites play Blacks and women play men, although it is not immediately apparent. (Tucker is a standout as the unpredictable Sami.) In the script, Ickes notes, “Actors should be cast with and against the identity of the characters . . . other than in the debate section, where ideally the actors play with their identity. The design is that the audience have to reconsider characters once an aspect of their identity is revealed by the play.” It can get confusing, but that is part of the point, as Ickes lays the groundwork for people to stop classifying, and demonizing, people by race, gender, religion, et al.

But the show belongs to Emmy nominee and Olivier winner Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply; Death and the Maiden), a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court Theatre, and the National Theatre whose only previous North American stage appearance was as Desiree in a 2003 New York City Opera production of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with Jeremy Irons, Claire Bloom, and Anna Kendrick. (Her extraordinary voice narrated Blindness through special headphones at the Daryl Roth two years ago.) Stevenson — Icke wrote the play with her in mind to be the star — is electrifying as Wolff, whether staring someone down, stating her case to doubters, or running around the room in a whirlwind of furious, uncontrollable energy. She stomps across the stage, firmly entrenched in Wolff’s repeated assertions that she is a doctor, justifying her decisions over and over again by adding, “I’m crystal clear.”

The Viennese Schnitzler (Liebelei, Reigen, Das weite Land) wrote dozens of plays, short stories, and novels that were ahead of their time, exploring sexual awareness, social convention, and anti-Semitism in ways that were controversial in his era but relate to what is happening in the twenty-first century. About midway through the first act, when Wolff explains to Copley and Murphy that she is not a practicing Jew, Murphy says, “But you would have been thought of as Jewish — in the 1940s.” She responds by getting to the heart of the story: “Maybe there might be more sensitive ways to reflect on the Jewish identity than the ones pioneered by the Nazis. Thank you, Michael, yes, you and I lost family in that war, and they had stars sewn onto their lapels, but their legacy is this: We now get to choose what defines us — so can we please get on with our lives.”

As we learn in The Doctor, that prescription is not so easy to fill.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A SIMULACRUM

Actor, magician, and illusion designer Steve Cuiffo teams up with an unseen Lucas Hnath in A Simulacrum (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

A SIMULACRUM
Atlantic Stage 2
330 West 16th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 9, $77-$97
atlantictheater.org

Obie-winning playwright Lucas Hnath has a penchant for incorporating elements of stage magic into his works, many of which “take place in the thin place between fiction and reality, between the living and the dead, between performer and attendee,” as I wrote about his 2019 play The Thin Place, which involved ghost stories and a psychic medium. A Doll’s House Part 2 was set in a bright, heavenly room that jutted into the audience. Hillary and Clinton imagines an alternate universe where Hillary Clinton is still running for president. Red Speedo transformed New York Theatre Workshop into an active swimming pool. Dana H. is a true story told via Deirdre O’Connell sitting in a chair and lip-syncing to a recording of Hnath’s mother describing a kidnapping. A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney is narrated by Walt Disney after his death. And in The Christians, Hnath questions faith in God, its own kind of magic.

Hnath tackles real prestidigitation in A Simulacrum, collaborating with actor, magician, and illusion designer Steve Cuiffo, who previously teamed with Hnath on The Thin Place and A Public Reading and has also worked on such visually dazzling shows as Old Hats, Geoff Sobelle’s The Object Lesson, and Anne Juren and Annie Dorsen’s Magical.

Beginning in August 2021, Cuiffo and Hnath spent more than fifty hours workshopping the play in four sessions, as Hnath interviewed Cuiffo about his life and his career and had him perform tricks, ultimately assigning him the task of creating an original illusion that his magic-hating wife, Eleanor, would love. The workshops were recorded, and Hnath edited them down to ninety minutes, cutting out Cuiffo’s voice. Onstage, Cuiffo performs his part of the conversation live, aided by an in-ear device that feeds him his words, which he speaks verbatim.

Cuiffo walks onto the set, based on their rehearsal room on East Fifteenth St., goes over to a table, pops a cassette into a tape recorder, and presses play. Hnath is heard saying, “Um, the image I have in my mind is there might be a table and a chair onstage, and maybe at the beginning of the show, Steve comes out and, uh, there might be a tape player or a tape deck onstage, and he might put a tape in the tape deck, press play, and you’ll hear my voice, all of the questions and things I say during this workshop, and Steve will be re-creating his half of it live, something like that.” Hnath has essentially told us what has just happened, like magic; we also now understand that Cuiffo’s timing must be perfect so as not to mess up the precise dialogue, which he must deliver to the second.

