Tag Archives: Delacorte Theater

PUBLIC WORKS: THE TEMPEST

Renée Elise Goldsberry is sensational as Prospero in Public Works musical adaptation of The Tempest (photo by Joan Marcus)

THE TEMPEST
Central Park, Delacorte Theater
Through September 3, free, 8:00
publictheater.org

In 2013, the Public Theater inaugurated its Public Works program, which partners with community organizations throughout the five boroughs, with a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, featuring music and lyrics by Todd Almond, who played Ariel alongside Laura Benanti as the Goddess, Norm Lewis as Prospero, Carson Elrod as Caliban, and some two hundred nonprofessional actors from such local groups as the Fortune Society, the Brownsville Recreation Center, the Children’s Aid Society, DreamYard, and Domestic Workers United.

In 2015, Michael Greif directed a nonmusical Shakespeare in the Park version with Sam Waterston as Prospero, followed in 2019 by Laurie Woolery’s streamlined Mobile Unit adaptation with Myra Lucretia Taylor as the sorcerer.

Woolery is back in charge for the latest iteration, a brand-new lighthearted Public Works interpretation with music and lyrics by Miami native and Columbia grad Benjamin Velez in his full-fledged New York debut. Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis promised in his introduction we will all be able to boast, “I was there” as Velez’s career takes flight.

Ariel (Jo Lampert) orchestrates drama with the help of her minions in The Tempest (photo by Joan Marcus)

Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton, As You Like It) is sensational as Prospero, the rightful duke of Milan who has fled to a remote island after her brother, Antonio (Anthony Chatmon II), usurped her crown with the help of his friend Alonso, the king of Naples (Joel Frost), twelve years earlier. Living with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Miranda (Naomi Pierre), she now rules over dozens and dozens of spirits in addition to her slave, the deformed Caliban (Theo Stockman), and her indentured servant, the sprite Ariel (Jo Lampert).

In the thrilling opening number, a vengeful Prospero declares, “I call upon the skies, the eyes of justice watching over / There sail my enemies, I send the breeze their way / I summon every cloud to be a shroud on those who wronged me / They took my life so now I vow to make them pay! . . . I’ll finally be free / of the tempest in me.”

The shipwreck brings Antonio and Alonso to the island, along with Sebastian (Tristan André), Alonso’s brother; Ferdinand (Jordan Best), Alonso’s son; Gonzalo (Susan Lin), Alonso’s councilor; and the comic relief of Stephano (Joel Perez), the king’s butler, and Trinculo (Sabrina Cedeño), the king’s fool. Prospero sends out Ariel, who can make herself invisible, to create mayhem with her trusted spirits; meanwhile, Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love.

Velez’s songs, with playful orchestrations by Mike Brun, range from the bouncy “Vibin’ on to You,” in which Miranda and Ferdinand proclaim their affection for each other, to “A Crown Upon Your Head,” a chance for Sebastian and Alonso to scheme to take over, although the number is hampered by overpreening choreography (by Tiffany Rea-Fisher) at the end; from the fun but too long “A Fool Can Be a King,” in which the Three Stooges–like trio of Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban imagine Stephano ruling the island, to Caliban’s mostly unnecessary “The Isle Is Full of Noises.” Goldsberry brings down the house with the rollicking, hilarious “Log Man,” in which Prospero considers the love between Miranda and Ferdinand, singing, “Innocence flies like the last gasp of summer / Childhood dies in the arms of a lover / Nobody tries to hold on like a mother / But one day you have to let go / When she meets her log man.”

Alexis Distler’s set repurposes Beowulf Boritt’s design for this summer’s earlier Hamlet, with the six-piece band playing in part of a house that is sinking into the ground, next to the gutted main section. Wilberth Gonzalez’s costumes are based in water and earth colors and textures, with unique headpieces for most characters; Ariel’s transformation is a highlight, as are Caliban’s ratty, chainlike vestment and Prospero’s goth steampunk dress. David Weiner’s lighting and Jessica Paz’s sound expertly incorporate the large cast, with as many as eighty-eight performers onstage at once.

Sone classic lines get cut and plot points get condensed across one hundred minutes, and the finale is anticlimactic, but the spirit of the show is intoxicating. It’s a joy to see established actors working with first-timers and regulars from the Brownsville Recreation Center, the Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education, the Center for Family Life, the Children’s Aid Society, DreamYard, Domestic Workers United, the Fortune Society, and the Military Resilience Foundation, including Brianna Cabrera, Patrick O’Hare, Vivian Jett Brown, and Edwin Rivera as Spirit Ancestor lead singers.

