this week in theater

MOBILE UNIT’S SUMMER OF JOY

THE PUBLIC THEATER’S MOBILE UNIT
Multiple locations in all five boroughs
July 31 – August 29, free
publictheater.org

The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit is back on the road after being sidelined by the pandemic lockdown last year, bringing free pop-up Shakespeare to locations across the five boroughs. “I always felt that we should travel,” Public founder Joseph Papp said once upon a time. “I wanted to bring Shakespeare to the people.” The Public has been doing just that in one form or another since 1957; this summer the Mobile Unit, in its tenth year, will be bringing two productions to plazas and squares from July 31 to August 29. Each presentation begins with the National Black Theatre’s Stage for Healing and Resilience, which will provide a space for reflection, meditation, and sharing. That will be followed by Verses @ Work — The Abridged Mix, Mobile Unit in Corrections artist Malik Work’s one-man show that incorporates verse, video, live music, musical theater, jazz, hip-hop, spoken word, and dance. Coproduced by the Public with NBT and directed by Vernice Miller, the autobiographical piece, inspired in part by Homer’s Odyssey, was nominated for a 2017 Audelco Award for Best Solo Performance and was turned into a film; Work has also staged a one-man adaptation of Timon of Athens and teaches Shakespeare, acting, and hip-hop theater. The free afternoon concludes with the hourlong Shakespeare: Call and Response; conceived by director Patricia McGregor, it features Sofia Jean Gomez, Teresa Avia Lim, Reza Salazar, and Work interacting with the audience through text, music, dance, and improv, playing multiple roles anchored by an MC and DJ duo rapping in iambic pentameter, with scenic design by Diggle, costumes by Katherine O’Neill, sound by Jorge Olivo, and choreography by Paloma McGregor (Patricia’s sister).

“The Mobile Unit is the purest expression of the Public’s conviction that the culture belongs to everyone. Our return this summer is a thrilling and responsive artistic expression born from this historical moment. We are responding to the call of community and creating a unifying embodiment of theater for this city,” Public artistic director Oskar Eustis said in a statement. Mobile Unit director Karen Ann Daniels added, “It is essential for the Mobile Unit to build something that could speak to the moment — a unique format that would reinvigorate our communal spaces and our connection to each other. We all came to the table with a strong sense that it is only through the creation of our art, and inviting our community’s participation in it, that we could offer healing, resilience, and the unbridled joy of the simple act of gathering.” The tour begins July 31 and August 1 at Astor Plaza, moving August 5-6 to Roberto Clemente Plaza, August 7-8 to Johnny Hartman Plaza, August 12 and 28-29 to Osborn Plaza, August 13 and 20 to Albee Square, August 14-15 to 125th Street Plaza, August 19 and 26-27 to Minthorne Street, and August 21-22 to Myrtle/Wyckoff Plaza; all shows are at 4:30 except for August 7-8, which start at 2:00. Also joining in the “Summer of Joy” will be the People’s Bus, a community-led initiative that repurposes a retired NYC prisoner transport vehicle into a mobile center that provides “resources and education to restore and build trust in our democracy.”

FREE UPTOWN SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: SEIZE THE KING

Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Seize the King offers a unique update on the Bard’s Richard III (photo © Richard Termine)

SEIZE THE KING
Marcus Garvey Park, Richard Rodgers Amphitheater
Through July 29, free (no RSVP necessary), 8:30
www.cthnyc.org

There’s a lot you won’t find in Seize the King, Will Power’s modern-day reimagination of Shakespeare’s Richard III, being staged by the Classical Theatre of Harlem at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park through July 29. There’s no mention of a discontented winter, proving to be a villain, or horses to trade for a kingdom. Writer Power and director Carl Cofield have streamlined the timeless story about the hunger for power to ninety minutes, performed by five actors portraying more than a dozen and a half roles; don’t wait around for Clarence, the Duchess of York, Queen Margaret, Sir William Catesby, Sir James Tyrrell, Henry Tudor, or the Archbishop of Canterbury to take the stage. But what you will find in the triumphant production is an exciting updating of a tale that’s all too familiar and one that keeps repeating itself. “When he comes back, will thou be ready?” the audience is asked at the end. “Can you keep the devil down in the hole?”

