Tag Archives: the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

HAPPY TALK

Marin Ireland and Susan Sarandon star in Jesse Eisenberg’s Happy Talk for the New Group at the Signature (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 June 16, $40-$125
thenewgroup.org

Susan Sarandon is delightful as a suburban New Jersey housewife with a flexible connection to reality in Jesse Eisenberg’s superb Happy Talk, which opened last week at the Signature Center. The actor and writer’s fourth play, second for the New Group (following The Spoils), and first in which he does not appear is also his first non-autobiographical work, although it is infused with his childhood love for musical theater. Sarandon is Lorraine, a dedicated, longtime actress — dedicated to community theater, to be precise. Her current role is Tonkinese vendor Bloody Mary in the local JCC production of South Pacific, which has apparently taken over her life. Eisenberg makes clear that is her usual modus operandi as she immerses herself in the part, waxing poetic about her craft while a Serbian home-care aide deals with the prosaic details of Lorraine’s ill, grumpy husband, Bill (Daniel Oreskes), who spends most of his time sitting uncomfortably in a chair, reading a Civil War tome, and refusing to partake in conversation, and her dying mother, Ruthie, who is never seen but is often heard via a loud buzzer she presses repeatedly to demand help. It is soon clear that the relentlessly cheerful aide, Ljuba (Marin Ireland), is an undocumented immigrant saving money to buy an American husband so she can get her green card and bring her daughter to the States.

Ljuba (Marin Ireland), Lorraine (Susan Sarandon), and Jenny (Tedra Millan) share a rare moment of smiles in New Group world premiere (photo by Monique Carboni)

The narcissistic Lorraine is desperately frightened about being left alone and demands to be the center of attention and action. To cement her control of all around her, she arranges a potential fake marriage between Ljuba and a young gay man, Ronny (Nico Santos), who is playing Lt. Joseph Cable alongside Lorraine in the Rodgers & Hammerstein show. “Darling, I’m an artist. We live in the shadows, we bend the rules,” she tells Ljuba. “Now I want you to stop worrying. I will take care of everything.” Lorraine sees the “marriage” like a scene from a play she is writing, directing, and starring in, further establishing her preference for theater fantasy over real-life situations. Speaking about facilities for aging parents, she says, “It’s just horrible, all due respect. No one touches them. No one talks to them. It’s horrid the way we treat the elderly in this society. But Ljuba — she’s just incredible. She actually sleeps in the room with her. Can you imagine?” she explains even though she never goes in to see or speak with her mother. She later adds, “I trust a computer far more than a person to take care of me!” Meanwhile, Lorraine and Bill’s estranged daughter, Jenny (Tedra Millan), is an angry young woman with a surprise announcement to make — although maybe it’s not so surprising given her mother’s attitude toward her own responsibilities as both a mother and a daughter.

Ljuba (Marin Ireland) has some unhappy words for Lorraine (Susan Sarandon) as Ronny (Nico Santos) looks on in Happy Talk (photo by Monique Carboni)

Happy Talk is astutely directed by New Group head Scott Elliott (The True, Mercury Fur), capturing Eisenberg’s sharp, snappy dialogue as Lorraine and company careen around Derek McLane’s impeccably rendered suburban kitchen/living room set. Tony nominee and Obie winner Ireland (On the Exhale, Marie Antoinette), a genuine New York City theater treasure, and Oscar winner Sarandon (Atlantic City, The Rocky Horror Picture Show), in her first stage appearance since 2009’s Exit the King on Broadway with Geoffrey Rush, make a dynamic duo, Ireland going toe-to-toe with Sarandon as her character mutters asides that reveal she’s a lot smarter than others might think. Sarandon occasionally channels Bette Davis (think All About Eve) — perhaps not coincidentally, she was recently nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Davis in the FX series Feud, opposite fellow Emmy nominee Jessica Lange’s Joan Crawford; the implication works terrifically in a twisted plot turn.

