this week in theater

PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

A Jewish family in Paris faces anti-Semitism in Joshua Harmon epic (photo by Matthew Murphy)

PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
Manhattan Theatre Club
MTC at New York City Center – Stage I
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 27, $99
212-581-1212
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

“Why do they hate us?” a Jewish character asks near the end of Joshua Harmon’s extraordinary Prayer for the French Republic, which opened tonight at MTC at New York City Center – Stage I for a limited run (now extended through March 27). The playwright’s characters answer the question without being preachy or, perhaps even more important, preaching to the choir. In this three-hour multigenerational time-traveling epic, Harmon explores the centuries-old scourge of anti-Semitism with exquisite skill through the experiences of one family.

The play goes back and forth between 1944–46 and 2016–17, narrated by Patrick Salomon (Richard Topol), part of a long line of Salomons who have been in France for more than a thousand years. In his fifties, Patrick is part stage manager from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, part Woody Allen from Annie Hall, watching and interacting with characters from the past and present.

In 2016, Molly (Molly Ranson), a twenty-year-old college student from America, has come to visit her distant cousins in Paris while studying abroad in Nantes. She arrives on a day when Daniel Benhamou (Yair Ben-Dor), the twenty-six-year-old son, comes home beaten and bloodied after an anti-Semitic attack. His mother, Marcelle Salomon Benhamou (Betsy Aidem), wants to call the police and take Daniel to the hospital, but he refuses. His father, Charles Benhamou (Jeff Seymour) — both parents are successful doctors — is calmer, carefully checking his son’s injuries.

Elodie (Francis Benhamou), Daniel’s brilliant manic-depressive older sister, is incensed that Marcelle blames Daniel’s thrashing on his unwillingness to cover his yarmulke. Elodie doesn’t think Jews should have to hide who they are, while Marcelle is more fearful of the consequences. “You put a huge target on your back!” Marcelle shouts. “Oh, so Daniel’s asking for it now? Is that seriously your argument? He’s asking for it?” Elodie asserts.

The play uses that as a jumping-off point, with scenes marked by full-throated disagreements, quiet allusions, and an astonishing amount of smoothly integrated analysis of Israel, religious and secular Jews, and Judaism in France through the ages, encompassing such events as the People’s Crusade in 1096, the Valentine’s Day massacre of 1349 in Strasbourg, and the 1960s postcolonial exodus of Algerian Jews to France. Set pieces incorporate discussions of Israeli and American Jews and the mass shootings at Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan theater, and a kosher supermarket in Paris. The characters are troubled by the rise of Marine Le Pen and the National Front in France while considering the fate of the family’s last piano store, a legacy that goes back to 1855.

Irma (Nancy Robinette) and Adolphe Salomon (Kenneth Tigar) wonder where their children and grandchildren are in 1944 Paris (photo by Matthew Murphy)

The play is deeply rooted in history, presented in both monologues and flashbacks, particularly to the mid-1940s, when Marcelle’s great-grandparents, the elderly Irma Salomon (Nancy Robinette) and her husband, Adolphe (Kenneth Tigar), are living in Paris despite the occupation, not about to evacuate their home or give up the life they’ve built together. They worry every minute about the fate of their children, Jacqueline, Robert, and Lucien (Ari Brand), and their grandchildren, including Lucien’s son, Pierre Salomon (Peyton Lusk); Jacqueline escaped to Cuba, but Robert and Lucien are missing.

As Irma and Adolphe, who runs the piano business, sit at the dinner table, Patrick wonders about his great-grandparents. “What were they like, as people?” he asks. “What did they talk about? I have to imagine it was hard not to talk about their children, their grandchildren. . . .” Irma responds as if Patrick is right there with them: “We don’t talk about our children that much.” Adolphe then regales his wife with a beautiful fairy tale in which every member of their family is happy, healthy, and safe, an unlikely fantasy.

Over the course of three hours (with two intermissions), Patrick, the son of a Catholic mother and nonreligious Jewish father, wanders between eras, sharing what details he knows, singing at the Salomon piano that his sister Marcelle inherited, and occasionally participating in the modern-day moments, highlighted by a Passover Seder that turns ugly fast.

Molly (Molly Ranson), Charles (Jeff Seymour), and Daniel (Yair Ben-Dor) make sufganiyot together in world premiere play from MTC (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Terrorism and fear are perpetually on their minds. In an early exchange, Molly, who represents the current battle over BDS and other Israel-related issues on American college campuses, and Marcelle, who represents, well, one of my mother’s best friends, get into it.

