Tag Archives: Laura Esterman

I’M REVOLTING

Patients and family members await serious news in Gracie Gardner’s I’m Revolting (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

I’M REVOLTING
Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 16, $77-$97
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

Theater is all about making magic, and that’s exactly what happened at last Sunday’s matinee of Gracie Gardner’s I’m Revolting at the Atlantic. The play takes place in the waiting room of a New York City skin cancer clinic, where four characters are arriving for further tests or surgeries. There’s no curtain, so Marsha Ginsberg’s attractive set is visible as the audience enters: six chairs lined in a row at the center, a watercooler stage right, some plants stage left, a vending machine behind the patients, low overhead fluorescent lighting (by Kate McGee) and a striking wall of mirrors across the back that allows the audience to see itself in the reflection, as if we are all in the waiting room together. The effect is all the more effective since masks are required at the Atlantic and we are about to see a show in which several characters must deal with possible facial disfigurements that would leave them trying to avoid mirrors.

But before the play started, director Knud Adams, taking off his mask, announced that one of the actors, the wonderful Peter Gerety, had come down with Covid-19 and was being replaced by the wonderful Peter Maloney, an Atlantic regular who had been asked the day before to step in for Gerety. Adams explained that Maloney would be playing the part with script in hand, since he had had less than twenty-four-hour notice. Understudies have performed their own kind of magic during the coronavirus crisis, keeping Broadway and off Broadway going amid variant outbreaks, but none are listed in the Playbill for I’m Revolting, so without Maloney, the last week of the show’s run might have had to be canceled.

Doctors Denise (Patrice Johnson Chevannes) and Jonathan (Bartley Booz) are in for a long day at skin cancer clinic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Maloney does a remarkable job as Clyde, an older man who has been to the clinic many times for multiple procedures; he is either a wise sage or a nosey neighbor to the others: nineteen-year-old Reggie (Alicia Pilgrim), who is terrified of being left with ugly facial scars; Reggie’s older sister, Anna (Gabby Beans), a demanding financier who seems to have better things to do than wait with her nervous sibling; Toby (Patrick Vaill) a former lifeguard who blames his nipple melanoma on himself for not using proper protection and hides under his coat instead of interacting with anyone; Paula (Laura Esterman), Toby’s New Age mother, who believes healing comes from within (with the help of holistic rituals); Liane (Emily Cass McDonnell), the saddest of them all, who has the most extreme case; and Jordan (Glenn Fitzgerald), her husband, who is in complete denial as to her wife’s situation.

The clinic is run by Denise (Patrice Johnson Chevannes), a calm, welcoming doctor, and Jonathan (Bartley Booz), a younger physician learning the ropes from her. Every time Denise or Jonathan call in a patient to go through the door in the back, the other people in the waiting room engage in a range of conversations, openly sharing their personal information with one another.

The cast is uniformly superb, keeping it real even when their characters go a little overboard. Pilgrim (Cullud Wattah) portrays Reggie in a way that she could be any of us, while Chevannes (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, runboyrun) makes Denise the doctor you’d want to have for whatever ails you.

Jordan (Glenn Fitzgerald) and Jonathan (Bartley Booz) face off in I’m Revolting at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Clyde is the central guiding force, and Maloney (Outside Mullingar, Glengarry Glen Ross) nailed him; while he occasionally looked at the script (usually surreptitiously), he was mostly off book, getting his line readings just right with all the necessary ebbs and flows. It was inspiring to watch him pull this off, to both the audience and his fellow actors, a reminder for how real illness can be and as a model for how humans deal with it (although the general public cannot call in a replacement at the last minute).

Adams (English, Paris) directs the play with surgical precision, although things get bumpy when Gardner (Panopticon, Pussy Sludge) tries to conclude each patient’s story arc. The finale, though, is a sharp jab to the head and stomach. It’s not an easy ninety minutes, but Adams and Gardner do a terrific job of keeping you involved in a work that unfolds in one of the last places you’d ever want to be.