Eisenberg (Asuncion, The Revisionist) fills the play with references to such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof, Sunset Boulevard, Once Upon a Mattress, Evita, Oliver! and Oklahoma! that add to the fun while also exploring such topics as cultural appropriation, elder abuse, and immigration. About halfway through the show, which continues at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre through June 16, Lorraine says with rare clarity, “I always thought that my lot in life was to help people en masse. Through my work. People see me on stage. They see the human condition — it filters through me — and maybe they learn a little something about themselves. And if they’ve walked away with a new sense of understanding, of being able to look at their fellow man and not just see a husk, but a soul? Well then, I’ve done my job.” Here, Eisenberg and Happy Talk accomplish just that.

BOESMAN AND LENA

Boesman (Sahr Ngaujah) and Lena (Zainab Jah) arrive in the middle of nowhere in stark Fugard revival at the Signature (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 17, $35
www.signaturetheatre.org

For its fiftieth anniversary, South African playwright and director Yaël Farber reimagines Athol Fugard’s 1969 Boesman and Lena as an anti-Apartheid Waiting for Godot at the Signature, where it opens tonight and continues through March 17. Coincidentally, Farber’s fierce adaptation of Mies Julie, which transports August Strindberg’s Miss Julie to South Africa in 2012, is being performed at Classic Stage through March 10. At the Signature, the audience enters the Alice Griffin Jewel Box, where a large translucent plastic tarp flutters across the front of the stage like a sad, empty flag, blocking most of the set from view, except for the people in the center of the first row, who have to go under it to sit down. Boesman (Sahr Ngaujah) and Lena (Zainab Jah) come in through the aisles, laden with heavy bags that look like garbage, carrying their physical and metaphorical burdens with them. They are homeless, looking for a place to rest their weary, worn-out bodies. Boesman tears down the tarp, revealing a barren landscape in the middle of nowhere, the mud flats of the Swartkops River, save for one bare tree, echoing Samuel Beckett’s Godot. Susan Hilferty’s dark, drab set creates just the right atmosphere of dread; Hilferty also designed the appropriately ratty costumes for the play, which was inspired by an actual incident that Fugard experienced in 1965.

“Why did you walk so hard? In a hurry to get here? Jesus, Boesman! What’s here?” Lena asks as Boesman sets up a makeshift camp in the liminal space. “Look at us! Boesman and Lena with the sky for a roof again. What you waiting for?” While he tries to set up a place for them to sleep using the tarp and the tree, she rambles on about the sad circumstances of their life, which annoys him to no end. “‘When she puts down her bundle, she’ll start her rubbish.’ You did,” he says. “Rubbish?” she asks. “That long turd of nonsense that comes out when you open your mouth!” he replies. They bicker like George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, although she does most of the complaining. Lena: “This is a lonely place. Just us two. Talk to me.” Boesman: “I’ve got nothing left to say to you. Talk to yourself.” Lena: “I’ll go mad.” Boesman: “What do you mean ‘go’ mad?” But behind it all is the unspoken state of the nation, a South Africa mired in racism, where the white minority brutally rules over the dispossessed black majority.

Boesman (Sahr Ngaujah) mock-threatens Lena (Zainab Jah) as the Old African (Thomas Silcott) sits quietly in Boesman and Lena (photo by Joan Marcus)

A third person arrives, a slow-moving, raggedy Old African (Thomas Silcott) who mumbles in his tribal Xhosa language, which neither Boesman nor Lena understands. (The script translates his dialogue; he essentially explains that he is looking for his relatives but got lost.) Boesman is not about to share what little they have with the old man, or Outa, as Boesman calls him (he also refers to him with the offensive slang term “kaffir”), but Lena has sympathy for his situation. “To hell! He doesn’t belong to us,” Boesman cries out. “There was plenty of times his sort gave us water on the road,” Lena says. The couple keep up their war of words, arguing about happiness, geography, names, and dogs as they soldier on with what little they have. Lena also shows the Old African the bruises she has from where Boesman hits her. “And now? What’s going to happen now?” Boesman asks. “Is something going to happen now?” Lena responds. It’s both a pure Beckett moment as well as a commentary on how their miserable lives, and the lives of all the black and brown people of South Africa, are not about to change for the better any time soon.