Seize the King begins with the death of the beloved King Edward IV, leaving his young son, Edward V (Alisha Espinosa), as heir to the throne. Edward’s brother, Richard (Ro Boddie), the Duke of Gloucester, was named to be the twelve-year-old Edward’s Lord Protector, but Lord Hastings (RJ Foster) doesn’t trust him, with good reason, as Richard believes that he should be the next king. Hastings tells him, “Edward intended for you to be Lord Protector / Still, his true intention is to insure that his son in two years’ time / Be crowned the reigning king of all, none other but him.” Richard answers curtly, “Of course.” Hastings emphasizes, “Only him.” Richard responds, “Yes, only him,” but he is already plotting his nephew’s demise.

Sides are drawn, with Lord Hastings defending Edward V and his mother, Queen Woodville (Andrea Patterson), while Richard eventually convinces an unsure Lord Buckingham (Carson Elrod) to join him. Richard attempts to woo Lady Anne Neville (Espinosa), the widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, to his cause, addressing her while she is taking a bath. “Sweet you are, love I my syrup thick / Allow me to pour this sweet over your / Stack Pancakes, but much more than pleasures,” he says. The wealthy Lady Anne is on to him immediately but is ready to make a deal. “What need I for you? / Come now, let’s talk bidness. / What offer you?” she declares. “You thought your sweet words would be enough? / Please, I got big jocks jockin’ all the time for these vast lands.”

As all roads lead to Bosworth Field, Power sprinkles in references to Fat Albert, Stairmaster, eating sushi with a fork, birth control, and Mother Teresa as well as to other Shakespeare plays and contemporary politics. “England first,” Buckingham proclaims to the people as if he’s speaking to a MAGA crowd. He crows, “Since good Edward Four ascended to / Heavenly orbs. Now what surrounds us? / Foreign heathens that take ours / Immigrants invade while we sit jobless / They up up up the ladder, up the stairs / While we, at dreadful base, now we step — oh / Now the stairs rickety, they are unusable / Cracked is the wood, trapped are we at base / We now at foot and they at head / Imagine the crown worn by them / And we rebuild stairs for them to ascend.”

Power (Stagger Lee, Steel Hammer), an actor, rapper, teacher, and hip-hop theater pioneer, and actor, teacher, and director Cofield (One Night in Miami, Dutchman), the associate artistic director of the company, previously collaborated on Power’s play The Seven, and they are in sync on Seize the King, balancing the old and the new with an occasional slip toward pedagogy and goofiness. The play, which had its world premiere in August 2018 at La Jolla Playhouse, takes place on Christopher and Justin Swader’s crooked stage, effectively lit by Alan C. Edwards, evoking rampant corruption and Richard’s state of mind; Brittany Bland’s projections range from scenes of war and protest to shimmering water and emphasis on a large crack in the back wall. Samantha Shoffner’s props, including a bathtub, a topiary, and a memorial table, are wheeled on and off by either the actors or dancers Daniela Funicello, Tracy Dunbar, Jenny Hegarty Freeman, Hannah Gross, and Alisa Gregory, who perform Tiffany Rea-Fisher’s lovely choreography to interstitial music by sound designer Frederick Kennedy, from Baroque to hip-hop.

Mika Eubanks seems to have had a ball designing the costumes, especially Queen Woodville’s — she’s styled like Beyoncé — and Richard’s coronation robe, which gets its own scene, proudly exhibited by Greygor the tailor (Foster), who explains, “Look this, crimson cloth of maggot Kermes / Peeled from trees of oak to retrieve the reddish juice / Insect bodies dried out to produce dye / Human bodies dried out to produce cloth / Blood-red pure crimson death to give life / All sacrifice for him no matter cost.”

Boddie plays Richard with a limp but is always standing tall, not hunched over, and is more handsome than the wicked Gloucester is usually portrayed. Foster is terrific as Hastings, a steadfast and honest man, Reverend Shaw, whose piety is for sale, and Greygor, who appears to have walked out of an episode of Pose. Patterson and Espinosa delight in their characters’ verbal battles with Richard, but it’s Elrod who nearly steals the show in multiple roles, from the well-meaning Buckingham and the chorus to a wise gardener and a royal servant who has an unusual message for Hastings and the Queen: “Uh, well, I wasn’t supposed to deliver nothing further but I did hear him say ‘The Queen ain’t shit! I’ma prune her ass’ or something to that effect.” You won’t find that in Shakespeare’s original text.