Molly: My parents didn’t want me to come to France at all, but . . .
Marcelle: Why not?
Molly: Just cause of all the, you know. The terrorism.
Marcelle: There’s terrorism everywhere.
Molly: That’s what I said, but they were scared.
Marcelle: Aren’t you from New York? What’s to be scared?
Molly: I agree.
Marcelle: The whole world has terrorism now. There’s nowhere to hide. Either you live in the world, or you live in a cave. Personally, I don’t want to be a caveman.

Charles, whose family escaped Algeria when it became too dangerous, admits, “I’m scared, Marcelle. You lay everything out, you lay it out so rationally, and I hear every word you’re saying, but, I’m scared. We are Jews. We are Jews. The only reason we’re still on this planet is because we learned to get out of dangerous situations before they got the better of us. Something is happening in the world, and it’s happening in our country too — I can feel it.” When he says “our country too,” it’s impossible not to think about how it’s happening in America today, with brutal assaults on Jews from Pittsburgh, Boise, and New York City to Colleyville, St. Petersburg, and Poway.

Francis Benhamou brings down the house in a dazzling monologue when Elodie, in a bar with Molly, rants and rages about American Judaism and misperceptions about Israel. “American Jews . . . feel pretty free,” she explains in a verbal barrage. “So when it comes to Israel, they either despise it, or they’re slavishly devoted to it because they have a deep-seated understanding in their bones that there has never been a country on Earth that hasn’t eventually at some point turned on its Jews, and even in America, that fate awaits them too. Then you have the American Jew who hates Israel or is highly critical of Israel and I would argue part of why they feel able to be so critical of Israel is because they feel so safe in America, because they’ve convinced themselves that they can stay in America forever and maybe that’s true now but if history is our guide and history must always be our guide then you have to ask, so you feel safe today but will that be the case a hundred years from now? Or ten?” It’s a discussion I know I’ve had many times with friends and relatives, and Harmon nails it.

Narrator Patrick Salomon (Richard Topol) goes back and forth in time in Prayer for the French Republic (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Takeshi Kata’s elegant set rotates between the Benhamous’ lovely home and the Salomons’ less-fashionable wartime apartment. Tony, Drama Desk, and Obie–winning director David Cromer, who mounted a groundbreaking adaptation of Our Town on Broadway in 2009 (as well as helming The Band’s Visit, The Sound Inside, Tribes, and many other well-regarded shows), seamlessly integrates the two eras, which are often onstage together, one in the background of the other like a ghost, with superb lighting by Amith Chandrashaker and sound by Lee Kinney and Daniel Kluger.

The cast is uniformly outstanding, with Topol’s (Anatomy of a Suicide, The Normal Heart) naturally calm, likable demeanor alleviating some of the palpable tension until there’s no stopping it; Topol previously starred as Lemml, the immigrant stage manager and narrator, in Paula Vogel’s Tony-nominated Indecent, about the making of Sholem Asch’s controversial 1907 Yiddish play, God of Vengeance. Ranson imbues Molly with an inner strength and confidence that has her going toe-to-toe with her cousins, who have a tendency to be loud and forceful; Ranson similarly portrayed Melody, Liam’s (Michael Zegen) shiksa goddess, in Harmon’s Bad Jews, which also dealt with the Holocaust and family legacy. Ranson and Ben-Dor have an immediate chemistry as they balance fighting and flirtation.

Even Daniel’s fondness for Bob Dylan is no mere affectation, as the Nobel- and Pulitzer-winning troubadour famously went from being Jewish to a born-again Christian and back to Jewish during his fabled career; his 1983 album, Infidels, features several songs about Israel.

But it’s Harmon’s (Significant Other, Admissions) impeccable dialogue and razor-sharp characterizations that take center stage. Every word, every action rings true and hits home; he gets the Jewish American experience just right, even if this is a Parisian family (that speaks English without the hint of a French accent). I’ve been involved in these arguments and know these people well; I’m planning on memorizing a bunch of lines in time for this year’s Seders.

SHHHH

Shareen (Clare Barron) and Kyle (Greg Keller) have an unusual relationship in Shhhh (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

SHHHH
Atlantic Stage 2
330 West 16th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 13 (extended through February 20), $61.50-$81.50
atlantictheater.org

ASMR meets S&M in Clare Barron’s latest dark comedy, Shhhh, which opened tonight at Atlantic Stage 2 for a woefully limited run through February 13 (now extended to February 20). The semiautobiographical play touches on all five senses, beginning with a physical and metaphorical cleansing that concludes with ASMR podcaster Sally, aka Witchy Witch (Constance Shulman), whispering to her listeners, “Indulge yourself. . . . You deserve it.” And for the next ninety minutes, that’s exactly what the six characters do, indulging themselves amid sex, spit, sperm, snot, STDs, and shit as Barron, who wrote and directed the work and stars as Shareen, explores pain, power, penetration, and privilege along with consent, condoms, communication, and control. It’s a feminist reversal of stories by such authors as Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, and Ernest Hemingway, putting women in charge of an unexpected narrative that goes places where primarily only men have gone before, diving headfirst (or, in one case, toe first) into sex, sadism, and blood and guts.