Three lost souls try to escape the darkness of their world in Signature revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

Ngaujah (Mlima’s Tale, Fugard’s The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek at the Signature) and Jah (School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play, Eclipsed) fully embody the desperation of their characters, a pair of lost souls with nowhere to go. The roles have previously been played onstage by Keith David and Lynne Thigpen in 1992 at City Center, on film by Danny Glover and Angela Bassett in 2000, and, in the original 1969 South African theatrical production, by Fugard and Yvonne Bryceland, both of whom are white; Glynn Day, who is also white, portrayed the Old African, reportedly in blackface. Silcott (Fugard’s Coming Home; Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk) is unrecognizable as the old man, beaten down to the point where he is practically invisible, fading into the darkness.

By having the characters wander through the aisles several times, Farber (Salomé, Amajuba: Like Doves We Rise) is implicating each one of us in their futility, as if Boesman and Lena are homeless and searching for a warm bed in an overcrowded New York City or refugees seeking a new life in an America that no longer welcomes them with open arms. Boesman treats the Old African much the same way. While there is hope and optimism in Godot, which has more than its fair share of comedic moments, the future is bleak for Boesman and Lena. “Now’s the time to laugh. This is also funny. Look at us!” Lena says, but their meager existence is no joke. This is the sixth Fugard play the Signature has produced as part of his ongoing residency since the company moved to its current building in 2012, including Blood Knot, The Train Driver, and Master Harold . . . and the Boys, and all those involved, from the cast and crew to the audience, have clearly benefited from so much time spent with Fugard.

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.

TWI-NY TALK: POLLY DRAPER / 20th CENTURY BLUES

Sil (Ellen Parker), Mac (Franchelle Stewart Dorn), Danny (Polly Draper), and Gabby (Kathryn Grody) celebrate forty years of friendship in 20th Century Blues (photo © Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 28, $79-$99
212-244-7529
20thcenturyblues.com
www.signaturetheatre.org

I spent much of the summer of 2014 serving on a jury for a murder trial, a case involving a drug-related shooting in Harlem. One of my fellow jurors was writer, director, and Emmy-nominated actress Polly Draper. Best known for her portrayal of Ellyn Warren on the groundbreaking drama thirtysomething, the Yale grad (both BAA and MFA) has also starred on and off Broadway (Closer, Brooklyn Boy); wrote and starred in The Tic Code, inspired by her husband, jazz musician Michael Wolff, who has Tourette’s syndrome; and wrote and directed The Naked Brothers Band television series and movie, starring their sons, Nat Wolff (The Fault in Our Stars, Buried Child) and Alex Wolff (In Treatment, All the Fine Boys). Draper, who has also won a Writers Guild Award, has been experiencing a career renaissance of late, portraying recurring characters on The Big C with Laura Linney, The Good Wife with Julianna Margulies, and Rhinebrook, as well as playing a key supporting role in the Kickstarter-funded indie hit Obvious Child.

She is now appearing off Broadway through January 28 at the Signature in 20th Century Blues, a bittersweet drama written by Susan Miller (My Left Breast, A Map of Doubt and Rescue) and directed by Emily Mann (Baby Doll, The How and the Why) about four sixtysomething women who have been getting together once a year ever since they met when they were all arrested at a political protest forty years earlier. Draper plays Danny, a divorced photographer and mother who has taken their picture every year. When Danny tells journalist Mac (Franchelle Stewart Dorn), veterinarian Gabby (Kathryn Grody), and real estate agent Sil (Ellen Parker) that she is having a solo show at MoMA and wants to include the forty years of photos, displaying them publicly for the first time, questions arise as the women look back at their past and consider their future. Danny is also contemplating taking care of her aging mother, Bess (Beth Dixon), in her apartment, which her friends do not think is the best idea. “She’s my mother,” Danny explains. “And, I don’t know how long I’ll get to be a daughter.” (That line rang extra true for me, as a half hour after I saw the play last week, my mother passed away in my sister’s Upper East Side apartment.)