This Tempest bids a fond farewell to the Delacorte as we know it, as the sixty-one-year-old theater begins a two-year renovation after the show ends its one-week run September 3. As Antonio usually says, but not in this version, “What’s past is prologue.”

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

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: HAMLET

Kenny Leon’s Hamlet follows his Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte (photo by Joan Marcus)

HAMLET
Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through August 6, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Don’t let the recent parade of Hamlets stop you from seeing Kenny Leon’s incisive adaptation that opened last week at the Public’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

There has been a surfeit of faithful versions and unique reimaginings of William Shakespeare’s 1599–1601 tragedy in New York City since 2015, from Robert Icke’s staging at Park Ave. Armory with Alex Lawther in the title role, Yaël Farber’s variation at St. Ann’s Warehouse starring Ruth Negga, and James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Fat Ham at the Public and on Broadway with Marcel Spears to the Public Theater Mobile Unit’s traveling show with Chukwudi Iwuji, Michael Laurence’s Hamlet in Bed at Rattlestick, and Thomas Ostermeier and Theater Schaubühne Berlin’s iteration at BAM with Lars Eidinger.

Tony winner Leon turns this Hamlet into a kind of sequel to his 2019 Delacorte triumph, a rollicking modern-day interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing that took place at a Georgia estate prominently displaying “Abrams 2020” banners, referring to two-time former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Set designer Beowulf Boritt is back, tearing the estate in half; one part of the house is sinking into the ground, an Abrams poster sticking out at an angle, like a lonely, overturned grave marker, while a black SUV is stuck in the mud on the other side. It is as if a tornado, or a dangerous presidency, ripped through the land, leaving America in tatters, the white tiles on the grass evoking a cemetery. (The Delacorte itself will be torn down after this summer’s Hamlet and Public Works presentation of The Tempest to undergo a major renovation; it is scheduled to reopen in 2025.)

The central facade features a large portrait of a military hero in full dress uniform, looking like a dictator: the previous king’s funeral is just getting underway as a quartet performs three biblical hymns alongside a flag-draped coffin. “When you go, you’ll have to go alone / When you go, you’ll have to go alone / No one in this world / Can take your journey / When you go, you’ll have to go alone,” they sing. Leon adds in Harry Belafonte’s “Day-o,” an out-of-place tribute to the recently deceased artist and activist, but he also gives us a lovely introduction to Ophelia (Solea Pfeiffer), who offers, “You and Me (No Love Stronger).” Ophelia is given more agency than usual in this adaptation as she considers her affection for Hamlet (Ato Blankson-Wood).

Ato Blankson-Wood is impressive as the introspective Hamlet in latest Shakespeare in the Park production (photo by Joan Marcus)

“For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, / Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, / A violet in the youth of primy nature, / Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, / The perfume and suppliance of a minute, / No more,” Laertes (a firm Nick Rehberger) warns his sister before leaving.

Ophelias’s father and Claudius’s chief counsel, Polonius (Daniel Pearce), admonishes, “In few, Ophelia, do not believe his vows, / I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth / Have you so slander any moment leisure / As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. / Look to ’t, I charge you. Come your ways.”

The dead king’s brother, Claudius (John Douglas Thompson), has quickly gained the throne by marrying his brother’s widow, Gertrude (Lorraine Toussaint). Deeply affected by this turn of events, Hamlet feels like he is alone. “A little more than kin and less than kind,” he whispers to the audience about his new stepfather. Blankson-Wood is brilliant as Hamlet slowly descends into madness, with Leon exploring the character’s state of mind more insightfully than I can remember ever seeing before.

Hamlet is soon visited by the ghost of his father, who appears like a distorted monster, projected onto the gable of the house, his otherworldly voice (recorded by Samuel L. Jackson) explaining to his son that Claudius murdered him; he proclaims, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” At one point Allen Lee Hughes’s lighting casts the shadow of Hamlet’s head across his father’s portrait, suggesting that he will never be able to escape from the former king’s legacy. (The lighting is by Allen Lee Hughes, with sound by Justin Ellington and projections by Jeff Sugg.)

Claudius calls for Hamlet’s old friends Rosencrantz (Mitchell Winter) and Guildenstern (Brandon Gill) to spy on him. Meanwhile, Hamlet arranges for a traveling troupe of players (Mikhail Calliste, Lauryn Hayes, LaWanda Hopkins, and Colby Lewis) to put on a show that will reveal to the king that Hamlet knows that he is a liar and a murderer. “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king,” he says. The players perform a rap song, Jason Michael Webb’s “Cold World,” which features such un-Shakespearean lyrics as “Days are precious when you’re livin’ in a warzone / Tryna live, heart heavy like a diamond / City’s cold, but the streets are even colder / Gotta get out ’fore they say my time is over.” When Hamlet describes the plot, with its murder and marriage, Claudius gets up and storms off. The battle is on.