Shareen is a thirtysomething writer who is sick with an undiagnosed illness. “It’s like the inside of my mouth is one of those fast-forward flowers from the movie Planet Earth?” she tells Kyle (Greg Keller), a neighbor and former lover as she brushes her teeth and he sits on the toilet. “Except instead of flowers. I’m blossoming snot. And then I just swallow.” Kyle isn’t the only one in the theater who lets out an “ew.” It’s a terrific scene that lets the audience know that they are in store for something more than a little bit different.

All the characters speak frankly about bodily functions, about things entering and leaving their various orifices, incorporating pain and pleasure, often at the same time. Sally, a postal worker who is considering transferring to the forensics department — just the word “forensics” makes one think of cop shows in which the forensics unit is usually tasked with investigating the brutal murders of women — takes her date, a gender-fluid dog walker named Penny (Janice Amaya), to the Morbid Anatomy Museum, which includes an encased, full-size anatomical Venus, complete with death mask and innards sticking out. Sally offers Penny the chance to try out an electric device with her that can either “tickle or hurt.”

Francis (Nina Grollman) and Sandra (Annie Fang) talk about sex in graphic detail in Atlantic world premiere (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Greg uses a graphic description of a horrific accident as foreplay to a perhaps unwanted intrusion. Shareen discusses the hairs on her chin and her inability to orgasm. Two young women in gloriously kinky glittering finery, Francis (Nina Grollman) and Sandra (Annie Fang), eat pizza while delving into their numerous sexual partners and the men’s insistence on not using protection.

Francis admits, “Sometimes I think if someone were to give me a button and say: If you push this button you could kill all the heterosexual men in the world, I would be ethically obligated to push that button. . . . But then here I am, a very privileged white woman. So maybe someone would be obligated to push the button for me as well.” Meanwhile, Sandra says about herself, “Wow. You are so happy You have never been so alone,” considering that she doesn’t necessarily need to be with a man to be satisfied.

Arnulfo Maldonado’s set is a kind of gothic museum, from mattresses strewn on the floor (one of which audience members can sit on) and glass jars of creepy items to a dingy bathroom and a barely visible kitchen in the entryway. The eerie lighting is by Jen Schriever, with sound by Sinan Zafar; Unkle Dave’s Fight House provides intimacy and fight direction.

Shhhh is extremely satisfying, alternating myriad laughs with an abundance of winces and cringes. Its inherent feminism comes equipped with a whip ready to do battle and draw blood, but it also has an innate charm that makes you welcome the thrashing. Every scene takes the complex narrative to another level where the audience better be ready for anything, because the play is wholly unpredictable from start to finish. Every time you think, no, it’s not gonna go there, it does, and then goes even further. Kudos to the brave actors who aren’t afraid of the journey.

Constance Shulman and playwright-director Clare Barron star as sisters in Shhhh (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Shareen, wearing a tiny, shiny summer slip dress — the superb costumes are by Kaye Voyce — is tired of having to make decisions for herself. “I just want somebody to tell me when and where I can go to the bathroom,” she says. It’s a strong moment, especially when taken in the context of Barron’s personal and professional life. In “Not Writing,” a revealing piece she posted in August 2020 in the inaugural issue of Playwrights Horizons’ online “Almanac: Pasts, Nows, Futures,” she discussed her early success, mental breakdown, and struggle with bipolar disorder.

Alongside pictures of her cats and messy apartment, she explained, “The American Theater gets a real hard-on for a twenty-seven-year-old debut, and it’s impossible to separate the art from this world-premiere fanfare. I’ve played with this whole sexualized image of youth my whole career. It is authentically who I am, but I’m also using it because I know that as a young, white woman in America, this is one reliable way in which I can have power. My youth, my whiteness, my thinness, my Yale degree have all given me permission and protection to talk about whatever the fuck I want and still be taken seriously. These aspects of my identity have gotten me attention, gotten me jobs . . . They’ve made me palatable to people in power.”