A relaxed, easygoing woman with a broad sense of humor and a natural talent for leadership, Draper, like Danny, is passionate about everything she does. “When it comes to my art, I have very strong feelings,” she said when we met to talk shortly after the bizarre trial ended with a hung jury. And also like Danny, she is passionate about justice and freedom, as evidenced by her reactions to the trial in addition to her activism for numerous liberal causes. What follows are edited excerpts from our 2014 interview and a brand-new email exchange about 20th Century Blues, the legal system, working with family, and more.

Danny (Polly Draper) cares for her aging mother (Beth Dixon) in new play by Susan Miller (photo © Joan Marcus)

twi-ny: I can’t believe it’s been three and a half years since we sat on that long, bizarre murder trial. What are your thoughts looking back at that summer in court? At the time you called it a musical comedy.

Polly Draper: I think about that experience so much!!! And did you hear that those guys got convicted finally? I guess the second jury didn’t have our crazy guy on it. But I doubt they had as much fun as we did! What a mind-blowing experience!!!

twi-ny: I know! What was your single favorite moment of the trial?

Polly Draper: Meeting you guys. Meeting all the fun people and going out to the Chinese restaurants. I had a lot of fun. The only thing that wasn’t fun was the deliberations because of the crazy person. But even the deliberations had their fun things, like every time he’d fall asleep or when he wasn’t there. All the characters . . . It was fascinating for me in every way.

twi-ny: If you knew then what you know now, would you put yourself through it again?

Polly Draper: Definitely! Absolutely! I know some of the people wouldn’t say that at all, but I would so do it. It’s one of the most fascinating things that happened in a long time to me.

twi-ny: You’re currently starring in Susan Miller’s 20th Century Blues at the Signature. What initially drew you to the play itself and your part specifically?

PD: First of all, I was drawn to the play because it dealt with friendships between women and also with issues common to women my age. Plays written on this subject matter are few and far between.

Secondly, I really related to the character I was playing and her struggle to realize her artistic vision, which in her case involved putting together a photography exhibit at MoMA. Having struggled with many of my own artistic endeavors, I could identify with the obstacles she faced.

I also intimately understand this character’s relationship with her mother, who is in the throes of dementia, because my own mother is suffering from Parkinson’s disease–related dementia.

twi-ny: I’m sorry to hear that. The play follows four women who have documented their friendship through forty years of photos. What’s your longest current friendship?

PD: I’ve known my oldest friend, Wende Lufkin, since we were eight years old and share all my childhood and teenage memories with her. We live on opposite sides of the country and rarely see each other but are inextricably bonded by our shared past.

The two old friends I see constantly and have been entwined in my life for the past forty years are writer Jenny Allen, who I met in college, and actress Brooke Adams, who I met doing a play when I first came to NYC. (The two of them were at opening night for this play, in fact, rendering it even more meaningful to me.)

twi-ny: Speaking of long friendships, it’s now been forty years since thirtysomething debuted. In June 2007, you reunited with the cast for a “Look Who’s Fifty” story, and this past September EW did a “Where Are They Now?” feature. It really was quite a group of creative people; all these years later, everyone is still very busy, with many of the actors becoming directors, including yourself. Why do you think that might be?

PD: When we were on thirtysomething, all the actors were encouraged to direct. Regrettably, I wasn’t interested in doing so at the time, but I think the fact that so many of my cast members did it demystified the process for me. We were also encouraged to volunteer ideas for scripts, which got me interested in the whole process of script writing. Some of my castmates, like Melanie Mayron and Peter Horton, had already been directors and writers before they got on the show.