TICKET ALERT: BAM FALL 2021 SEASON

The sandy Sun & Sea brings the beach to Fort Greene (photo by Andrej Vasilenko)

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
September 15 – November 6, $25-$35
www.bam.org

One of the places I’ve missed the most since the pandemic lockdown began in March 2020 is BAM, my performance-venue home-away-from-home. Over the decades, the Fort Greene institution’s exciting cutting-edge programming of innovative works from around the world has been a kind of lifeline for me. I remember in October 2012, after Hurricane Sandy paralyzed the state, I took an extremely slow bus through a dark, bleak city, on my way to BAM to see a show as if that would signal we would all get past this disaster. I made it just in time, breathing heavily, soon immersed in the wonders of how dance, music, art, and theater can lift you up. And so I relished the news when BAM announced its reopening for the fall 2021 season, featuring four works at the intimate BAM Fisher. “The hunger for artistic adventures has never been greater as our world continues to change around us,” BAM artistic director David Binder said in a statement. “Our 2021-22 season kicks off with works from a cohort of remarkable international artists, all of whom are making their BAM debuts. New forms and new ideas will abound in the Fisher, as they create singular experiences that can only happen at BAM.”

ASUNA’s 100 Keyboards will be performed in the round at the BAM Fisher (photo by Ritsuko Sakata)

The season kicks off September 15-26 with Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s Sun & Sea, which turns the Fisher into a beach. Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, the work, commissioned for the Lithuanian Pavilion at the fifty-eighth International Art Exhibition, takes place on twenty-five tons of sand on which thirteen vocalists sing a wide array of stories, with a libretto by Vaiva Grainytė and music and musical direction by Lina Lapelytė. Sun & Sea is followed September 30 to October 2 by 100 Keyboards, in which Japanese sound artist ASUNA performs a unique concert in the round on one hundred battery-operated mini keyboards of multiple colors, creating a mysterious sound moire as the audience walks around him, picking up different reverberations.

Cia Suave makes its US debut at BAM with Cria (photo © Renato Mangolin)

In By Heart, running October 5-17, ten audience members join Portuguese artist and Avignon Festival director Tiago Rodrigues onstage, memorizing lines from such writers as William Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury, George Steiner, and Joseph Brodsky to create a new narrative consisting of forbidden texts while the rest of the audience watches (and sometimes participates as well); the set and costume design is by Magda Bizarro, with English translations by Rodrigues, revised by Joana Frazão. And in Cria (November 2-6), Brazilian troupe Cia Suave celebrates the passion of adolescence in a piece choreographed by Alice Ripoll and performed by ten members of the all-Black company of cis and trans dancers who proclaim, “We are CRIA, not created. Little breeds. Loneliness. To smear yourself. The act, the creation and its moment. Sprout. The heart saying, ‘hit me’ with every punch of suffering. In scene birth and death. Each time. Even in childbirth there is a force that wants to give up. A life that begins touches the sublime.” Tickets go on sale today at noon; the way New Yorkers have been snatching up tickets for live, in-person events, you better hurry if you want to catch any of these promising shows in the small, intimate BAM Fisher.

BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY: JUDGMENT DAY

Jason Alexander and Patti LuPone are outrageously funny in virtual production of Judgment Day

JUDGMENT DAY
Barrington Stage Company
July 26 – August 1, $8.99 through July 26, $11.99 after
jd.stellartickets.com
barringtonstageco.org

Jason Alexander is at his hysterical best as a selfish, greedy lawyer who survives a near-death experience in Pittsfield-based Barrington Stage Company’s hilarious online reading of Rob Ulin’s Judgment Day. The Zoom play premiered last August but is back for a well-deserved encore presentation July 26 through August 1 via the Stellar platform.

Alexander, a Tony and Emmy winner who stole the show as Mervyn Kant in a virtual production of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig in May, stars as Sammy Campo, a ruthless lawyer with no moral compass, willing to do anything to get what he wants. In the opening scene, after he closes another shady deal, we learn all we need to know about him during this delicious exchange with his secretary, Della (Loretta Devine), who reads from a letter he just received.