More than merely palatable, Barron has been duly praised for her previous work, winning an Obie for 2015’s You Got Older and the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Dance Nation, which was also a Pulitzer finalist. Shhhh was written in 2016 but is only now having its world premiere at the Atlantic.

Barron indeed talks about whatever the fuck she wants in this world-premiere production. One of the most critical lines in the play is when Francis, talking about how men judge women’s bodies, says, “I don’t fucking dissect his body into fucking pieces like a fucking dead animal.” It’s made even more effective with the anatomical Venus hovering just behind her.

In “Not Writing,” Barron also opines, “I haven’t written a play in four years. I don’t know if I’ll write a play ever again. Who cares.” A whole lot of people do.

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

The Tyrone family faces the coronavirus in new streamlined Audible production (photo by Joan Marcus)

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
Audible Theater’s Minetta Lane Theatre
18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Ave. and MacDougal St.
Through February 20 (no shows Monday and Friday), $57-$97
www.audible.com
longdaysoffbroadway.com

Jonathan Miller’s 1986 Broadway revival of Long Day’s Journey into Night created an uproar because the characters spoke over one another rather than treating Eugene O’Neill’s dialogue like gospel. Purists may also be unhappy with Robert O’Hara’s modern-day streamlined adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic about a dysfunctional family, but audiences at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, where O’Hara’s version opened tonight for a four-week run before being available on audio, may feel differently — or not.

As the crowd enters the theater, a large onstage monitor plays a loop of clips from CNN about the Covid-19 crisis and the 2020 presidential election. Clint Ramos’s multilevel set is strewn about with Fed Ex and Amazon boxes, a stack of masks, and a bar in the back. The coronavirus has come to the Tyrone family, who’ve been fast-forwarded into the twenty-first century.

O’Neill wrote the semiautobiographical play in 1941 and set it in 1912; O’Hara has moved it up more than a hundred years but hasn’t altered a single word. However, he has made significant cuts to the text, trimming the show down to a too-lean 110 intermissionless minutes; the play usually runs more than three hours and two breaks. Although much of the depth is lost, the production is still compelling, primarily because of excellent performances by real-life husband and wife Bill Camp as actor James Tyrone and Elizabeth Marvel as Mary Tyrone, a morphine addict who can’t face reality.

James Tyrone (Bill Camp) tries to take a break while his wife, Mary (Elizabeth Marvel), shoots up in off-Broadway O’Neill revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Tyrones’ older son, Jamie (Jason Bowen), was groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps but instead is a ne’er-do-well writer who spends all his money on booze and hookers. Younger son Edmund (Ato Blankson-Wood) is seriously ill, even if local Dr. Hardy says otherwise, thinking it might be a fever Edmund caught in the tropics. In O’Neill’s text, Jamie has tuberculosis — pretty much a death sentence in 1912 — but in this production it is clear that he has the coronavirus, and the family’s varying attitudes about his diagnosis are reminiscent of the start of the pandemic, before much was known about Covid-19.

O’Hara turns most of the focus on Mary; less time is spent on the others and their concerns inside and outside the house, from careers to alcoholism. Usually, James, Jamie, and Edmund only talk about Mary heading into the spare room, where she takes her morphine, but here we clearly see her sitting at a small table and shooting up, visible through a cutout in the back brick wall. It’s a disturbing image, causing a different kind of visceral reaction; it also made me wonder why one of the characters doesn’t just go upstairs and take the syringe and drugs away from her, a thought that never occurred to me in other productions I’ve seen. (Those include the aforementioned 1986 adaptation with Jack Lemmon, Bethel Leslie, Peter Gallagher, and Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Kent’s 2016 Broadway revival with Gabriel Byrne and Jessica Lange, and Sir Richard Eyre’s 2018 presentation at BAM with Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville.)

Real-life husband-and-wife Bill Camp and Elizabeth Marvel get frisky in Long Day’s Journey into Night (photo by Joan Marcus)

The emotions between James and Mary are palpable, whether they’re flirting with each other or in a tense standoff; Camp (The Crucible, The Queen’s Gambit) and Marvel (Hedda Gabler, Homeland) display an instant chemistry that never lets up, enhanced by Yee Eun Nam’s abstract projections that reveal Mary’s inner turmoil. But the sons feel more distant and underdeveloped; there’s no longer the necessary back story to make us care about them, and neither Blankson-Wood (Slave Play, The Rolling Stone) nor Bowen (The Play That Goes Wrong, If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka) is given enough to do.