Everyone in the cast was smart and ambitious. So . . . I’m guessing that accounts for all the many directing / writing / acting projects among us.

Emmy nominee and Writers Guild Award winner Polly Draper has a passion for art, social justice, and family (photo by Carol Rosegg)

twi-ny: You’ve directed your family in The Naked Brothers Band series and movie, wrote and starred in The Tic Code, which was inspired by your husband’s Tourette’s syndrome, directed one of your sons in a play written by your other son, and next up is Stella’s Last Weekend, which you wrote, directed, and star in with your sons. Why do you think working with your family has gone so well? Do things ever get especially difficult either on the set or back at home?

PD: My family is the most important thing to me, so it is not surprising that all of the work I have created involves them. And it doesn’t hurt that they happen to be extraordinarily gifted actors and musicians.

I was actually surprised by the lack of stress we had on the set of Stella’s Last Weekend. The last time I worked professionally with Nat and Alex was on The Naked Brothers Band when they were wild and crazy little boys, so it was a treat for me to work with them as wild and crazy adults.

Because we worked together before and because we all know each other so well, we not only trusted each other, we have a shorthand communicating with each other. This resulted in all of it feeling surprisingly effortless from beginning to end. Nat and Alex both had great ideas for their characters and great improvisations they did in the scenes. They also kept everyone on the set in constant hysterical laughter with their brother antics.

I think the movie reflects the joy we all had making it. I am really proud of it and I can’t wait until it comes out so people can see it. The screenings we have had of it so far have been phenomenally successful.

And Michael, who also did the score for The Tic Code and The Naked Brothers Band, did a killer score for this one too.

twi-ny: Would you say that the camaraderie that you helped foster in the jurors room during the trial compares to that on a film set?

PD: That’s what my husband said. He said, “This is just typical of you. You always wind up hanging out with the people you’re doing a project with, and this is your new project.”

twi-ny: You move smoothly between film, television, and theater, from Obvious Child, The Good Wife, and Golden Boy to Closer, Rhinebrook, and now 20th Century Blues. Do you have a particular preference as an actor for one medium over another?

PD: I think I just like doing work I’m proud of. I like working on interesting projects no matter what medium they’re in.

There are advantages to the control you have and the instant audience feedback of acting onstage, but there is something magical about the intimacy of acting on film as well.

I love to write scripts because I can play every role in my head.

I love to direct because it is thrilling to create the real-life version of what used to be just my fantasy.

It is also beyond exciting to watch what each actor brings to my words.

I also love the process of editing because it is so much fun to give shape to the movie and fix mistakes and choose music and find meanings in all of it that I never saw before.

So basically, I love every part of the process of acting, writing, and directing except the actual business part. That part I hate and fear. Unfortunately, it is one of the most important parts!

twi-ny: Getting back to the play, what gave you the blues in the twentieth century? And what about now, in the twenty-first century?

PD: Oy vey. I guess the simple answer would be to say that the blues I had in the twentieth century were more personal and involved growing up, and the blues I have in the twenty-first century are more global and involve fear for all of mankind.

When you and I served on that jury almost four years ago and Obama was still president, I don’t think either of us could have guessed the seismic shifts that have happened this year. The list of things that give me the blues now have to do mostly with our president and the flame he fans of lies and hatred and backward thinking, but he seems to be just a by-product of a frightening trend worldwide.

My blues in this century are every thinking person’s blues: They concern the environment, the spread of misinformation, North Korea, Putin, guns, nuclear holocausts, sexual predators, prescription drugs, women’s rights, civil rights, immigrants’ rights, terrorists, the Koch brothers and where they put their dark money, Steve Bannon and his scary white supremacy fans, cyberwarfare, Republican congressmen, our judicial system, and any old men with weird orange hair.