Leon (Topdog/Underdog, A Soldier’s Play) streamlines the play to a mere two hours and forty-five minutes with intermission, eliminating the subplot of the Norwegian crown prince Fortinbras, who mounts a challenge to Hamlet after Hamlet’s father slays his father. We don’t see Barnardo (Trí Lê), Horatio (Warner Miller), and Marcellus (Lance Alexander Smith) initially encounter the ghost. There is no mention of any state being “rotten,” no “to the manner born,” no “thoughts be bloody,” but none of that is missed.

Polonius is wonderfully portrayed by Pearce (Mother of the Maid, Timon of Athens) as a persnickety, bow-tied southern gentleman in a seersucker suit. Thompson, one of our greatest classical actors whether doing Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice), Eugene O’Neill (The Iceman Cometh), or August Wilson (Jitney), is stirring as Claudius, commanding the stage with a moving vulnerability, while Toussaint (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Stuff Happens) is a worthy cohort, finding compassion for her son even as her husband grows more combative. Greg Hildreth (Company, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow) nearly steals the show as the gravedigger, who uses skulls like bowling balls.

Lorraine Toussaint and John Douglas Thompson sparkle as Gertrude and Claudius in Hamlet (photo by Joan Marcus)

The staging does supply some significant problems. As opposed to Leon’s Much Ado About Nothing, which was set in modern-day Atlanta, it is not clear when and where his Hamlet unfolds, in Denmark, Georgia, or a different location. While Much Ado had an all Black and brown cast, Hamlet has several Caucasian actors. There are subtle references to what is happening in Trump-era America, the dialogue is spoken with a flowing style, and Jessica Jahn’s costumes are contemporary dress, from Claudius’s blue suit to Laertes’s dungaree jacket to Hamlet’s hoodie and Ophelia’s revealing bustier. So impressive in Much Ado, the car now seems like an excess prop. Leon might be attempting to meld past with present, but it can cause confusion, as when letters are delivered during a time when SUVs and 2020 placards are present.

Following in the footsteps of such actors as Sarah Bernhardt, Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Nicol Williamson, Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh, and Ethan Hawke — and, at the Delacorte itself, Michael Stuhlbarg in 2000, Sam Waterston in 1975, Stacy Keach in 1972, and Albert Ryder in 1964 — Blankson-Wood (Slave Play, The Total Bent) is a Hamlet for these times. His journey into madness has a method in it, a young man troubled by what he sees going on all around him, with his parents, his girlfriend, and the ruling class.

“I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. / ‘Mad’ call I it, for, to define true madness, / What is ’t but to be nothing else but mad?” Polonius says to Claudius. Blankson-Wood’s Hamlet is no skulking college student or shy mama’s boy; he is a prince trying to find his way in a complex and dangerous world, one that provides no sympathy. He delivers six of Hamlet’s seven soliloquies (“How all occasions do inform against me” has been cut) with a thoughtful, understated tenderness, not demanding attention to himself but instead to the character’s search for an unreachable inner peace.

It’s heartbreaking but, after all, Hamlet is a tragedy, no matter where or when it is set.

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

PUBLIC WORKS: AS YOU LIKE IT

A diverse cast of amateurs and pros comes together in As You Like It at the Delacorte (photo by Joan Marcus)

AS YOU LIKE IT
Central Park, Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through September 11, free, 8:00
publictheater.org

In celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Delacorte Theater and the tenth anniversary of the Public Theater’s Public Works program, which brings together professional artists and community members in short-run, large-scale productions, Shakespeare in the Park has brought back Public Theater artist-in-residence Shaina Taub and Public Works director Laurie Woolery’s 2017 adaptation of the Bard’s pastoral comedy favorite, As You Like It. Continuing in Central Park through September 11, the musical is a delightful take on the story of hidden identity, family dysfunction, and true love, set in and around the forest of Arden and given a decidedly twenty-first-century twist while often referencing the show.

“All the world’s a stage / and everybody’s in the show / Nobody’s a pro / All the world’s a stage / and every day, we play our part / acting out our heart / Year by year, we grow / learning as we go / trying to tell a story we can feel / How do you make the magic real?” Taub, as the melancholy Jaques, sings as a form of introduction, words that relate to the musical, to Public Works, and life itself.