In a production note, O’Hara explains, “The O’Neill Estate has allowed us to imagine this glorious play into the future that we are currently living through. . . . In both its concept and its brevity, this version is not meant to be anything other than an exploration of living in the time of a pandemic through the story and language of one of our greatest playwrights.” In updating the work, Tony nominee and two-time Obie winner O’Hara (Slave Play, Bootycandy) has left the skeletal structure but has removed a large chunk of the soul. And it’s one thing to perform this adaptation live onstage, with a full set, but I can’t imagine how it would work as an audio piece, without the props that place the Tyrones firmly in the Covid era.

NOW IN PROCESS

NOW IN PROCESS
New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher St.
January 26 – February 6, $15, 7:00
newohiotheatre.org

Previously known as the Producers Club, New Ohio Theatre’s annual Now in Process festival is back with a hybrid edition, consisting of four works in progress taking place at the troupe’s Christopher St. home in the West Village and online. “Now in Process is where artists try out their next great idea — in its earliest stages,” artistic director Robert Lyons said in a statement. “We like to be there at the beginning and watch projects grow. This year we have four very different groups with one thing in common — they are fearless.”

The series kicks off January 26-27 with Claire and Pierce Siebers’s The Forest at Night, a concert version of the tale of Hansel and Gretel, with the creators playing the siblings who go on a dangerous journey. In Who Gets to Be Egyptian? (January 29-30), poet, actor, class mixologist, dancer, salesman, activist, artist, pianist, and teacher Michael Gene Jacobs, aka MikeDriven and M1, directs Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Anna Wulfekuhle, Dylan Gervais, and Lomar Collins, using ancient stories to celebrate Blackness and Black power. On February 2-3, NYC-based performance collective Exiled Tongues presents Kept in the Dark, written by Dena Igusti and directed by Ray Jordan Achan, which follows a journalist exposing rape culture and Title IX abuses in high schools. Now in Process concludes February 5-6 with Sherry Lutken’s The Porch on Windy Hill, written by Lutken, Lisa Helmi Johanson, David Lutken, and Morgan Morse, in which a couple escapes quarantine in Brooklyn and heads to western North Carolina seeking out the history of Appalachian music, encountering such songs as “Down in the Valley,” “Green Corn,” “Blackberry Blossom,” and “Sail Away Ladies.” The second performance of each show will be livestreamed.

ADDRESSLESS: A WALK IN OUR SHOES

Addressless presents complicated choices for three homeless New Yorkers over three winter months

ADDRESSLESS
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater online
Thursday – Tuesday through February 13, $1 – $30
www.rattlestick.org

Rattlestick’s virtual, participatory Addressless is an involving piece of activist theater that could only happen online, away from its home on Waverly Pl. The interactive show shines a light on housing insecurity, an issue that has grown during the coronavirus pandemic as New York City shuttles the homeless between hotels and congregate and noncongregate shelters.

Created and directed by Martin Boross of the Hungarian collective STEREO AKT and written by playwright and social worker Jonathan Payne, Addressless is a choose-your-own-adventure style production in which the audience is assigned to one of three teams, trying to help their designated character find safe haven in a harsh city. Louis (Joey Auzenne) is a thirty-three-year-old army vet who is having a difficult time getting a job and a place to sleep. Josie (Bianca Norwood) is a teenage runaway from Buffalo escaping from a drug-addicted mother and an alcoholic father. And Wallace (Shams DaBaron, aka “Da Homeless Hero”) is a fifty-two-year-old single father who’s been homeless on and off since he was ten. The show is hosted by real-life social worker Hope Beaver, who is originally from Texas and now works at a family shelter at Henry Street Settlement, caring for single mothers and their children eight and under.

Addressless is set up as a game, and team members vote on what their character should do over the course of three winter months. Each choice affects how much money the individual has and the state of their health as they attempt to accumulate $1500 to qualify for a housing lottery to live rent free for a year in a new development on the Lower East Side. They choose between sleeping on the streets, which requires the least amount of cash but has the most severe impact on their health, going to a shelter (a kind of middle road), or couch surfing (best for health but most expensive).

A social worker offers choices to military vet Louis (Joey Auzenne) in interactive virtual show from Rattlestick

The teams meet privately in breakout rooms to discuss the options, then vote on the final decision. It is suggested you keep your camera on, and you are encouraged to participate but don’t have to. Being able to see where everyone is zooming in from emphasizes the audience’s privilege: having somewhere to live, owning a computer, laptop, or handheld device, and being able to afford a ticket to the show. (General admission is $30, but there are pay-what-you-can nights beginning at $1.)