BENEFIT READING AND ACTOR/PLAYWRIGHT DISCUSSION OF GOOD AS NEW

good as new

Who: Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Peter Hedges
What: Benefit reading and discussion for MCC Theater
Where: MCC Theater YouTube channel
When: Thursday, July 16, $25, 7:00
Why: In its twenty-fifth anniversary 1993-94 season, Manhattan Class Company (now known as MCC Theater) presented novelist, screenwriter, and playwright Peter Hedges’s one-act play Good as New, which was turned into a full-length work in 1997 starring John Spencer, Jennifer Dundas, and Laura Esterman. The company is bringing back the shorter, two-character version for a special benefit reading on July 16 at 7:00, with Oscar and Grammy winner Julianne Moore (Far from Heaven, Still Alice) starring as a mother butting heads with her teenage daughter, played by Kaitlyn Dever (Unbelievable, Booksmart), who is learning how to drive. In a statement, Hedges explained, “Thirty-three years ago I met Julianne Moore at the same time I met MCC Theater. Bernie [Telsey], Bob, and Will had arranged for a stage reading of my play Andy and Claire. An actress unknown to me at that time, Julianne Moore, read Claire. In that moment, she became one of my favorite actors in all the world. MCC Theater is my favorite theater in all the world. And back when I wrote plays, MCC often workshopped and produced them. I even wrote much of my first novel, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, reading and staging excerpts under the auspices of MCC Theater. After experiencing the sublime and exquisite live reading this past spring of Alan Bowne’s Beirut with Marisa Tomei and Oscar Isaac, the possibilities of meaningful virtual theater became ever apparent. It was a thrill when MCC approached me about doing a reading of Good as New — and the whole thought of it went to a surreal next level when the great Julianne Moore and one of my favorite younger actors in all the world, the phenomenal Kaitlyn Dever, agreed to come play at what will be a live virtual theatrical party on July 16.”

The twenty-five-minute reading will be directed by Hedges, who has also written and directed such films as Pieces of April, Dan in Real Life, and The Odd Life of Timothy Green and written such plays as Champions of the Average Joe, Imagining Brad, and Baby Anger, and will be followed by a twenty-five-minute interactive talk back with the cast and creative team. Tickets are $25, with proceeds going to MCC’s Be Our Light Campaign; ten percent of any additional donations will go to the Artist Co-op.

GOOD FOR OTTO

Dr. Robert Michaels (Ed Harris) calls everyone to order in New Group production of David Rabe’s Good for Otto (photo by Monique Carboni)

The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 15, $40 – $125
www.thenewgroup.org

Right from the start, Tony-winning playwright David Rabe and director Scott Elliott make everyone in the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center equal in the New York premiere of Good for Otto. After the audience is seated and the doors are closed, several people enter the stage from the rear and sit in either one row of freestanding, umatched chairs on either side or two rows of fixed seats in the back. It’s a combination of the cast and audience members, sitting next to one another, with no separation. For the next briskly paced three hours, actors get up, share their joys and anxieties (mostly the latter) with one of two therapists at the Northwood Mental Health Center in the fictional town of Harrington near the Berkshire Mountains, then return to their seat. The central figure, part conductor, part stage manager a la Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, is Dr. Robert Michaels (a sweetly charming Ed Harris), a calm, good-natured psychiatrist who runs the clinic. He’s a poetic, positive-thinking counselor who explains in the beginning, “In spite of the bucolic countryside, in spite of the sky, the trails, the lakes, pain is plentiful here. Twenty-first century Americans in the land of plenty. But there’s money problems; family and work pressure. Autism. O.C.D. Alcohol and drug abuse, sexual abuse. Being young. Getting old. It all sits hidden in our little world of bright skies, bright lakes, and tall trees. And then finally, of course, there’s simply and always the problem of being human.” Dr. Michaels and his colleague, therapist Evangeline Ryder (Amy Madigan, Harris’s real-life wife), see patients who have trouble relating to others, whether they be friends, family (especially mothers), or strangers, while feeling out of place in contemporary society.

Evangeline Ryder (Amy Madigan) and Barnard (F. Murray Abraham) conduct a session in New York premiere of David Rabe play (photo by Monique Carboni)

Timothy (Mark Linn-Baker) is a grown man who is a little too close to his pet hamster, the palindromic Otto. Jane (Kate Buddeke) can’t get over the horror of her son Jimmy’s (Michael Rabe, the playwright’s son) suicide. Barnard (F. Murray Abraham) is a married septuagenarian who would rather not get out of bed every day. Alex (Maulik Pancholy) is a young man trying to come to terms with his homosexuality. Frannie (Rileigh McDonald) is an abused teenage girl with a storm inside her and considering a new life with her foster mother, Nora (Rhea Perlman), who is afraid that both of them are already too broken. And Jerome (Kenny Mellman of Kiki and Herb) is a piano-playing hipster drowning in boxes and a mother (Laura Esterman) who doesn’t understand him. Meanwhile, Dr. Michaels has his own issues, often seeing and talking to his mother (Charlotte Hope), who killed herself when he was nine; he knows it’s all in his head, but he can’t stop it. A dedicated and caring therapist, he also has trouble with boundaries. “You can’t get involved,” Evangeline tells him. “Your feelings — my feelings — our baggage — we can’t let it leak into the work.”