Later, Duke Senior (usually portrayed by Darius de Haas but I saw Amar Atkins), who has been exiled by his younger brother, Duke Frederick (Eric Pierre), and leads a poor but tight-knit community in Arden, declares, “I will not be free / until we are all free / Under the greenwood tree / you shall see no enemy / Do not fear / All / All are welcome here,” letting everyone onstage and in the audience know that this is an inclusive experience. The cast of 127 features performers from ages 7 to 82, mostly amateurs, from partner organizations across the five boroughs: Brownsville Recreation Center, Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education, Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, Children’s Aid, DreamYard, Domestic Workers United, the Fortune Society, and Military Resilience Foundation. Each participant is listed in the program and gets to make a personal statement.

Taub, who wrote the music and lyrics, and Woolery, who directs, have created a multiethnic spectacle with key gender swaps, which deliver added depth to the narrative. Tired of being persecuted by his older brother Oliver (Renrick Palmer), orphaned gentleman Orlando (Ato Blankson-Wood, Trevor McGhie) believes he can prove his worth by winning a wrestling tournament. The bouts are hilariously choreographed in a ring that rises from below the stage; the competitors range from the masked and massive Bronco to Frankie Flow and a wiry and vicious caveman (actual lucha libre wrestlers from the Bronx Wrestling Federation).

Rosalind (Rebecca Naomi Jones) is banished by her uncle, Duke Frederick (Eric Pierre), in Shakespeare adaptation (photo by Joan Marcus)

After pulling out a surprise victory, Orlando falls instantly in love with Rosalind (Rebecca Naomi Jones), the daughter of Duke Senior, and is subsequently banished by her uncle. Rosalind, accompanied by her best friend, Celia (Idania Quezada), Duke Frederick’s daughter, disguise themselves as Ganymede and Aliena, respectively, and head out into the forest joined by their loyal fool, Touchstone (Christopher M. Ramirez). Orlando flees the court and goes to Arden as well, seeking out his sweetheart.

Soon Orlando, not recognizing that Ganymede is in fact Rosalind, is befriended by his disguised love, who teaches him the art of wooing. Celia develops a liking for Oliver. Touchstone becomes desperate to hook up with farmhand Andy (Jonathan Jordan), who might have a thing for farmer William (Damion Allen). And shepherdess Silvia (Brianna Cabrera; Claudia Yanez) is mad for shepherdess Phoebe (Bianca Edwards), who wants nothing to do with her and instead develops a taste for Ganymede.

Distressed by Phoebe’s spurning, Silvia sings, “You Phoebe me / Why you gotta Phoebe me?” Phoebe cruelly retorts, “You say my glance is lethal / but girl, I know you’re lying / cause I’m giving you a death stare / and I don’t see you dying!” To “Phoebe” someone becomes a joke throughout the rest of the play.

Meanwhile, whenever Orlando bursts out into a solo, he is joined by a riotous backup group dressed in gleaming all-white, De Boys band dancers (Tristan André, Pierre Harmony Graves, Bobby Moody, Edwin Rivera), who groove with him seamlessly to the immense delight of the audience.

But trouble awaits when Duke Frederick decides to invade the forest and put an end to all the romantic shenanigans.

The large cast rehearses indoors for As You Like It (photo by Joan Marcus)

Taub, who previously adapted Twelfth Night for Public Works, serves as a kind of narrator as Jaques, appearing now and then to offer such warnings as “We shall make the same mistakes and never learn!,” “The worst fault you have is to be in love,” and “Give me leave to speak my mind and I will through and through cleanse the infected world, if they will patiently receive my medicine!” Of course, the medicine she and Woolery (Manahatta, Eureka) deliver is more than just a panacea but at the very least a temporary cure for whatever ails you.

The songs run the gamut from pop to R&B to rap and romantic ballads, with wonderful orchestrations by Mike Brun and original choreography by Sonya Tayeh, playfully restaged with additions by Billy Griffin. Duke Frederick’s entrances and exits are particularly memorable, accompanied by a royal guard that proclaims, “All hail Duke Frederick” to a melody that recalls the evil Imperial March theme from Star Wars, while the De Boys boy band brings down the house each time they put on the moves.

The set, anchored by a rear bridge and three trees on a revolving center, is by Myung Hee Cho, with lavish costumes by Emilio Sosa, lighting by Isabella Byrd, and sound by Sun Hee Kil. The animal puppets are by James Ortiz, the designer behind the remarkable puppets in The Skin of Our Teeth and Into the Woods.