Although you’re supposed to comment and vote only on your specific team’s character, the night I went a few people spoke far too often about and voted for all three, which got a little annoying, so hopefully the rules have been clarified since then. I was on Team Wallace, and I found it invigorating to help him make his choices each month. The discussions are about where they will sleep as well as deciding, for example, whether to pose for a photographer for twenty bucks, go to an acquaintance’s work party or attend an AA meeting, or accept a shelter transfer from Manhattan to the Bronx. Depending on what the team decides, the vote is followed by a prerecorded scene depicting the results of the choice. Spoiler alert: There are not a whole lotta good outcomes.

The supporting cast in the prerecorded vignettes includes Faith Catlin as an AA facilitator, Alok Tewari as an ER doctor, Paten Hughes as a high school classmate of Josie’s, Keith Randolph Smith as the photographer, and Michael Laurence as a sales manager, in addition to Chima Chikazunga, Mahira Kakkar, Tara Khozein, Olivia Oguma, and Lisa Ramirez. The production design is by Johnny Moreno, with sets and props by Patricia Marjorie, costumes by Olivera Gajic, music by Tara Khozein, sound by Julian Evans, graphics and animation by Maiko Kikuchi, video editing by Matthew Russell, and integration design by Victoria A. Gelling. It’s not the flashiest online production, instead more DIY that fits in with the overall theme.

It might be a game — Payne (The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d, The Briar Patch) is a self-proclaimed Dungeons & Dragons geek, so he knows about character and narrative — but it’s built to make you care deeply about the three homeless people, humanizing them, the way you probably wouldn’t if you simply passed them on the street; when I served as Wallace’s banker for December and raised him the smallest amount of money of the three of them, I was truly disappointed in myself, and that failure has stayed with me. Wallace was still upbeat, as that is first-time actor DaBaron’s general nature; during the pandemic, DaBaron, who is also a writer, filmmaker, and hip-hop artist, advocated for the homeless all around the city and particularly the men who were moved to the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side. Auzenne (Wu Tang: An American Saga, Our Lady of 121st Street) plays it much harder as Louis, while Norwood (Plano) gives Josie a distrustful edge.

Based on actual experiences and presented in partnership with Urban Pathways and Community Access, Addressless deals with unfairness and injustice in a way that will make you feel both helpless and furious. At the beginning of the presentation, Beaver says, “I am not an actor. Wish me luck; I’m gonna need it.” She avails herself well as our host, sharing important statistics about homelessness that are likely to surprise you. But like DaBaron, she believes changes can and will be made. As Wallace points out in one vignette, sometimes he just wants to feel “a part of the world again. Like I was fittin’ right in.” But all choices have consequences when you’re without an address.

[To find out more, you can join a virtual community conversation, “Addressing the Addressless,” on February 8 at 5:00; admission is free with advance RSVP.]

ASSASSINS

e ( Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Tavi Gevinson) and Sara Jane Moore (Judy Kuhn) share their distaste for President Ford and KFC in Assassins (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ASSASSINS
Classic Stage Company
Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 30 [Ed. note: All performances have been canceled as of January 25]
www.classicstage.org

The late Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in November at the age of ninety-one, is currently represented in New York City by two musicals, Marianne Elliott’s stirring, gender-switching Broadway revival of the beloved Company at the Jacobs and John Doyle’s far less exciting adaptation of the much less worshiped Assassins at Classic Stage.

Kicking off his final year as artistic director at Classic Stage, Doyle, who began there in 2016, won a Tony for directing Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd in 2005; he also staged a Tony-winning revival of Company in 2006 and helmed Merrily We Roll Along at Watermill in 2008. Despite his familiarity with Sondheim, his Assassins, which sold out almost instantly and has been extended through January 30, misses its mark. [Ed. note: All performances have been canceled because of a Covid outbreak in the company on January 25.]

The show was initially scheduled to open in March 2020, so anticipation only built higher during the pandemic lockdown before it eventually began its run in November 2021. Although no tickets are available, you might be able to grab a cancellation because of the omicron variant; the night I went, there were more than twenty vacant seats, a sign of the times.

Assassins brings together nine men and women who have tried to kill the president of the United States (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The musical, featuring a book by librettist and TV writer John Weidman, who also collaborated with Sondheim on Pacific Overtures and Road Show, gives nine men and women the opportunity to defend their attempts to assassinate the president of the United States. The carnival atmosphere is facilitated by the Proprietor (Eddie Cooper), on a stage jutting out with the audience on three sides. In addition to directing, Doyle designed the set, which boasts the American flag spread across the floor under a large monitor on which photos of the presidents are posted like targets.