THE RED LETTER PLAYS: IN THE BLOOD

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 15, $30 ($75 starting October 10)
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

In Fucking A, the first of the two Red Letter Plays that Suzan-Lori Parks wrote in the late 1990s inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist, Hester Smith, is an ostracized abortionist with an “A” branded near her heart, a single mother with a son in prison, both caught up in a cruel system. In the first Red Letter Play, the extraordinary In the Blood, which is currently running in tandem with Fucking A at the Signature Theatre, the main character is Hester, La Negrita (Saycon Sengbloh), a welfare mother with five young children from five different men. In her case, the “A” is the first letter of the alphabet; she is trying to learn to read and write, without much success. Hester and her kids — Jabber (Michael Braun), Bully (Jocelyn Bioh), Trouble (Frank Wood), Beauty (Ana Reeder), and Baby (Russell G. Jones), all wearing Montana Levi Blanco’s fanciful costumes — live in filth under a bridge, where trash is regularly pumped in. The town blames Hester herself for the predicament she’s in; at the beginning of the play, members of the community yell at her, “That’s why things are bad like they are / cause of girls like that . . . And now we got to pay for it. . . . She don’t got no skills / cept one,” adding, “She knows she’s a no count / Shiftless / Hopeless / Bad news / Burden to Society / Hussy / Slut / Pah!” But Hester adores her children, constantly referring to them as her “treasures,” her “joys.” She wants her life to be a fairy tale; she even tells her kids a bedtime story that serves as an uplifting metaphor about their situation. Hester is desperate to provide for her family, but she sometimes gets in her own way, looking for shortcuts because she doesn’t know any better. Each of the actors playing Hester’s children also doubles as an adult with ties to her: Amiga Gringa (Reeder) is a prostitute who is friends with Hester; the Doctor (Wood) offers her free medical tests and advice; Welfare Lady (Bioh) wants Hester to start helping herself and being more conscientious; Reverend D. (Jones), the father of one of Hester’s kids, keeps avoiding acknowledging their former relationship; and Chilli (Braun), the love of her life, is back in town and looking for her. (The names Reverend D. and Chilli are direct references to Puritan minister Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, from Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, although the plot is completely different.)

In the Blood is beautifully written by Pulitzer Prize winner Parks (Topdog/Underdog, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World and superbly directed by Obie winner Sarah Benson (An Octoroon, Samara), never heavy-handed as they explore racism, misogyny, religious corruption, and inefficient government bureaucracy. Louis Thompson’s set has Hester trapped from the outset, a curved metal ramp serving as a Sisyphean non-exit, while bars put Hester in a zoolike cage. Tony nominee Sengbloh (Eclipsed, Hurt Village) gives a deeply heartfelt performance as Hester, La Negrita, a caring woman who just wants her family to be happy. “My lifes my own fault,” she recognizes. “But the world dont help.” Each of the adult characters delivers a soliloquy, called a “confession,” regarding their connection, primary sexual, to Hester, seeing her first and foremost as a sexual object, not as a person with very real problems. “Do not for a moment think I am one of those people haters who does not understand who does not experience — compassion,” the Doctor says. The Welfare Lady explains, “I walk the line / between us and them / between our kind and their kind. / the balance of the system depends on a well-drawn boundary line / and all parties respecting that boundary.” And the Reverend D. admits, “Suffering is an enormous turn-on.” In the Blood, which also features choreography by Annie-B Parson and movement by Elizabeth Streb, is a riveting, deeply intelligent and powerful parable that takes place in the “here” and “now,” marking it as a timeless work about institutionalized social ills that don’t look to be going away any time soon. (Parks will be playing with her band, guitarist Christian Konopka and percussionist Julian Rozzell, on October 7 at 4:15 and 6:30 at the Signature Café + Bar; admission is free and open to the public. There will also be a talkback with members of the cast and crew following the October 5 performance of In the Blood.)