The cast is a delight, from the leads to the bit players; in the program, the actors are listed alphabetically and each gets the same amount of space, three or four lines, whether it’s Taub, Jones, Blankson-Wood, or Ramirez or Vivian Jett Brown as Miss Amiens, Tommy Williams or Jason Asher as the referee, or Monica Patricia Davis or Alfreda Small as Ada.

The show was written in response to the 2016 presidential election and how it has torn apart the nation. It returns at a time when we all need healing and a way to come together despite our differences. In As You Like It, Jaques calls it “a miserable world,” but it’s significantly better with musicals like this in it.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: RICHARD III

Robert O’Hara’s Richard III is set among moving gothic arches (photo by Joan Marcus)

RICHARD III
Central Park, Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through July 17, free, 8:00
publictheater.org

There’s a moment early on in Robert O’Hara’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard III that defines the rest of the play. When Richard (playwright and actor Danai Gurira), the Duke of Gloucester, is wooing Lady Anne (Ali Stroker) after having murdered her husband, the prince, and her father, the king, he gives her his dagger so she can kill him. “If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive, / Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed dagger, / Which if thou please to hide in this true breast / And let the soul forth that adoreth thee, / I lay it naked to the deadly stroke / And humbly beg the death upon my knee—” Richard says. She plunges the dagger into his chest, but alas, it is merely a prop that Richard takes back and fake stabs himself with a few times.

Richard smiles and the crowd laughs, but it prepares us for a different kind of Richard III, and a different kind of Richard. The scene is key to the success of the play; if Richard can woo Lady Anne, who passionately despises him, then he can in turn win over the audience to root him on while he treacherously lays waste to anyone and everyone in his way on his journey to acquiring the crown.

Richard is usually portrayed by a white man with a humped back and a menacing limp. But here he is played by a Zimbabwean American woman, looking magnificent in black leather with gold details and a closely shaved head with ominous designs. There’s no limp and no hunch, recalling Jamie Lloyd’s recent staging of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac at the BAM Harvey, where a stunning James McAvoy wore no embarrassing proboscis, perhaps the hottest Cyrano in history.

So it’s a hard sell when Gurira admits, “I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, / Nor made to court an amorous looking glass; / I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty / To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, / Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, / Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time / Into this breathing world scarce half made up, / And that so lamely and unfashionable / That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.”

Ratcliffe (Daniel J. Watts) has some stern words with Richard III (Danai Gurira) in Shakespeare in the Park production (photo by Joan Marcus)

Despite that anomaly, we are with Gurira’s Gloucester from the very start, in a prologue taken from the third part of Henry VI as he stabs the king. Gurira’s monologues to the audience are not as intense as we are used to; this is a more likable Richard, and that works, for the most part. Gurira, who is well known as Michonne on The Walking Dead and Okoye in Black Panther and has appeared on Broadway in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and at the Delacorte in Measure for Measure, has a charismatic mystique as she marches across Myung Hee Cho’s minimalist set, consisting of eleven large gothic arches that rotate around the stage and occasionally flicker with colored lights. (The lighting is by Alex Jainchill, with fashionable costumes by Dede Ayite and sound and music by Elisheba Ittoop.)

But O’Hara (Slave Play, Barbecue), who has previously directed Gurira’s Eclipsed and The Continuum, never finds the right pace as the show labors through its two hours and forty minutes (with a twenty-minute intermission). We are too often waiting for something to happen instead of it just happening; the electricity rarely sparks.

There are stylish moments, but too many scenes feel like set pieces that stand on their own but do not flow into one another. Tony winner Stroker (Oklahoma! Spring Awakening) is lovely as Lady Anne, especially when she shows up later in a blinged-out wheelchair. Monique Holt (Cymbeline, Romeo & Juliet), who is deaf, adds a unique aspect to the Duchess of York, but not everything she signs is translated. One of the assassins, played by Maleni Chaitoo, is also deaf. And Rivers is portrayed by Matthew August Jeffers, who has a rare form of dwarfism.

Danai Gurira and Matthew August Jeffers rehearse in masks for Richard III (photo by Joan Marcus)

Interestingly, while Gurira’s Richard has no physical disabilities, Richmond and King Edward IV are played by Gregg Mozgala (Cost of Living, Merchant of Venice), who has cerebral palsy, which affects how he walks; Mozgala starred as a high school version of Richard III in Teenage Dick at the Public in 2018.