“Hey, pal — feelin’ blue? / Don’t know what to do? / Hey, pal — / I mean you — / Yeah. C’mere and kill a president,” the Proprietor sings in “Everybody’s Got the Right,” continuing, “No job? Cupboard bare? / One room, no one there? / Hey, pal, don’t despair — / You wanna shoot a president? / C’mon and shoot a president . . . Some guys / think they can’t be winners. / First prize / often goes to rank beginners.”

A terrific cast can’t breathe enough life into the choppy narrative, which goes back and forth among the assassins, who are joined by an ensemble of backup singers and musicians. Ethan Slater stands out as the Balladeer, a kind of traveling troubadour, and is almost unrecognizable as Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed JFK. Judy Kuhn adds comic relief as Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at Gerald Ford in September 1975, a few weeks after Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Tavi Gevinson) botched her attempt at the Nixon pardoner. Steven Pasquale tries to steal the show as Lincoln killer John Wilkes Booth but is overly dominant while Adam Chanler-Berat is barely there as Ronald Reagan shooter John Hinckley Jr.

Steven Pasquale plays John Wilkes Booth in Sondheim-Weidman revival at Classic Stage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Will Swenson is well-educated James A. Garfield murderer Charles Guiteau; Wesley Taylor is naturalized citizen Giuseppe Zangara, who fired at FDR but killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak instead; Andy Grotelueschen (now replaced by Danny Wolohan) is Samuel Byck, who tried to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House to kill Richard Nixon; and Brandon Uranowitz is anarchist Leon Czolgosz, who shot and killed William McKinley in 1901. The show perhaps works best as an argument for stronger gun control laws.

The assassins are all in period costumes except for Byck, who wears a Santa suit; the ensemble of singers and musicians (Brad Giovanine, Bianca Horn, Whit K. Lee, Rob Morrison, and Katrina Yaukey) wear red, white, or blue jumpsuits. (The effective costumes are by Ann Hould-Ward, with wigs by Charles G. LaPointe.) Some of the cast also have American flag masks that they whisk off when they sing.

Presidential assassins make their case in off-Broadway musical (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The musical numbers, which range from “Gun Song” and “Unworthy of Your Love” to “Another National Anthem” and “Something Just Broke” and have unconventional orchestrations, don’t stick with you; they simply come and go. The idea itself is a grand one; watching these assassins mix and mingle is at times fascinating, but there is little flow to the book, which too often wilts or becomes confusing as it tries to neither celebrate nor revile the characters, who chose a dangerous path to change the country and their own place in it.

“So many people confuse the right to happiness with the right to the pursuit of happiness,” Sondheim said in Classic Stage’s 2021 “Tell the Story” virtual gala, in which he and Weidman relate the show to the January 6 insurrection, during which the lives of the vice president and the Speaker of the House were under threat. Even given the newfound relevance, though, the show feels dated.

To find out more about Assassins, you can check out Classic Stage’s ongoing Classic Conversations series, which during the lockdown featured members of the cast and crew discussing the revival.

THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

Cecily Strong makes her New York stage debut in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (photo by Kate Glicksberg for the Shed)

THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
Griffin Theater at the Shed, the Bloomberg Building
545 West 30th St. at Eleventh Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 6, $49-129
646-455-3494
theshed.org

Covid-19 has changed the way we experience live theater. Simply lining up to get in, theatergoers run into different rules at different venues, some more invasive and slow going than others.

So when I whisked right into the Shed’s Griffin Theater to see Cecily Strong in a revival of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, I was initially disappointed to see so many empty seats fairly close to curtain time. I couldn’t help but wonder if people were staying away because of the omicron variant, because they were waiting for the reviews to come out, because Strong was not a big enough theatrical name (which I doubted), or because there had been some kind of bad word of mouth that hadn’t made it my way.

Fortunately, I was wrong in all cases, as the crowd streamed in to nearly fill the place. The opening lines of the play recognize the integral relationship between performer and audience as Strong, as the unnamed star of the show, says, “Thank you all for coming tonight. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you here. There’s always the chance that you might not show up. I think most actors worry about playing to an empty house. I also worry about playing to a full house and leaving the audience empty.”

The audience is not left empty in the ninety-minute one-woman show, written by Jane Wagner specifically for her partner, Lily Tomlin. It was first seen on Broadway in 1985 at the Plymouth, earning Tomlin a Tony; it was turned into a film in 1991 and revived at the Booth in 2000. All along, Wagner has been tweaking the script; the 2022 edition features new quips about the climate crisis, cybersex, Elon Musk, and GPS, but its focus on fear, false hopes, and interconnectedness as humanity tries to find meaning in its everyday existence is still front and center.