Della: You’ve been called before the Bar Association again. They’re citing “abuse of process, suborning perjury, and obstruction of justice.”
Sammy: The deal is fully funded. This one’s gonna put me over the top!
Della: “Grand larceny, money laundering, forgery, witnesses tampering, witness intimidation.”
Sammy: Yeah, I was expecting that; they’ve got nothing. Did you hear me? The deal is done.
Della: “Consorting with known felons, drug and alcohol abuse, solicitation of prostitution, public nakedness, public urination, foul and unsavory language in the presence of children and the elderly.”
Sammy: Shush with that! Don’t wreck this moment. Do you know why this deal means so much to me?
Della: Because of the money.
Sammy: Wrong! It is not because of the money. It’s because the money will now belong to me. Money that used to be other people’s will now become mine. I came into this world a little speck of nothing. Unloved, unlaid. The world tried to beat me into a passive little milquetoast who would settle for a crumb, but do you know what I said to that offer?
Della: You said no.
Sammy: I said no! I demanded more, From the time I was a little kid, I defied the law of the playground, I defied the law of the pecking order.
Della: You defied the law.

But just as Sammy is bragging about how he played the game his way and won, he suffers a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital, where, as the doctors crack open his chest trying to save him, an angel arrives in the form of his dreaded Catholic school teacher. Sister Margaret (Tony and Grammy winner Patti LuPone) appears to have been waiting a long time for the day she can send Sammy to hell.

“I have come to deliver justice,” she announces. “Wow. So this means God is real,” Sammy suddenly understands. “Shit.” But when he realizes that the angel has snatched him too soon from the jaws of death — the doctors are still working on him — he negotiates his return to the living. “I may be a scumbag. But this isn’t about me. This is about the Law,” he explains. “Your legal sophistry will not work on me,” she says. “It might work on some archangel up the ladder who’s a hardass for the Immutable Laws of God,” Sammy answers. “Some seraphim might think an angel who bends the rules needs a job with less responsibility, like moving clouds around or wiping some cherub’s ass. Looks to me like you blew it, Sister.”

Proudly displaying his lack of a conscience, Sammy is soon making a deal with Father Michael (Tony winner Santino Fontana) to take a case in which elderly widow Edna Fillmore (Carol Mansell) has been denied her late husband’s insurance because she missed one payment. The Monsignor (Grammy winner Michael McKean) tells Father Michael not to work with Sammy, but Father Michael considers bending the rules in order to help Edna. “God cares what’s in your heart,” Father Michael says gently to Sammy, who responds, “Wrong. Angel Sister Margaret said, ‘We do not care how you feel or why you made your choices. Human beings are judged solely by their deeds.’ So I wanna figure out the rock-bottom least amount of good I need to do to get into Heaven.”

Meanwhile, Sammy goes back to the wife he walked out on ten years ago, Tracy (Justina Machado), only to find a surprise: her troubled nine-year-old son, Casper (Julian Emile Lerner). Sammy might have a new lease on life, but that hasn’t changed him one bit. “Acting kind and generous is harder for folks like us who don’t mean it,” he teaches the boy. “There’s no trick to being compassionate if you’re born with compassion. It’s a much greater accomplishment to help your fellow man if you don’t give a shit about him.” Soon he’s negotiating with Casper’s principal (Bianca LaVerne Jones) and Edna’s insurance agent, Jackson (Michael Mastro), incorporating the help of the sexy Chandra (Elizabeth Stanley) when necessary. It appears that there’s no situation he doesn’t believe he can’t haggle his way out of, no matter how high the authority of the person — or angel — he is bargaining with, and he always believes he is in the right. “Without laws, we’d just be animals,” he tells Casper. “The big guy would always defeat the little guy. But in a world of laws, there’s a role for the wily guy. The big guy will always get to make the laws. But a wily lawyer can find ways around the laws so the little guy has a chance.”

Judgment Day is a nonstop eighty-two-minute treat as Ulin, a former Harvard Lampoon editor who has been a co-executive producer on such television series as Malcolm in the Middle, Rosanne, and Ramy, takes on such lofty issues as faith and belief and the rules of society, pitting religion and the law against each other with a wicked sense of humor. Sammy is a fantastic character, a smart-mouthed “scumbag” who actually has an intelligent outlook on the world, finding the cracks and exploiting them to his advantage without a second thought. When Father Michael tells him, “I am a priest. I don’t do blackmail,” Sammy quickly retorts, “Doing blackmail is your whole job! Every Sunday you guys stand in your pulpit and tell a billion Catholics, do what we say or burn forever.”