Sharon Washington (Feeding the Dragon Wild with Happy), who portrayed Lady Anne at the Delacorte in 1990, brings down the house as Queen Margaret, who sees through Richard immediately. She lets loose after declaring, “I can no longer hold me patient,” making us yearn for her return after she exits. The cast also features Sanjit De Silva as Buckingham, Skyler Gallun as the Prince of Wales, Paul Niebanck as George, Michael Potts as Lord Stanley, Ariel Shafir as Lord Hastings, Heather Alicia Simms as Queen Elizabeth, Matthew August Jeffers as a standout among the ensemble, and Daniel J. Watts as Catesby / Ratcliffe.

Richard III kicks off the sixtieth anniversary season of Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte; the inaugural presentation, in 1962, was The Merchant of Venice with George C. Scott as Shylock and James Earl Jones as the Prince of Morocco. Richard III has been staged at the Delacorte in 1966 with Philip Bosco, 1983 with Kevin Kline, and 1990 with Denzel Washington. Among the others who have portrayed the devious duke onstage are Scott, Laurence Olivier, Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alec Guinness, Peter Dinklage, Mark Rylance, and Lars Eidinger, who was spectacular in Thomas Ostermeier’s adaptation at BAM in 2017. Gurira is a worthy addition to that list, even if the production itself leaves too much to be desired in a hopefully glorious summer.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: MERRY WIVES

An exuberant cast welcomes Shakespeare in the Park back to the Delacorte in Merry Wives (photo by Joan Marcus)

MERRY WIVES
Central Park, Delacorte Theater
Monday – Saturday through September 18, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Shakespeare in the Park returns to the Delacorte after a canceled 2020 Covid summer season with the Public Theater’s exuberant but overbaked Merry Wives, continuing through September 18. Adapted by actress and playwright Jocelyn Bioh, who has appeared in such shows as An Octoroon and The Red Letter Plays: In the Blood and written such works as School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play and Nollywood Dreams, the play is thoroughly updated but often feels like a mash-up of such sitcoms as What’s Happening!! and The Jeffersons with such reality programs as The Bachelorette and Real Housewives.

The evening begins with Farai Malianga in a Brooklyn Nets Kyrie Irving jersey pounding on his djembe and eliciting an engaging call-and-response with the audience. It’s a wonderful start, reminiscent of how the late Baba Chuck Davis would kick off BAM’s annual DanceAfrica series. The seating is less thrilling but important, divided into sections full of vaccinated people who may choose not to mask — most don’t — and two emptier sections of unvaccinated people who must be masked and socially distanced.

Merry Wives is set in modern-day South Harlem, with a cast of characters from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal, portrayed exclusively by actors of color. In 2019, Kenny Leon directed a fabulous all-Black version of Much Ado About Nothing, but lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Madams Ford (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Page (Pascale Armand) join forces in contemporary update of Merry Wives (photo by Joan Marcus)

There’s a reason why The Merry Wives of Windsor is so rarely presented; it’s only been performed at the Delacorte twice before, in 1974 (with George Hearn, Marilyn Sokol, Barnard Hughes, Cynthia Harris, Michael Tucker, and Danny DeVito) and 1994 (with Margaret Whitton, David Alan Grier, Andrea Martin, Brian Murray, and Tonya Pinkins). It’s not one of the Bard’s better plays, a Medieval farce that tears down one of his most beloved creations, Sir John Falstaff, far too mean-spiritedly. And too many of the devices and subplots — mistaken identity, the exchange of letters, secret romance — feel like hastily written retreads here.

Falstaff (Jacob Ming-Trent) is a Biggie Smalls–loving wannabe playa out to conquer laundromat owner Madam Nkechi Ford (Susan Kelechi Watson) and socialite Madam Ekua Page (Pascale Armand), making cuckolds of their husbands, the distinguished Mister Nduka Ford (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and the generous Mister Kwame Page (Kyle Scatliffe).

“Nah man, I’m serious,” the sweats-wearing Falstaff tells Pistol (Joshua Echebiri), one of his minions. Madam Page “did so course over my exteriors with such a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass. She bears the purse too; she is from a region in Ghana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be sugar mamas to me; we’re gonna have the Ghanaian and the Nigerian jollof rice! Go bear this letter to Madam Page — and this one to Madam Ford. And then, my friend, I will thrive! . . . I mean . . . We will thrive.”