Louisa Thompson’s set also includes a table off to the side with Cuiffo’s tools of the trade and a life-size photograph of one of the walls in the actual rehearsal space. Tyler Micoleau keeps it bright, mimicking the lighting from the workshops. Cuiffo looks past the audience at an imaginary Hnath, speaking directly to him as he discusses his influences and performs tricks that don’t necessarily impress Hnath even when they do impress the audience. Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design maintains the feeling that Cuiffo and Hnath are actually interacting live, although Hnath’s words are scratchy and sometimes hard to make out, as the tape recorder is an old one.

Steve Cuiffo performs a newspaper magic trick in A Simulacrum at Atlantic Stage 2 (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Cuiffo works with a deck of cards, a newspaper, rubber bands, a coin, cups and balls, and Huggums the doll and talks about his wife and son, magic tropes, his childhood, and Harry Houdini. All the while, Hnath asks questions like a dramaturg ensuring that all the dramatic bases are covered. “I don’t know that I’m really parsing any of it,” Hnath says. “We’re losing Steve, we’re losing Steve’s voice. . . .” He adds, “I just want to see stuff I’ve never seen before.”

Hnath is also imagining himself as a member of the audience, as if he’s one of us, watching the show and determining what’s working and what’s not; several times he echoes what we are thinking. For example, the coin trick might be fun, but it’s not what we came to see at the Atlantic Stage 2. “Um, I wrote I’m interested in a trick — you creating a trick, that will always involve some kind of real failure,” Hnath says, getting to the heart of what live theater can be. Not everything clicks; some of the tricks lack a certain oomph in this setting even when they are not failures.

Later, Cuiffo admits, “So the assignments caused me . . . tremendous stress for weeks and weeks.” That kicks off an exciting race to the finish that doesn’t quite end with a flashy Vegas-y flourish.

Cuiffo is a thoroughly charming and engaging character; you keep your eyes fixed on him not just because you want to try to figure out how he does his sleight of hand but because it’s fun being in his company. Hnath, who is a participant and the director, can be a stern taskmaster and judge, but it comes across that they enjoy working together. At one point, Hnath shares a memory about how he used a magic trick as a kid to help him through a terrible fight between his mother and biological father, which hearkens to how writers reach into their own lives to create theater.

A simulacrum is a representation or semblance of something; thus, in the title alone, Hnath and Cuiffo are telling us that what we’re witnessing is not an exact science but a portrayal of something else, much like theater and magic. There’s a “Now you see it, now you don’t” aspect to A Simulacrum; you may never figure out exactly what is going on, but you’ll be glad you were there to experience it.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE WHITNEY ALBUM

Ben Jalosa Williams, Jillian Walker, and Stephanie Weeks star in The Whitney Album at Soho Rep (photo by Lanna Apisukh)

THE WHITNEY ALBUM
Soho Rep
46 Walker St. between Broadway & Church St.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 2, $45 ($.99 Sundays)
sohorep.org

Whitney Elizabeth Houston died on February 11, 2012, at the age of forty-eight; the cause of death was “drowning” and “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.” The Newark-born singer and actress, who has sold more than two hundred million records, serves as inspiration for a celebration of Black woman creators in Jillian Walker’s The Whitney Album, a ritual performance continuing at Soho Rep through July 2.

In the lobby is a table where everyone is invited to say a prayer, set an intention, use essential oils, pour wanter into a vessel, or add the names of Black femme ancestors, honoring “the legacy of the Black Divine Feminine and the souls that have crossed over.”

As the audience enters the theater proper, Stevie Wonder’s seminal 1976 double album, Songs in the Key of Life, a favorite of Houston’s, is playing on a small turntable on the floor. (There are several other records in a pile, so they might alternate music on any given night.) Peiyi Wong’s set is a welcoming space with two cushions between a pair of floor lamps, a bench with ritual objects and sound equipment on it, and a round gold bowl in the center, all surrounded by a circle of purplish blue fabric. There’s a rolling chair stage left; in the far corner is a keyboard and more audio equipment, where sound designer Ben Jalosa Williams sits; a dark room looms in the back as a place for devotion; and an oval cutout above the dark room features sparkly silver mylar. Oona Curley’s lighting changes colors to set different moods. Large wood rectangles on the walls offer surprises when opened by Walker and her cohort, Stephanie Weeks.