He doesn’t hide who he is or what he is after, and Alexander is brilliant in the role, smirking away with glee. Director Matthew Penn (Mother of the Maid, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You) wisely lets Alexander and LuPone chew up the scenery — well, actually, there is no scenery, just plain Zoom backgrounds, save for simple line drawings by Melanie Cummings that announce the locations. Alexander and LuPone’s over-the-top energy is offset by the calm demeanor of Fontana, Devine, and McKean, with Machado playing it straight right down the middle. Be sure to stick around through the credits for some fun clips from the Zoom rehearsals.

ENDURE: RUN WOMAN SHOW

Casey Howes performs in immersive Endure in Central Park (photo by Richard Termine)

ENDURE
Southern end of Central Park
Through August 8, $59.99
runwomanshow.com

In his 2008 memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, award-winning Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami writes, “This is a book in which I’ve gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person. Just a book in which I ponder various things and think out loud. . . . One thing I noticed was that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing.”

Canadian marathoner, Ironman finisher, and mother Melanie Jones takes a similar approach in Endure: Run Woman Show, an outdoor, on-the-move immersive event continuing in Central Park through August 8. A limited audience of no more than fifteen follows Mary Cavett or Casey Howes through the park while listening on earbuds to Jones talk about running her first marathon, sharing thoughts about the race and life. “You keep going, keep living, keep searching, keep risking, keep pressing out at the edges of yourself because, sure, you could stop or walk or stand on the sidelines, but there’s something beautiful in passing the end of who you think you are. See, there’s so much more beyond,” she narrates. She discusses what it feels like at the starting line, dealing with skeptics at a cocktail party, how math and endorphins can be overwhelming, and striving for her top-secret goal time.

Created and written by Jones (Joyride, In You. [And You?]) and directed by Suchan Vodoor, Endure: Run Woman Show is based on real-life stories from Jones and other runners, delving into what they think about and what they personally experience as they make their way through parks, streets, and tracks, running for both their mental and physical health. Covering approximately three miles in about seventy-five minutes — the audience is not expected to run alongside the performer, who will always remain in view, making stops on bridges and lawns, trees and lampposts — the piece, featuring a musical soundtrack by Swedish composer Christine Owman, is particularly relevant during the “2020” Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where participants are facing Covid-19 in addition to the regular tests of their abilities against the finest athletes in the world, and doing so without crowds cheering them on this time.

“When I discovered running, I realized that the stronger I got on the outside, the stronger I felt on the inside,” Jones said in a statement. “Long-distance running, at its best, is a spiritual experience: uplifting, clarifying, transformative. A runner feels connected to their environment, their best self, even humanity. My hope is that Endure gives audiences a sense of that tranquillity and peace.” And that’s something we all could use a whole lot of right about now.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK BERGEN COUNTY

Who: Black Box PAC
What: Free Shakespeare in Bergen County
Where: Overpeck Park Amphitheater
When: Weekends July 23 – August 29, free, 8:00
Why: New York City has Shakespeare in the Parking Lot’s Two Noble Kinsmen, NY Classical’s King Lear with a happy ending, the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Seize the King, and the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park presentation of Merry Wives of Windsor. But you can also catch free Bard in New Jersey, where the Black Box Performing Arts Center’s summer season begins this weekend with modern productions of Hamlet and As You Like It, continuing Thursday to Sunday through August 29 at the Overpeck Park Amphitheater in Bergen County. In addition, Black Box PAC will be hosting free “Play On!” concerts Sundays in August at the amphitheater at 4:00, including performances by Divinity & the FAM Band, Melissa Cherie, Esti Mellul, Ginny Lackey & the Hi-Fi Band, Dan Sheehan’s Rising Seas, and Andy Krikun & Jeff Doctorow. There will also be script-in-hand readings of Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew at the Englewood Public Library on Wednesdays at 8:00 from July 28 to September 1. Admission to all events is free, with no advance RSVP necessary. As Duke Orsino declares in Twelfth Night, “If music be the food of love, play on!”