WAKEY, WAKEY

Two-time Emmy winner Michael Emerson returns to the New York stage in WAKEY, WAKEY (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 2, $30-$75
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Will Eno completes his three-play Residency Five program at the Signature Theatre with Wakey, Wakey, a very funny, deeply touching, and unique exploration of humanity and the life cycle. Partially inspired by his friendship with Signature founder James Houghton, who passed away in August 2016 at the age of fifty-seven from stomach cancer, Wakey, Wakey is about all the little pieces of basic daily existence that make us who we are, from birth to death. Michael Emerson returns to the stage as a character referred to in the script only as Guy, who as the play opens is lying on the floor, facedown. “Is it now?” he asks. “I thought I had more time.” For the next seventy minutes, Guy shares details from his life, plays word games, philosophizes about the world, shows home movies and YouTube videos, and is cared for by home health worker Lisa (a gentle and sweet January LaVoy). He also self-reflexively critiques what is happening in the theater. “Sorry, I don’t know exactly what to say to you,” he admits. “I wonder how you hear that, how that strikes you? What do you make of the fact that this event, painstakingly scripted, rehearsed, designed, and directed, features someone saying, ‘I don’t know exactly what to say to you.’ I hope you’ll receive that in the humble and hopeful spirit it was offered in.” Writer-director Eno, whose previous Signature works were Title and Deed and The Open House and who was represented on Broadway by The Realistic Joneses in 2014, has fun with the very clever staging; for example, noises that initially seem to be coming from the street or the audience are actually part of the sound design, and he uses physical objects in creative ways as well.

Lisa (January LaVoy) arrives to help Guy (Michael Emerson) in Will Eno world premiere at Signature (photo by Joan Marcus)

Following a video of screaming wildlife, Guy delves into the nature of pleasure and enjoyment, questioning where such feelings go once the moment is past. He also discusses how one’s life can be divided into two parts, one before watching the video, and one after it ends, in much the same way the play itself can serve as a dividing line, especially as it deals so intimately with life and death and how things don’t always go quite as planned. Christine Jones’s set consists of a free-standing door, a large wall with a calendar on it, and packing boxes, as if someone is moving in — or moving out. David Lander’s lighting, Nevin Steinberg’s sound, and Peter Nigrini’s projections all contribute to the play’s inventive originality. Two-time Emmy winner Emerson (Lost, Person of Interest), whose previous stage credits include playing Oscar Wilde in 1997–98’s Gross Indecency at the Minetta Lane as well as three Broadway roles, gives a rousing performance, tender and humane, mostly from a wheelchair, making the most of his expressive puppy-dog eyes and small body movements, the slightest pause or glance filled with charm and humble mischief, then pain as Guy takes a turn for the worse. The play certainly has a message, but it’s not quite as syrupy and sentimental as it could have been. “Yes, we’re here to say good-bye and maybe hopefully also get better at saying hello,” Guy explains. “To celebrate Life, if that doesn’t sound too passive-aggressive.” But even when you think it’s over, Eno has yet more surprises in store, both inside the theater and outside in the lobby, as you kick off the next phase of your life.

THE DEATH OF THE LAST BLACK MAN IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD AKA THE NEGRO BOOK OF THE DEAD

Who gived birth tuh this. I wonder,” Black Man with Watermelon (Daniel J. Watts) says in searing Suzan-Lori Parks play at the Signature (photo © 2016 Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 18, $30 through December 4, $35-$65 after
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

