this week in theater

RIDE SHARE

Marcus (Kamal Angelo Bolden) is on a dangerous road in Writers Theatre’s Ride Share

RIDE SHARE
Writers Theatre
Through July 25, $40-$100
Live Zoom talkback July 25 at 4:00
www.writerstheatre.org
www.blacklivesblackwords.org

“I hate my life,” Marcus (Kamal Angelo Bolden) says early on in the virtual one-man show Ride Share, a psychological thriller streaming from Chicago’s Writers Theatre through July 25.

Marcus believed he was on the right road, doing everything correctly. The thirty-three-year-old Black man had just married a lovely woman, Joselyn, at an $85,000 wedding and returned from their honeymoon in Aruba imagining only brightness in his future. He gets called in to work, expecting to be made partner after having put in twelve dedicated, difficult years. Instead, Craig, a white Yale grad who married the boss’s niece, informs Marcus that he is being laid off. “He tells me that I should . . . count this as a blessing, this leaves your path wide open for a great adventure ahead of you. Oh, and by the way, there’s a box waiting for [you] at the front desk.”

Devastated and desperate for money, Marcus becomes a driver for every ride-share company he can find. He shuttles passengers around Chicago in his white Kia from four to ten every morning and again from seven at night till past midnight, jeopardizing his relationship not only with his new wife but with his sanity. Standing atop his car, he details his preoccupation with his rating, like a day trader or a compulsive gambler:

“From the start, ratings have been the bane of my existence. In three months, I’ve earned the ranking of a platinum-level driver. I’ve driven 647 trips with a rating of 4.9, with 629 five-star reviews, 10 four-stars, 4 three-stars, 3 two-stars, and 1 one-star review. I watch these ratings like a hawk. It’s gotten so bad that now I tell people I’m gonna give them five stars in hopes that they do the same. I check these ratings after every ride. I check them again before I go to bed; my wife thinks that I’m obsessed with these ratings. She says, ‘You pay more attention to your ratings than you do to me.” I say, ‘Well, you’re not gonna downgrade me from platinum to blue. She laughed and then she said, ‘You better be careful because your ratings aren’t the only things that could turn blue.’ I love her so much. She’s my everything.”

He spends his down time trying to create better opportunities, learning Spanish by listening to Latin music and hanging out with the other drivers at the airport. “All of us waiting. Waiting for just one ride. Waiting to control our own destinies, waiting on the America dream, waiting.” As his disdain for his passengers grows, particularly for snarky businesspeople and young white women, so does information about a new disease, Covid-19. Then fate steps in when Craig enters his vehicle and Marcus admits to himself that he always has an additional passenger sitting next to him, which he calls his dark rider. “No one can see him but me, our eyes lock, ten generations of rage staring back at me, his mouth gaping wide, uttering nothing but yet I hear his whispers,” he says. Suddenly the road ahead is filled with sin and temptation.

Written by Reginald Edmund and directed by Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway, the cofounders of the activist Black Lives, Black Words International Project, Ride Share, part of BLBW’s Plays for the People series, is a tense and uneasy journey into the mind of a man who has been rejected by a society that refuses to see him for who he is as an individual, as a unique human being. When seen at all, he is judged by the color of his skin and the type of car he drives, representations of systemic racism and income inequality. Bolden (Jitney, Detroit ’67) effectively captures the angst and fear that so many Black men and other people of color have felt so acutely over the last sixteen months (not to mention the decades before), during a pandemic that has led to isolation and economic hardship, as well as a reckoning for racial injustice.

At times, cinematographer Tannie Xin Tang brings the camera right up to Marcus’s mouth, making palpable the years of anguish and torment, ready to emerge and explode at any moment. Edited by Lesley Kubistal, with music and sound by CHXLL Sounds and scenic design by Alexandra Regazzoni, the eighty-minute hybrid work is informed by an ever-threatening claustrophobia that envelops the viewer, sitting at home, where not everyone is always as safe as they think they are. Marcus often is shown looking into his rearview mirror, watching out for what is chasing him, while the road ahead becomes continually darker. The ride can get bumpy, but the ultimate destination is as startling as it is, unfortunately, all too believable.