Misters Kwame Page (Kyle Scatliffe) and Nduka Ford (Gbenga Akinnagbe) try to avoid being cuckolded in Bard farce in Central Park (photo by Joan Marcus)

At the same time, the Pages’ daughter, Anne (Abena), is considered the most eligible bachelorette in Harlem and is being wooed by the well-established Doctor Caius (David Ryan Smith), the shy, nervous Slender (Echebiri), and Anne’s true love, Fenton (MaYaa Boateng), whom no one approves of. Manipulating various elements are the caring Pastor Evans (Phillip James Brannon) and the busybody Mama Quickly (Angela Grovey). Madams Ford and Page get wind of Falstaff’s deceit and team up to confound him, while a jealous Mister Ford disguises himself as a Rastaman named Brook to try to uncover Falstaff’s plan to bed his wife. “Please, off with him!” Sir John tells Brook about Ford. “I will stare him out of his wits, I will awe him with my club; I shall hang like Lebron James over the cuckold’s horns.” It all concludes with a series of matches that are as playful as they are convenient and contemporary.

Beowulf Boritt’s set is fabulous, consisting of the facades of a health clinic, a laundromat, and a hair braiding salon, which open up to reveal various interiors. Dede Ayite’s gorgeous costumes honor traditional African designs with bold colors and patterns. But director Saheem Ali (Fireflies, Fires in the Mirror), the Public’s associate artistic director who helmed audio productions of Romeo y Julieta, Richard II, and Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 during the pandemic lockdown, can’t get a grip on the story, instead getting lost in silly, repetitive slapstick that overwhelms the narrative. The laughs come inconsistently, settling for trivial humor over sustained comedy. This Merry Wives is a crowd pleaser the way familiar but routine sitcoms and reality shows are; light and frothy, none too demanding, but once they’re done, you’re on to the next program.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: CORIOLANUS

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Coriolanus comes to Shakespeare in the Park for the first time in forty years (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through August 11, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Jonathan Cake portrays Shakespeare’s brash antihero, Coriolanus, like a mix between superstar New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in Daniel Sullivan’s riveting version, which opened tonight at the Public’s Delacorte Theater. The first Shakespeare in the Park production of the 1607 play since Wilford Leach’s staging in 1979 with Morgan Freeman — James Earl Jones starred as the title character in the only other Delacorte presentation of the work, Gladys Vaughn’s 1965 adaptation — Sullivan sets the play in a contemporary junkyard strewn with old tires, a burned-out car, random detritus, and a rickety steel gate. (The postapocalyptic design is by Tony winner Beowulf Boritt.)

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Martius (Jonathan Cake) gets a talking-to from his mother (Kate Burton) in Daniel Sullivan’s latest Shakespeare adaptation (photo by Joan Marcus)

Caius Martius (Cake) has returned to Rome after singlehandedly defeating the Volscians, who are led by his longtime nemesis, General Tullus Aufidius (Louis Cancelmi). Rechristened Coriolanus after his victory, Martius has nothing but disdain for the common folk, who are starving, scavenging for food on the streets. The conquering hero is soon the centerpiece of a power struggle in pre-imperial Rome, championed by the upper classes as their savior against the rabble. While his patrician supporters, including Senator Menenius Agrippa (Teagle F. Bougere), army commander Cominius (Tom Nelis), and General Titus Lartius (Chris Ghaffari), want him to run for consul to gain political power over the “beastly plebians,” the people’s tribunes Junius Brutus (Enid Graham) and Sicinius Velutus (Jonathan Hadary) are suspicious of him and so attempt to turn the starving mob against him in the upcoming election. Martius, who is married to the pregnant Virgilia (Nneka Okafor), father to Young Martius (Emeka Guindo), and son to the forceful, determined Volumnia (Kate Burton), is a fiery, insolent, and almost monstrously arrogant character, and he can’t keep his mouth shut; all too soon he comes up with a dangerous plan of revenge that threatens everything, and everyone, he loves.

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Martius (Jonathan Cake) and Menenius (Teagle F. Bougere) have a tense moment in Shakespeare in the Park presentation (photo by Joan Marcus)

