In the past three weeks I’ve seen 10 shows in NYC, which I think is a new record for me as a non-resident. So many shows open this time of year, but I barely scratched the surface on Broadway because so many fascinating off-Broadway plays beckoned with their intriguing concepts.
I’ve briefly summarized each one below and offered my critical thoughts. Happy theater-going!
Stupid Fu**ing Bird by Aaron Posner (off-Broadway at Pearl Theatre Co.)
This play is an adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull. And if I thought I’d had enough of these adaptations (I loved Songbird off-Broadway six months ago), then I was wrong — because Stupid Fu**ing Bird is among my favorite theater-going experiences of the past month. It uses Brechtian distancing effects superbly — direct address, musical interludes, some audience interaction. When Conrad turns to the audience to express his contempt at the lack of originality in theater, he embodies his point in a brilliant way. We find out near the end (minor spoiler alert) that we are currently watching the play that Conrad has been writing the whole time — this twist is so logical that it should be part of all future Seagull adaptations. Playwright Aaron Posner’s take on this classic is bold, original, and in-your-face. It pulses with an undeniable current that answers Conrad’s non-rhetorical question: yes, theater can still bring originality and excitement.
The Woodsman by James Ortiz (off-Broadway at New World Stages)
The Woodsman is an origin story for the Tinman from Wizard of Oz — his parents escape into the woods to raise him and years later he meets a young woman who has been enslaved by the wicked witch. They fall in love. And then limb by limb his body turns to tin. The Woodsman is a lovely movement piece set to instrumental music; the actors play out each scene in imaginative ways using motion and puppetry, with very limited sets and props. It’s a dark fairy tale that happens to be a love story, and the mood is set beautifully by the decor around the theater (lanterns and twigs align the walls and ceiling) as well as through the haunting violin notes that accompany the actors throughout. It’s a magical 70 minutes at the theater.
YOUARENOWHERE by Andrew Schneider (at 3 Legged-Dog, off-Broadway)
This is the most experimental piece of theater I’ve ever seen, and it came highly lauded by the Maxamoo Theater Podcast (where I get most of my theater recommendations). It’s an hour-long performance piece by Andrew Schneider that meditates on time and space. At its root, ‘time’ is a construct created by humans to better grasp our reality — we assign classifications like days, hours, and minutes as a way to mark time. But really, there is only the past, present, and future. Andrew wonders about our brushes with death — what if at each near-miss our present reality spun off into another reality? And what if there were endless versions of ourselves floating around in parallel universes? And then he displays this idea in a wholly original way that completely blows my mind. I can’t spoil it for you here, but MAN, this is the most unique thing I’ve seen in the theater. Food for thought: when you read the above title, do you perceive it to be “you are now here” or “you are nowhere”? This is the crux of Andrew’s show.
The Body of an American by Dan O’Brien (off-Broadway at Primary Stages)
An interesting two-hander that explores the relationship between playwright / poet Dan O’Brien and war photographer Paul Watson. While in war-torn Somalia, Paul was about to photograph a dying man when he thought heard the man whisper, “If you do this, I will own you forever.” (Listen to Paul discuss this on NPR’s Fresh Air, which was the way Dan O’Brien first heard about this story.) Paul decided to take the photo, and the dying man’s words haunt him to this day. O’Brien corresponded with him for years and their interaction and musings make up the bulk of this play. As someone who takes photos abroad (albeit in far more peaceful settings than a war zone), I found it fascinating to hear about what Paul Watson has witnessed first-hand. His real-life photos are projected onto the set at various points, illustrating his accounts perfectly. Glad to have caught this one.
Blackbird by David Harrower (Broadway at the Belasco Theatre)
This dark, Olivier award-winning play ran off-Broadway in 2007 starring Jeff Daniels and Alison Pill. Daniels returns in this production opposite Michelle Williams as the female lead; they play Ray and Una, who had a sexual relationship when she was 12 and he was in his 40s. She’s tracked him down at his new job, where he works under a different name, to confront him about what happens a decade and a half earlier. This play is about two broken people — broken in different ways and to different degrees — who have a conversation 15 years in the making. The play attempts to present Ray as less of a predator than the situation would typically call for, insinuating that their sexual encounters were more nuanced than most pedophile incidents. But that’s a tough pill to swallow. As much as playwright David Harrower tries to minimize the inherently ickiness that audience members no doubt feel at the start of the play, it barely relaxes throughout the show’s 90 minutes. Michelle Williams’s fragile performance won’t allow it.
Side note: I have to take a minute here to compare Blackbird to Oleanna, the David Mamet play about two adults (a college student and professor) engaging in a he said / she said debate. While in ways that show is wildly different from Blackbird, the comparison stuck with me and I couldn’t help contrasting the two. I remember seeing Oleanna at the Taper with Bill Pullman and thought he was horribly miscast because he was too innately likable; the story hinges on the audience feeling distrustful of both characters, or else it’s too one-sided. And I had the opposite thought during Blackbird — it’s good casting that Jeff Daniels exudes a similarly likable vibe or else I would have been too creeped out to see his character as a real person; I would have labeled him as a child molester, full stop, instead of as a human being who made a horrendous, monumental mistake. That’s not to defend Ray, but to point out how casting on a project like this can seriously sway how audiences perceive a character.