THE WAKE OF DORCAS KELLY

Myra Caellaigh (Florence Scagliarini), Kate O’Sullivan (Phoebe Mar Halkowich), and Siobhan Murchadha (Irina Kaplan) tend to the deceased in The Wake of Dorcas Kelly (photo by Nick Thomas)

THE WAKE OF DORCAS KELLY
The Players Theater
115 MacDougal St.
Thursday-Sunday through July 25, $42
www.spitnvigor.com

New York–based nonprofit theater company spit&vigor continues its exploration of the past in The Wake of Dorcas Kelly, which opened July 16 at the Players Theatre and continues through July 25.

Inspired by a true story that has expanded its legend with apocryphal elements over time, the ninety-minute show takes place in the Maiden Tower brothel in Dublin in January 1761, where the hanged and charred body of former madam Dorcas Kelly lies covered on a table. Ladies of the evening Siobhan Murchadha (Irina Kaplan), Kate O’Sullivan (Phoebe Mar Halkowich), and Myra Caellaigh (set and sound designer Florence Scagliarini) are watching over their dear departed friend and former boss, who was brutally executed for the murder of a shoemaker in the street. “She didn’t shoot just any man,” pub owner and regular Maiden customer Tom Doherty (Nicholas Thomas) explains. “It was the scoundrel John Dowling, who left our poor Kate with child and no support. Which is a thing I’d never do, for all my vices.”

As they share memories of Dorcas, a riot is under way right outside, the noise spilling into the room. Former sailor William O’Brien (Eamon Murphy) has been hired by Kate to protect the brothel during the public melee, but he keeps coming in for more drink while insisting he will remain true to his wife, Grace (Duoer Jia). “I suppose he’s burning through some of his debts with hard labor,” Siobhan says. “That boy wouldn’t know hard labor if it spanked him in the arse,” Myra replies. “Well, this hard labor has spanked him in the arse once or twice,” Siobhan jokes.

Soon Tom and William are dragging doped-up Father Jack Dancy (troupe executive producer Adam Belvo) in through the back window. The visiting Belfast priest is completely out of it; the men tie him up so he won’t be able escape before praying for Dorcas. Meanwhile, former prostitute Fannie Prufrock (Kyra Jackson) has gone legit but can’t seem to stay away from the brothel. “Went and run off with some shipmate and now she thinks she’s the queen of England,” Myra says. “Have some tenderness, Myra. She only comes back round here because she’s tired of married life. Imagine getting stuck with the same prick night after night,” Siobhan adds. “You want to be married, then, Myra? I’ll make an honest woman of you,” Tom offers, but Myra is having none of that. When a surprise guest (Peter Oliver) is discovered, the plot takes a dark turn without losing its macabre, ribald sense of humor.

Founded in 2015, spit&vigor excels at mining the history of drama, literature, and art for raw material: Among its previous productions, NEC SPE / NEC METU tells the story of Baroque painters Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary’s Little Monster imagines how Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein came to be, The Brutes goes behind the scenes of an 1864 benefit performance of Julius Caesar by the Booth brothers (staged by spit&vigor at the Players club, which was started by Edwin Booth), and the livestreamed Luna Eclipse traveled back to the fourteenth century as the cast proceeded throughout the West Park Presbyterian Church on Eighty-Sixth St.

The Wake of Dorcas Kelly offers plenty of booze, blasphemy, and butchery (photo by Nick Thomas)

Written and directed by company artistic director Sara Fellini (In Vestments, Hazard a Little Death) with plenty of spit and vigor, The Wake of Dorcas Kelly opens with all nine actors onstage, singing a rousing version of “The Tempest” by the Real MacKenzies: “We are all born free but forever live in chains / And we battle through existence on and on / We’ll take whatever comes to be while keeping hopeful melody / And we’ll cruise through the darkness until the warmth of dawn.” The drinking song gets the audience ready for a rollicking evening on Scagliarini’s cramped, dusty, but homey set with unmatched chairs, Baroque wallpaper, a back staircase, and candles, cups, glasses, and bottles everywhere. (The often eerie lighting is by Chelsie McPhilimy, with period costumes and props by Claire Daly.)

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, along with booze, blasphemy, and butchery — what’s not to love? Deserving of a longer engagement, The Wake of Dorcas Kelly is a spirited night out at the theater — live and in person — performed by a strong cast that will only get better as the show continues. It’s so much fun spending time with these well-drawn, engaging characters and talented actors that it’s sad when the play is over and the lights go down; it’s easy to see why everyone likes stopping by and staying for a drink or two, and maybe a little more, even with dead bodies lying around.