At more than two and a half hours (with intermission), Coriolanus is long and drawn out, with a compelling main storyline but mundane, barely there subplots, perhaps because this tale is entirely fictional, not based on actual historical events. The play has never been brought to Broadway, and it is rarely revived; Michael Sexton’s 2016 Red Bull production found a way in by setting it during the Occupy movement and placing the audience in the center of the action. However, on a more conventional stage, it can prove significantly problematic, although Sullivan does a good job navigating through the bumps. The acting is inconsistent, although Public Theater mainstay Bougere (Cymbeline, Is God Is) is excellent as Martius’s right-hand man, Nelis (Girl from the North Country, Indecent) is a fine Cominius, and three-time Tony nominee Burton (The Elephant Man, The Constant Wife) is brilliant as Martius’s strong-willed mother. Tony winner Sullivan (Proof, The Comedy of Errors) makes the most of Volumnia’s line about her son being a man-child; the warrior Martius often turns into a little boy when speaking to his mommy, eliciting major laughs. It’s a stark counterpoint to his bravery in battle and his burgeoning frenemy bromance with Aufidius. It’s also a keen look at the voting process, particularly now that election season is under way in the United States, as the people and the pundits debate over who’s worthy and who’s not, who’s genuine and who is a power-hungry, mean-spirited liar.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Kenny Leon moves Much Ado About Nothing to modern-day Atlanta in Shakespeare in the Park adaptation (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through June 22, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Danielle Brooks gives a powerhouse comedic performance as Beatrice in Kenny Leon’s jaunty, rollicking adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ever-charming romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing, which opened Tuesday night at the Public’s open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where it continues through June 22. Leon has moved the proceedings to modern-day Atlanta, complete with cell phones, contemporary music, and an impressive car that pulls up at the back of Beowulf Boritt’s welcoming set — the large, grassy courtyard and four-story estate belonging to Gov. Leonato (Chuck Cooper), boasting a pair of red, white, and blue political banners declaring, “Abrams 2020,” referring to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (who recently was in the audience). The show opens with Beatrice singing Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” soon joined by Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Margaret Odette), and her ladies-in-waiting, Ursula (Tiffany Denise Hobbs) and Margaret (Olivia Washington), singing “America the Beautiful,” a stark contrast highlighting the polarized state of our nation as the songs overlap. Following a brief protest march with signs condemning hate, the dapper Don Pedro (Billy Eugene Jones) arrives with his contingent after a military victory, including his close friend Count Claudio (Jeremie Harris), his guitar-strumming attendant, Balthasar (Daniel Croix Henderson), and the don’s brother, the bastard Don John (Hubert Point-Du Jour).

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Beatrice (Danielle Brooks) gossips with her besties in Much Ado About Nothing in Central Park (photo by Joan Marcus)

Claudio immediately falls for Hero while Beatrice, Leonato’s niece, and Benedick (Grantham Coleman), a lord who fought alongside Don Pedro, throw sharp barbs at each other, neither in the market for a spouse. (The first time Beatrice says his name, she emphasizes the last syllable.) But Don John, who is no Don Juan, has decided that since he is miserable, no one else is to be happy, so he calls upon his henchmen, Borachio (Jaime Lincoln Smith) and Conrade (Khiry Walker), to stir up trouble and cast would-be lovers against one another. “I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace,” Don Pedro says. “Though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.” Mistaken identity, misunderstandings, a masquerade ball, spying, lying, and private letters all come into play in one of the Bard’s most beloved comedies.

Tony nominee Brooks (The Color Purple, Orange Is the New Black) is phenomenal as Beatrice, taking full advantage of her size, her vocal talents, and her expert timing. She moves and grooves across the stage, reciting her lines with an easygoing, conversational flow and rhythm, an innate sense of humor, and a magical command of the language that breathes new life into the Bard’s words. “I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing,” she proclaims early on. It’s all Coleman (Buzzer) can do to not get swept up in the hurricane that is Brooks; on the rainy night I went, he even took a hard spill on the wet ground, wiping out on his back but getting up quickly, able to joke about the nasty fall. (It reminded me of a special moment I saw in the previous Shakespeare in the Park production of the play five years ago, when John Glover, as Leonato, pulled off an unforgettable, far less dangerous maneuver after a storm.)

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Beatrice (Danielle Brooks) and Benedick (Grantham Coleman) explore a love-hate relationship in Bard romantic comedy (photo by Joan Marcus)

Tony winner and longtime Atlanta resident Leon (American Son, A Raisin in the Sun) has the women take charge in this version, the men relegated to the back seat in the all-person-of-color cast. He even has a woman, Lateefah Holder, portray Constable Dogberry, although her shtick becomes too repetitive (but is very funny at first). Among the males, the always dependable Cooper (Choir Boy, The Piano Lesson) stands out, steady and forthright, while Odette (The Convent, Sign Me) is a sweetly innocent Hero. The fresh choreography is by Camille A. Brown, with snappy costumes by Emilio Sosa and original music by Jason Michael Webb. But at the center of it all is Brooks, who is in full command as a Beatrice for the ages.

(In addition to waiting on line at the Delacorte and the Public to get free tickets, you can also enter the daily virtual ticketing lottery online here. The play is almost never canceled because of bad weather, so going on a rainy day is a great idea, as a lot of seats become available due to no-shows.)