The Wildness by Kyle Jarrow & Lauren Worsham (off-Broadway at Ars Nova)
This rock fairy tale caught my interest awhile ago and I’m delighted I got to see it. The band Sky-Pony, founded by husband-and-wife team Lauren Worsham and Kyle Jarrow, presents The Wildness as though it’s an annual retelling of a pageant they’ve performed since they were young. There are two layers of storytelling going on — the actors as themselves (blurred with some fictionalizations) and the actors playing characters like princesses and handmaidens within the fairy tale. I should mention the unique seating — when you purchase tickets, they are for a specific section; each area has a name like “knife,” “boot,” “candy,” and “present” (to name a few). Upon checking in, you’re given a blindfold representing the color of your section. So right off the bat you feel like you’re in for a different and surprising evening. It’s a very cozy venue and the action took place mere feet in front of me for most of the show — an exhilarating way to experience this music and story. The whole night was imaginative, catchy, and fun. And Lauren Worsham, the co-creator and co-lead, was nearly 8 months pregnant when I saw the end of the show’s run. Her character does not wear much and she owned her body with a fierceness I have not seen on-stage before. Sky-Pony has performed this show in various iterations for the past few years so it’s neat that she comes to it at this point in her life when she’s pregnant and it simply weaves into the fabric of the show without really changing anything.
The Robber Bridegroom by Alfred Uhry & Robert Waldman (off-Broadway at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre)
I fell head-over-heels for this show, which is described as “a Mississippi Fairy Tale” with bluegrass music (I just realized that 3 out of these 10 shows are in large part fairy tales). This show ran off-Broadway starring Patti LuPone in the 1970s and it has a reputation for being somewhat dark. But this revival, in the hands of Alex Timbers — the most inventive theater director working today — comes across as a barrel of fun. And I’d pay good money to hear lead actor Steven Pasquale sing his face off any day. The fact that the entire ensemble is so strong (special shout-out to Leslie Kritzer for doing incredible work) is icing on the cake. This show runs through the end of May and I hope to get back again before it closes.
Ironbound by Martyna Majok (off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
This was another Maxamoo Theater Podcast recommendation, and I’m so glad I listened to them and bought a ticket. It’s a new play by Martyna Majok with a perspective I had not yet seen in mainstream theater. The play spans 22 years of Darja’s life and every scene takes place at the bus stop in New Jersey across from the factory where she works as a newly arrived immigrant from Poland, and later in the neighborhood where she cleans homes. Over that time span, Darja goes through two marriages and contemplates a third as we witness just how complicated her economic circumstances are. How does one go about living when a single setback could leave you homeless? And when faced with that dilemma, how far would you go to protect those you love? All Darja wants is to be a good mother to her son, a perspective shared by so many people on this planet. But the complications of her circumstances — also unfortunately not unique — make life a daily struggle. Marin Ireland plays Darja and I can’t speak highly enough of her performance.
Thank God for Jokes by Mike Birbiglia (off-Broadway at the Lynn Redgrave Theater)
My sister and I saw this show last weekend and just loved it. We’re big comedy fans — especially my sister — and we like Mike Birbiglia’s work. His show is even better than I’d hoped; it’s a mix of engaging, humorous stories and legitimately good crowd work. He took us on a ride for 80-ish minutes that I enjoyed every second of. If you can see him in person, do it, because each show is unique (i.e. because of the crowd work) and he’s so comfortable telling stories on stage.
Familiar by Danai Gurira (off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons)
Oh man did I love this play. It’s about a Zimbabwean family who has lived in Minnesota for the last 20+ years while raising two daughters. The play begins the day before the older daughter is about to marry a white guy from Minnesota. They have called one of her aunts from Zimbabwe to visit and perform their customary ceremony before the actual (Western) wedding. Little do they realize the can of worms that has been opened. For starters, the ceremony is essentially a formal trade whereby the groom’s representatives offer money, cows, and other goods in exchange for the bride’s hand in marriage. But the real drama lies between the parents of the bride and her aunts as they consider how assimilation has shaped their family. Similarly, the bride and her sister must confront how they were raised as Americans and have lost touch with their Zimbabwean roots. If this all sounds heavy, rest assured there’s a heavy dose of comedy that keeps things very interesting (the tableau at the end of Act 1 had me doubled over in laughter and shock). While there is a Big Family Secret that rears its head in Act 2 and sort of hijacks the end of the play, I think this piece would be just as strong without that burst of plot because the familial relationships and dialogue are so rich. Oh, and the playwright is Danai Gurira, an actress on The Walking Dead; she also wrote Eclipsed currently running on Broadway, which I saw last fall. I am so impressed with these two plays. While exiting the theater I heard another patron compare Familiar‘s themes to the novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a thought I also had, as that book is incredibly perceptive at parsing the topic of assimilation.
That wraps up another month of theater! I’m so grateful to be in the city often enough to see all these shows. Special shout-out to TDF, as my membership with them makes it financially possible to see this many shows, and to the various “under 35” programs that offer discounted tickets to younger people.