Strong portrays eleven characters, going through small wardrobe changes — Anita Yavich’s costumes include a rainbow umbrella hat, an overcoat laden inside with post-it notes, and various other minor touches — as she moves back and forth on a ratty stage occupied by a cart of neverending acquired objects. (The set is by Christine Jones and Mary Hamrick, with lighting by Stacey Derosier, sound and music by Elisheba Ittoop, and choreography by James Alsop.)

Cecily Strong embodies eleven characters in one-woman show (photo by Kate Glicksberg for the Shed)

Our guide is Trudy, a homeless woman, now squatting in the theater — Strong wears a black Shed T-shirt under all her outfits — who formerly was a successful corporate designer and creative consultant but now wanders the streets of New York City conversing with alien creatures, helping them collect data.

“Those shock treatments seemed to give me new electrical circuitry,” Trudy explains. “I get like these time-space continuum shifts. My brain is so far beyond, it’s staggering. Suddenly it was like my central nervous system had a patio addition out back. Not only do I have a linkup to extraterrestrial channels, I also got a hookup to humanity as a whole.” These shifts, in which Strong becomes other characters, are accompanied by a flash of light and crash of sound.

Agnus Angst is a fourteen-year-old punk performance artist and “new bio-form” with a negative attitude whose parents have locked her out of the house. (“We are all micro-SPECKS on SPECK-ship Earth.”) Chrissy is a seminar hopper looking for a job and self-awareness while thinking about suicide. (“Whooo! I got fired from that telemarketing place. No, they gave me no notice at all . . . just . . . warnings.”)

Kate is a gossipy, bored woman who has uneven hair and has lost the tip of a finger in a cooking class accident. (“I am sick of being the victim of trends I reflect but don’t even understand.”) Paul is a divorced father and sperm donor who is feeling burned out. (“What’s the point of being a hedonist if you’re not having a good time?”)

Brandy and Tina are street prostitutes who get picked up by a writer who wants to talk to them for research. (“You’re the second guy this month wants to take out trade in this fashion. Last one ended up wanting my life history and a blowjob,” Brandy says. Tina adds: “I got news, what’s between her legs is her life history.”)

Lyn, Marge, and Edie are suburban friends evaluating their status, particularly as women. (Lyn: “I worry sometimes, maybe Bob has gotten too much in touch with his feminine side. Last night, I’m pretty sure he faked an orgasm.” Edie: “I look at myself . . . I don’t see any flaws.” Marge: “I’ve discovered a great medical cure for sobriety — alcoholism!”)

The homeless, endearing Trudy leads the search for signs of intelligent life with the help of unseen aliens (photo by Kate Glicksberg for the Shed)

In her New York theatrical debut, Strong, the ten-year SNL vet who also starred in the Apple TV musical parody series Schmigadoon!, eases right into the role made famous by Tomlin. Having seen the original Broadway production, I at first couldn’t stop thinking about whether two-time Emmy nominee Strong, whose August 2021 memoir, This Will All Be Over Soon, dealt with personal loss and the pandemic, was living up to Tomlin’s legend, but it wasn’t long before I was sucked into the characters, forgetting about both Strong and Tomlin. Strong makes the role her own, which is the strongest kind of praise one could give; she’s immensely likable, warm and friendly, and, very, very funny.

It was director Leigh Silverman’s idea to revive the work at the Shed as the lockdown was lifted, and she chose Strong after watching her portray Fox News host Jeanine Pirro jumping into a glass box of wine on Weekend Update last May. Silverman has helmed such Broadway plays as Grand Horizons and The Lifespan of a Fact in addition to the off-Broadway solo shows Harry Clarke and On the Exhale, and that experience keeps Signs energetic and exciting.

Whenever suicide was mentioned, I found it hard not to think about the Vessel, the twisting structure outside the Shed from which four people have jumped to their death since February 2020. Harsh reality is always right around the corner. Some of the New Agey feminist banter feels a bit dusty, but it always picks itself up in the hands of Strong, an improv specialist who just might be having even more fun than we are. What might feel like randomness at times all comes together by the end in surprising ways, emphasizing the interdependence of humanity. Wagner (Appearing Nitely, J.T.) and Tony, Grammy, and Emmy winner Tomlin (Nashville, Grace and Frankie) have given their blessing to this revival — they are serving as executive producers — and their faith has been rewarded, as has ours. As Trudy tells us, giving each of our lives meaning, “The good news is: In the future, they are still making plans for the future.”