As the audience enters the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre to see the Signature revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’s The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World AKA the Negro Book of the Dead, a man in overalls is onstage, sitting in a chair, his bare feet on the gravel, arms dangling at his side, his head, face covered by a hat, slumped over, as if dead. Behind him is a long, diagonal tree branch and an electric chair on a cantilevered porch. Most of the people who filter in take a quick look at the stage before continuing ongoing conversations, paging through the Playbill, or checking their cell phones. Meanwhile, the dead man just sits there, mostly unnoticed, the lengthy title of the play projected in large block letters on the back wall. It’s an apt metaphor for the show itself, first presented in 1990 at BACA Downtown in Brooklyn and now extremely relevant again amid the Black Lives Matter movement and the shooting of so many unarmed black men, women, and children by police. The searing eighty-minute production begins with an overture in which nine spirit characters, each representing a different African American archetype/stereotype, slowly enter Riccardo Hernandez’s set, carrying a watermelon with them. During the overture, they introduce themselves by speaking their signature lines, which also serve as their names: Lots of Grease and Lots of Pork (Jamar Williams), Queen-Then-Pharaoh Hatshepsut (Amelia Workman), And Bigger and Bigger and Bigger (Reynaldo Piniella), Prunes and Prisms (Mirirai Sithole), Ham (Patrena Murray), Voice on Thuh Tee V (William DeMeritt), Old Man River Jordan (Julian Rozzell), Yes and Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread (Nike Kadri), and Before Columbus (David Ryan Smith). Then Black Woman with Fried Drumstick (Roslyn Ruff) sits in the rocking chair next to the dead man, Black Man with Watermelon (Daniel J. Watts), and says, “Yesterday today next summer tomorrow just uh moment uhgoh in 1317 dieded thuh last black man in thuh whole entire world. Uh! Oh. Dont be uhlarmed. Do not be afeared. It was painless. Uh painless passin. . . . Why dieded he huh? Where he gonna go now that he done dieded? Where he gonna go tuh wash his hands?” Moving around Riccardo Hernandez’s set in highly stylized motion choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly and in representative costumes by Montana Blanco, the characters talk in a poetic and rhythmic language about the world being flat, the “saint mines,” the civil rights movement, dragons, and freedom over the course of four acts called panels — “Thuh Holy Ghost,” “First Chorus,” “Thuh Lonesome 3Some,” and “Second Chorus” — that unfold in a nonlinear and repetitive manner. “The black man bursts into flames. The black man bursts into blames. Whose fault is it?” asks Black Man with Watermelon, who dies over and over again. “Figuring out the truth put them in their place and they scurried out to put us in ours,” Before Columbus says.

Pulitzer Prize winner Parks (Topdog/Underdog, Father Comes Home from the Wars [Parts 1, 2 & 3]) sets the play “here,” in “the present,” and it’s frightening how that could fit from the discovery of America to today and beyond, particularly given the current state of the country, so mired in systemic racism. When Black Man with Watermelon says, again and again, “Cant breathe,” and gasps, it is impossible not to think of Eric Garner, but those lines were written more than twenty-five years ago. Director Lileana Blain-Cruz (War, Red Speedo) maintains a mesmerizing rhythmic flow to the abstract narrative, which was inspired by the Stations of the Cross and free jazz. The cast is outstanding, portraying stock characters who are far more complex than mere stereotypes and reach deep into black history. For example, And Bigger and Bigger and Bigger is an expansion of Bigger Thomas from Richard Wright’s Native Son, Queen-Then-Pharaoh Hatshepsut is based on the second Egyptian female pharaoh, and Ham is a conglomeration of the son of Noah and the old minstrel song “Hambone, Hambone, Have You Heard?” Front and center are Watts (Hamilton, The Color Purple) and August Wilson veteran Ruff (Fences, Familiar), who embody the desperation blacks have suffered for centuries. Yes and Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread demands, “You should write it down because if you dont write it down then they will come along and tell the future that we did not exist. You should write it down and you should hide it under a rock. You should write down the past and you should write down the present and in what in the future you should write it down.” And that’s precisely what Parks has done although, unfortunately, it appears to be a story with no end. (Blanco will discuss her costume design before the November 16 performance, the shows on November 17, 22, and 29 will be followed by a talkback with members of the cast and creative team, and there will be a cocktail hour before the December 1 show. Parks’s Signature residency continues in April 2017 with Venus followed by The Red Letter Plays: In the Blood and Fucking A in the 2017-18 season.)