THE MURDER ON THE LINKS

Who: L.A. Theatre Works
What: All-star audio play based on Agatha Christie novel
Where: LATW online
When: Available starting July 1, $20 (nine-play season $150)
Why: In the 1990s, L.A. Theatre Works focused its attention on audio plays, “producing world classics, modern masterpieces, contemporary, and original works that speak to the issues of our times.” Audio plays have flourished during the pandemic lockdown, with excellent productions from the Public Theater, Keen Company, and Gideon Media, among many others. So the time is right for LATW’s digital 2020-21 nine-play season, which has included audio versions of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse, Life on Paper by Kenneth Lin, Extinction by Hannie Rayson, Bump by Chiara Atik, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso by Herbert Sigüenza, For Us All by Jeanne Sakata, No-No Boy by Ken Narasaki, and A Good Day at Auschwitz by Stephen Tobolowsky.

Alfred Molina and Simon Helberg star in LATW audio adaptation of The Murder on the Links (photos by Matt Petit and Derek Hutchison)

The final work is Kate McAll’s audio theater adaptation of The Murder on the Links, based on Agatha Christie’s 1923 novel, which featured John Moffat as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in a 1990 BBC Radio 4 version and David Suchet as the intrepid detective in a 1996 episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot for British television. Here Alfred Molina stars as Poirot, with Simon Helberg as Poirot’s bestie, Capt. Arthur Hastings. The two men travel to France to meet with Paul Renauld, only to find out he has been murdered — and their quest soon leads to another body. The cast also features Adhir Kalyan as Jack Renaud, Joanne Whalley as Madame Daubreuil, Kevin Daniels as Detective Giraud, Edita Brychta as Madame Renauld and Françoise, Anna Lyse Erikson as Leonie, Darren Richardson as a sergeant, a doctor, and others, Jocelyn Towne as Cinderella and Marthe Daubreuil, and Matthew Wolf as Monsieur Hautet; the download includes access to a digital video of a table read. Recorded in West Hollywood in April 2021, The Murder on the Links is directed and produced by Erikson, with original music by John Biddle, editing by Charles Carroll, and foley sound by Jeff Gardner. Each LATW play can be downloaded for $20; all nine are available for $150 and come with such bonuses as a video conversation with LATW founding members Ed Asner, Richard Dreyfuss, Hector Elizondo, Stacy Keach, Marsha Mason, and JoBeth Williams.

TWO BY WALLACE SHAWN: GRASSES OF A THOUSAND COLORS / THE DESIGNATED MOURNER

Who: Wallace Shawn, Julie Hagerty, Jennifer Tilly, Emily Cass McDonnell, Deborah Eisenberg, Larry Pine
What: Audio versions of Wallace Shawn’s Grasses of a Thousand Colors and The Designated Mourner
Where: Gideon Media
When: Available July 9
Why: Beloved New York City icon Wallace Shawn has kept himself very busy during the pandemic lockdown. He wonderfully reprised his role as the villainous Vizzini (“Inconceivable!”) in a Zoom benefit reunion reading of Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride to help support the Wisconsin Democratic party in the 2020 elections. The New GroupOffstage: Two by Wallace Shawn consisted of all-star Zoom reunion readings of his plays Aunt Dan and Lemon and Evening at the Talk House, the latter featuring his stellar turn as a bedraggled actor. And through July 25, you can catch him as Lucky in the New Group’s online adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, with Ethan Hawke as Didi, John Leguizamo as Gogo, and Tarik Trotter as Pozzo.

The curmudgeonly Shawn continues visiting his past with audio versions of his two of his most intense shows, presented for free by Gideon Media and reuniting the casts from previous productions. In Grasses of a Thousand Colors, an erotic futuristic nightmare that had its world premiere in 2009 at the Royal Court Theatre in London and debuted in New York four years later at the Public, Shawn expands on Madame d’Aulnoy’s 1698 fairy tale The White Cat in a wild and unpredictable story about sex, humans, animals, sex, the food chain, and sex. “Oh, hello there!” Shawn begins as a doctor named Ben. “You know, I’m just so thrilled that you’ve made the rather wild decision to listen to the meaning of all people right at this very moment. I mean, I know you’re probably just as mixed up about everything as I am because since yesterday, well, things have obviously changed since yesterday, that’s totally clear. Things are definitely different in one way or another. I mean, it’s been quite a journey, my God. And the last part of it was so crazy.” The play brings back Julie Hagerty as Cerise, Ben’s wife; Jennifer Tilly as Robin, his mistress; and Emily Cass McDonnell as Rose, his girlfriend, along with director André Gregory, who starred with Shawn in Louis Malle’s brilliant 1981 film, My Dinner with André.