The audience is encouraged to wear white clothing and take their shoes and socks off as a way to participate in the experience. Divided into three sections — “A Lecture in Love,” “The exhale scenes,” and “The Alice Prophecy” — the show begins with Gogo (Walker) walking up the first few steps into the audience and, while making gentle, intimate eye contact with everyone, explains that she recently did not get a full-time professorship at Harvard and studied to become an Afro-indigenous priest. “One of the main things I’ve been trained to be, to do, in my practice is to find things that are hidden, to bring hidden things into the light,” she says. “I do this by calling on my Ancestors and listening to them to guide me to what is seemingly lost.”

Jillian Walker’s The Whitney Album is a ritual performance honoring Black femme creators (photo by Lanna Apisukh)

For ninety minutes, Gogo directly and indirectly references Nikki Giovanni, bell hooks, Phillis Wheatley, Lauryn Hill, Suzan-Lori Parks, Lucille Clifton, Alice Coltrane, and Alice Childress, cotton fields, slavery, and chains, while exploring the fame that built up and then beat down Whitney Houston. Walker seeks to show that Whitney was more than just “the Voice,” that she was a person with a body, a soul, a heart, a wife and a mother, battling against “colonial temporalities.” Gogo asks, “How do I/we honor Whitney Houston by way of Sally Hemings? How do I/we create a just historical space for her legacy?”

Gogo and Stephanie sing an alternate national anthem. Whitney gets into a bathtub and has a conversation with her longtime assistant and partner, Robyn Crawford. Clips of Whitney sharing her thoughts and dreams with the media occasionally are heard or projected. An interview with a white journalist (Williams), arranged by Whitney’s mother, Cissy, to restore her daughter’s reputation, is re-created. Gogo and Stephanie put on costumes (by Jojo Siu) and wigs (by Earon Nealey) that match Whitney’s. Whitney admits to Robyn, “All I wanted was to hold on to myself, you know?, while I gave myself away, my whole self. And that included the parts other people didn’t like, because they weren’t shiny, they didn’t fit to reflect the light.” Gogo and Stephanie add more water to the golden vessel.

The show concludes with Gogo asking for members of the audience to join her, Stephanie, and Ben on the floor for two final songs with singalong parts.

Directed by Jenny Koons (Regretfully, So the Birds Are; Theatre for One: I’m Not the Stranger You Think I Am), The Whitney Album can be haphazard, like a record that doesn’t always gel from song to song but has many special moments. It might not be Songs in the Key of Life, but it doesn’t have to be; it’s enchanting and confusing, mystical and metaphysical, spiritual and capricious. But it’s also uniquely beautiful as it takes on how Black woman creators become trapped by a consumptive history that treats them unfairly.

“Come to my ashram, too,” Gogo says after praising Alice Coltrane. “My temple is open.” And all are welcome.

MONSOON WEDDING: THE MUSICAL

Mira Nair’s hit film is now a musical playing at St. Ann’s Warehouse (photo by Matthew Murphy)

MONSOON WEDDING
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Through June 25, $59-$159
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org

St. Ann’s Warehouse is hosting a celebration to remember with award-winning filmmaker Mira Nair’s return to theater, Monsoon Wedding: The Musical. Fifteen years in the making, the two-and-a-half-hour show might be overstuffed and underdeveloped, but it is also a whole lot of fun.

The festivities begin with a preshow march in the lobby with members of the Brooklyn band Red Baraat and others, holding signs and mini-chandeliers and playing brass instruments and percussion; a few times a week, Nair herself is at the head of the procession, encouraging everyone to dance. Ticket holders are then led to either the groom’s side or the bride’s side of the theater; the audience sits in rising rafters on three sides of the stage.

The story is essentially the same as the Golden Lion–winning movie; screenwriter Sabrina Dhawan cowrote the book with associate director Arpita Mukherjee, with lyrics by Tony nominees Masi Asare and Susan Birkenhead. Lalit (Gagan Dev Riar) and Pimmi Verma (Palomi Ghosh), who live in Delhi, have arranged for their daughter, Aditi (Salena Qureshi), to marry the Hoboken-based Hemant (Deven Kolluri), son of Indian Americans Mohan (Jonathan Raviv) and Saroj Rai (Meetu Chilana).