Dr. Michaels (Ed Harris) and Frannie (Rileigh McDonald) discuss parents and trolls in psychodrama at the Signature (photo by Monique Carboni)

In his fourth work produced by the New Group, following Hurlyburly, An Early History of Fire, and Sticks and Bones, Rabe is not digging deep into Sigmund Freud territory but merely exploring what ails everyone. “So many thoughts in our heads. In each of our heads,” Dr. Michaels’s mother explains. “Thoughts racing around, over each other, under each other. Thoughts hiding thoughts. Thoughts hunting for other thoughts that are hiding from the thoughts hunting them. And all of them doing it all at once. My goodness. What a madhouse.” The madhouse is inside us as we watch various characters deliver long monologues — and the rest of the excellent cast, which also includes Lily Gladstone as Denise, the clinic secretary, and Nancy Giles as Marcy, an insurance company case manager, watches as well. Oscar and Obie winner Abraham (Homeland, Amadeus) brings a Shakespearean flair to the proceedings, while Linn-Baker (My Favorite Year, On the Twentieth Century) balances humor and fear as the autistic man-child Timothy. Dr. Michaels’s penchant for singing old songs, which he introduces by playing a pitch pipe, feels frivolous, but otherwise Good for Otto hits its mark. Rabe (In the Boom Boom Room, Streamers) was inspired by Richard O’Connor’s 1997 book, Undoing Depression, which begins: “The essential question that patients and therapists ask themselves over and over is: why is it so hard to get better.” It is clear from the start that Good for Otto is not about anyone getting better. It’s about the pain of being human and the little quirks and imperfections we all have, from patients and doctors to actors and theatergoers, as we keep spinning our wheels like metaphorical hamsters in psychological cages.

INTIMACY

A community takes a revealing look at itself in world premiere from the New Group (photo by Monique Carboni)

The Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Through March 8, $25-$65
212-560-2183
www.thenewgroup.org
www.theatrerow.org

So what’s all the fuss about? Thomas Bradshaw’s latest play for the New Group, Intimacy, is a clever and comical, if occasionally cringeworthy, exploration of contemporary society that focuses on three families living in a close-knit, unidentified wealthy American suburb. James (Daniel Gerroll) found Jesus after his wife’s sudden death, retired from his successful Wall Street job, and is raising his eighteen-year-old son, Matthew (Austin Cauldwell), by himself. James has hired his neighbor Fred (David Anzuelo), an independent contractor, to renovate his house. Fred’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Sarah (Déa Julien), dreams of losing her virginity to Matthew on prom night. Meanwhile, Matthew, who wants to be a filmmaker instead of going to college, is spying on neighbor and fellow eighteen-year-old high schooler Janet (Ella Dershowitz), whose mother, Pat (Laura Esterman), talks to her extremely openly about sex and whose father, Jerry (Keith Randolph Smith), is a mild-mannered gentleman who wants only the best for his little girl. They gossip about who’s cheating on who, worry about school, argue over money, and share lawn tips. It might not quite be Peyton Place, but there’s nothing particularly strange or different about this community. But when one of the characters’ surprising sexual secret is exposed, a whole lot of other exposure follows.

A pair of fathers (Daniel Gerroll and Keith Randolph Smith) aren’t sure where things went wrong in Thomas Bradshaw’s INTIMACY (photo by Monique Carboni)

Bradshaw is no stranger to graphic portrayals of sex and violence onstage, as evidenced by such previous works as Burning for the New Group in 2011 and Job at the Flea in 2012. But with Intimacy, the sex and nudity — and there is plenty of both, including frottage, masturbation, footage of real sex, and expertly simulated acts that will have audiences wondering what’s actually going on right in front of them — are only a backdrop for a story about people’s fears and desires, their desperate need to connect with one another, and their deeply embedded addictions and overwhelming sense of shame and guilt. Bradshaw takes on religion, education, racism, the economy, personal privacy in the surveillance age, and other social and political mores in the show, skillfully directed by New Group founding artistic director Scott Elliott. Most of the characters are usually situated in Derek McLane’s suburban interior all at once, with Russell H. Champa’s lighting zeroing in on the specific action taking place on a couch, a bed, a video monitor, a toilet (which does indeed get used), and a desk where many of the characters watch porn and, well, take pleasure in it. And there’s a lot of pleasure being had, judging by all the erections and orgasms. The cast, featuring several members making their professional stage debuts, is, er, clearly having a ball with the edgy material, bravely going where few non-porn actors have gone before. So indeed, what’s all the fuss about? Intimacy is likely to catch people’s attention because of the overt naughtiness happening onstage — the production proudly announces, “This show contains nudity, sex, and bad language. Enjoy!” — but it deserves to get noticed more because it’s damn entertaining, erotic and titillating, realistic and absurd, and very, very funny, coming off as surprisingly natural despite the surreal turn it takes as the climax nears. As an added bonus, select seats in the first two rows are only $25, for those who want to get even more up close and personal with this revealing tale.