The play is divided into six sections, “Invitation,” “The Quest to Be Known,” “Affair,” “Revenge,” “Illness,” and “Party,” that are definitely not safe for work, for those who are back in the office. “So anyway,” Dr. Ben says, “You see, I’d always loved nudity, including nude performances, because what other pleasures can we get in life except from what is naked, or in other words from getting closer and closer to what we call nature.”

Also available is an audio version of Shawn’s The Designated Mourner, which premiered at the Royal National Theatre in 1996; this reading reunites Shawn, Deborah Eisenberg (Shawn’s real-life wife), and Larry Pine from the 2000 New York City production directed by Gregory in several small rooms in a building on William St. in the Financial District. Divided into “Resentment,” “Accommodation,” “Danger,” “Flight,” “Arrest,” and “Death,” the play delves into violence, authoritarianism, and injustice amid Shawn’s unrelenting trademark dark humor.

“It’s just remarkable that your father is allowed to exist!” Judy (Eisenberg) recalls being told about her father, Howard (Pine), a famous and well-respected poet. “And meanwhile your attention is entirely turned away from the human suffering that is going on all around you,” Howard tells Jack (Shawn), her husband. “You can sum me up in about ten words: a former student of English literature who — who went downhill from there!” Jack explains.

In Woody Allen’s 1987 comedy Radio Days, Shawn played the Masked Avenger, the hero of a popular radio serial, who says, “I wonder if future generations will ever even hear about us. It’s not likely. After enough time, everything passes. I don’t care how big we are or how important are our lives.” Through podcasts such as these of Shawn’s plays, future generations around the world will indeed get to hear about these seminal works.

INAUGURAL DRAMA BOOK SHOP IN-PERSON SIGNING — IN THE HEIGHTS: FINDING HOME

Who: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Jeremy McCarter
What: Book signing
Where: The Drama Book Shop, 266 West Thirty-Ninth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
When: Wednesday, July 21, 2:00 (tickets on sale Friday, July 16, 10:00 am)
Why: In 2002, a theater group started rehearsing a new musical in the tiny Arthur Seelen Theatre in the basement of the Drama Book Shop, which was founded in 1917 by the Drama League and was bought by Arthur and Rozanne Seelen in 1958. With the future of the beloved store in jeopardy, it was purchased in January 2019 by two of the primaries involved with that rehearsal, director Thomas Kail and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with producer Jeffrey Seller and theater impresario James L. Nederlander. The production was In the Heights, cowritten by Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Broadway smash that was nominated for thirteen Tonys and won four, including Best Musical. Delayed by the pandemic lockdown, the new store, designed by David Korins, opened June 10 on West Thirty-Ninth St., and it is celebrating with its first in-store book signing, a rather big one.

On July 21 at 2:00, composer-lyricist-star Miranda, librettist Hudes, and theater writer Jeremy McCarter will be signing copies of their new tome, In the Heights: Finding Home (Penguin Random House, June 2021, $40), following up on the virtual launch that took place last month. The book opens with an introduction by McCarter that begins, “The actors took their bows, the crowd finished cheering, and everybody headed for the doors. Spotting a friend, I cut across the lobby. I asked, Did you just see what I just saw? Or words to that effect. It’s been fourteen years, so I can’t remember exactly what I said that night. But I do remember exactly how In the Heights made me feel.” The show was turned into a major motion picture that was released on June 10, in theaters and on HBO Max, to wide acclaim and a casting controversy. Limited tickets for the bookstore event, in which the authors will not sign anything other than the books and no photos with them are allowed, go on sale July 16 at 10:00 am, and they’re likely to go fast, so don’t hesitate if you want to keep sharing that feeling.

ICE FACTORY 2021

ICE FACTORY
New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher St.
Through August 14, $18-$29
newohiotheatre.org

New Ohio Theatre’s twenty-eighth-annual Ice Factory Festival got under way June 30 – July 3 with The Extremely Grey Line from 23.5°, which could be experienced on bikes, as a walking tour, or in the theater, followed July 7-10 by Lisa Helmi Johanson and Kimberly Immanuel’s Kim Loo Gets a Redo, inspired by the real-life jazz quartet the Kim Loo Sisters. You might have missed those two, but there is plenty more to see; the Obie-winning festival runs through August 14. Al Límite Collective’s Liminal Archive (July 14-17) is a forty-five-minute multimedia immersive journey that takes you back to the beginnings of the pandemic, featuring works by such artists as Cypress Atlas, Arthur Ban, Toney Brown, Katya Chizhayeva, Caio D’aguilar, Jessica Daugherty, and Sissy Doutsiou, from across the United States as well as Greece, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and other countries.