“Hello! Nice to meet you / No, you go first please / chodo the formalities / Oh, hello, hello, hello, hello / Ji, namaste, chalo,” the four parents sing. “We’re all in this together from now / We’re stuck in this together and how much fun, fun, fun! / How fun! / Your family together with us / Two families and lots to discuss.” They soon find out just how much they really do have to discuss, and not all of it is fun.

Hemant (Deven Kolluri) and Aditi (Salena Qureshi) prepare for their arranged marriage in Monsoon Wedding: The Musical (photo by Matthew Murphy)

The materialistic Aditi has been seeing Vikram (Manik Anand), a smarmy, and married, television host. Hemant is coming off a bad relationship. As they explore what their future might be like together, wedding planner PK Dubey (Namit Das) falls for the Vermas’ maid, Alice (Anisha Nagarajan), but is worried that his mother (Sargam Ipshita Bali) won’t approve of the union on religious grounds. Aditi’s cousin Ria (Sharvari Deshpande), who was raised by Lalit and Pimmi, is practically a spinster at thirty and considering going to school in New York. Ria is suspicious of her wealthy uncle Tej Puri (Alok Tewari), who is married to Lalit’s sister, Vijaya (Miriam A. Laube). Also on hand to help are Pimmi’s sister, Shashi (Sargam Ipshita Bali), and her husband, CL (Sevan); Ria’s young cousin, Aliya (Rhea Yadav), who Tej takes a liking to, and Aditi’s younger brother, Varun (Kinshuk Sen), who are preparing a special dance for the wedding; a chai shop owner who offers advice and tea to Hemant (and Diet Coke to Aditi); and Dubey’s comic relief employees, Bholuram (Bhaskar Jha), Lottery (Jamen Nanthakumar), and Mundu (Savidu Geevaratne).

There’s an endearing excitement to Vishal Bhardwaj’s score, as each song is presented in a different Indian style, a mix of raag, thumri, khayal, qawwali, and Pasoori, with playful choreography by Shampa Gopikrishna; the orchestrations are by Jamshied Sharifi, with additional orchestrations and arrangements by Rona Siddiqui. The score is performed by music director Emily Whitaker on keyboards, Soumitra Thakur on sitar, Alison Shearer on soprano sax and flute, Armando Vergara on trombone, Kenny Bentley on sousaphone and bass, Ruan Dugre on guitars, Greg Gonzalez on drums, and Mahavir Chandrawat on Indian percussion; the band sits at the back corners of the stage. As good as the music is — among the twenty songs are “Rain Is Coming (Tip Tip),” “Neither Here Nor There,” “The Heart Knows,” and “Could You Have Loved Me” — there is so much of it that some of the subplots are not fully formed and feel rushed, particularly regarding possible sexual abuse. In addition, Aditi’s transformation from materialistic South Delhi princess to a more caring soul happens too quickly, confusing the love story at the heart of the musical.

However, the show is worth seeing just for a Bollywood-like scene in which Dubey goes after Alice, on horseback, riding through a vast landscape, his hair blowing in the wind.

Jason Ardizzone-West’s set features Indian decorations, a couch that emerges from the back, and a balcony that evokes Romeo & Juliet. David Bengali’s projections range from archival photographs to abstract animation, with lush lighting by Bradley King. Arjun Bhasin, who designed the costumes for the film, contributes colorful, sparkling outfits as well as more customary, everyday Indian wear.

The cast, from India and the Indian diaspora, is lovely from top to bottom, anchored by Deshpande in her off-Broadway debut; her tender, complex performance as Ria represents the rift so many people experience, whether from India or elsewhere, trapped between the modern and the traditional, family life and individuality, and different religions, wanting to honor the past while seeking a brighter future, perhaps in America. “Is this my home, India? / Like a half-remembered song? / And when I meet by bride / will I feel like I belong?” Hemant sings. Whether we will belong or not is a question we’ve all asked ourselves, at one time or another.

Joyfully directed by Nair (Mississippi Masala, Salaam Bombay!), Monsoon Wedding: The Musical is a kind of Mumbai Fiddler on the Roof, with a soft heart, a mischievous sense of humor, and a touching honesty that is like a friend or relative’s wedding, balancing a series of emotions that can blow hot or cold at any given moment. And don’t forget to come ready to dance.

PRIMARY TRUST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bert is imaginary, and Kenneth knows it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GREY HOUSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here. Ed. note: Grey House closed early, on July 30.]

THE SHYLOCK AND THE SHAKESPEAREANS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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