Dow-Dance explores radical Black love and Sundown Towns in As the Sun Sets (July 21-24), performed by Imani Gaudin-County, Andy Guzmán, Jai Perez, and company founder and choreographer Caleb Dowden. Teatro Dallas’s A Grave Is Given Supper (July 28-31) is a one-person Narco-Acid Western set in a US-Mexico border town, written by Mike Soto, directed by Claudia Acosta, and performed by Elena Hurst. An inheritance brings together a pair of strangers (Laura Butler-Levitt and Heather Hollingsworth) in In Tandem Lab’s Herstory (August 4-7). Daniel Irizarry directs and stars in My Onliness (August 11-14) from One-Eighth Theatre, with text by Robert Lyons and music by Kamala Sankaram. Over the course of the festival, the solo interactive sound installation Endless Loop of Gratitude, created by Broken Chord, Steph Ferreira, Jackson Gay, Steven Padla, Riw Rakkulchon, and Ashley M. Thomas, invites visitors up to a microphone to answer the question: “What are you really grateful for?” We’re really grateful for the return of indoor theater and affordable summer festivals such as Ice Factory. (To enter the New Ohio, you have to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test from the past seventy-two hours, and the audience must wear masks.)

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT: TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

The Drilling Company will be back in the Clemente parking lot and Bryant Park with free presentation of Two Noble Kinsmen (photo by Hamilton Clancy)

Who: The Drilling Company
What: Free summer Shakespeare
Where: Parking lot of the Clemente, 107 Suffolk St., and Bryant Park
When: July 15-30, free, 7:00 or 7:30
Why: Indoor theater is back after the pandemic lockdown, and so is outdoor theater, including free summer Shakespeare, a birthright of New Yorkers. Among the many entries this season is the beloved Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, which has been presented by the Drilling Company since 1995. This year the troupe is staging the rarely performed Two Noble Kinsmen, what might be William Shakespeare’s final work, a collaboration with John Fletcher based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales. Founding artistic director Hamilton Clancy has reimagined the play, which is set in the aftermath of a war between Athens and Thebes, as a contemporary drama involving Russian spies, Interpol, and corporate espionage. The two-hour show, which stars Brad Frost as Palemon, Jane Bradley as the Jailer’s Daughter, John Caliendo as Arsite, and Liz Livingston as Emilia, with Lucas Rafael, Mary Linehan, Jaqwan Turner, and Remy Souchon, will take place July 15-17 and 28-30 in the Clemente parking lot and July 19-21 in Bryant Park, with admission first come, first served.

STOP AAPI HATE: A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER

Abridged online version of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder benefits Stop AAPI Hate

Who: Lea Salonga, Ali Ewoldt, Diana Phelan, Thom Sesma, Cindy Cheung, Karl Josef Co
What: All-Asian-American abridged online version of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Where: Broadway on Demand
When: July 15-22, pay-what-you-wish (suggested donation $20.14 – $1,000)
Why: On May 19, the National Asian American Theatre Company held a one-time-only virtual benefit reading of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, featuring an all-Asian-American cast. Now CollaborAzian and Broadway on Demand are teaming up for an online version of Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak’s A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder that will benefit Stop AAPI Hate, which “tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.” An abridged adaptation of the Broadway musical that was nominated for ten Tonys, winning three (Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Direction of a Musical), the show will be available July 15-22. The story, based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman and the 1949 British film Kind Hearts and Coronets, follows the exploits of a man ninth in the line of succession to his family’s dukedom who decides to get rid of the eight people above him and grab the crown for himself as revenge for how his mother was treated by them. Thom Sesma plays the endangered members of the D’Ysquith clan, with Cindy Cheung as Ms. Shingle and others, Ali Ewoldt as Phoebe D’Ysquith, producer Karl Josef Co as Monty Navarro, and producer Diane Phelan as Sibella Hallward; hosted by Tony winner Lea Salonga, the presentation is directed by Alan Muraoka, who has played Alan, the owner of Hooper’s Store on Sesame Street, for more than two decades, with music direction by Steven Cuevas, costumes by Carla Posada, props by Alesha Borbo Kilayko, and audio engineering by Jonathan Cuevas.

“Historically, Asian American artists have been marginalized in media and on stage, and productions like this help to spotlight the tremendous talent that has been overlooked. We’re here to show the world that we are here, and we are fantastic,” Salonga said in a statement. The event is being held in conjunction with the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, the Broadway Diversity Project, Unapologetically Asian, Leviathan Labs, Chinosity, and Tremendous Communications.