Girl from the North Country

C+

The conditions under which I saw Conor McPherson’s (The Weir, The Seafarer) play with songs by Bob Dylan were not ideal. First, I am not and have never been a follower of Dylan’s oeuvre, so I was unfamiliar with the lyrics and not in a position to appreciate the nuances of subjecting the songs to new arrangements and contexts. Second, I was a victim of excessive expectations. Almost all the reviews from London were raves and a knowledgeable friend said it was right up there with Hamilton. I respectfully disagree. McPherson has written a play about the denizens of a Duluth boarding house during the Great Depression and interspersed it with 20 Dylan songs, both familiar and obscure, written between 1965 and 2012. We meet the Laines — Nick (Stephen Bogardus; Falsettos, Passion), the beat-down, deeply in debt owner of the boarding house; his demented wife Elizabeth (the magnificent Mare Winningham who turns out to have a gorgeous voice; Casa Valentina, Tribes), their boozy unemployed son Gene (Colton Ryan; Dear Evan Hansen) and their black adoptive daughter Marianne (Kimber Sprawl; A Bronx Tale) who is mysteriously pregnant. Then there are the Burkes, who have fallen on hard times — Mr. Burke (Marc Kudisch; 9 to 5, Hand to God), Mrs. Burke (Luba Mason; Jekyll & Hyde) and their son Elias (Todd Almond; The Tempest, Stage Kiss) who has the body of a strapping man but the mind of a child. Another boarder is Mrs. Neilsen (Jeannette Bayardelle; The Color Purple) , who appears to be in a very close relationship with Nick Laine. Two guests arrive in the middle of the night — Joe Scott (the superb Sydney James Harcourt; Hamilton), a black boxer who has been unjustly imprisoned, and Reverend Marlowe (David Pittu; Stuff Happens, The Front Page), a slimy itinerant bible salesman. We briefly meet Kate Draper (Caitlin Houlahan; Waitress), Gene’s ex-girlfriend; Mr. Perry (Tom Nelis; Road Show, Indecent), the elderly shoemaker who would like to marry Marianne; and the opioid-friendly Dr. Walker (Robert Joy; Head of Passes, Side Show), who acts as narrator. The abundance of characters and the necessity to make room for songs limits the ability to develop any character in depth and rushes the exposition, particularly in the first act. Many of the plot threads seem overly familiar while others are abruptly dropped without resolution. The songs, while beautifully performed, rarely seemed closely linked to particular events or characters. While it was a pleasure to see so many fine actors on stage, I was sorry that they did not have more opportunity to act. The fluidly transforming set design and costumes by Rae Smith (War Horse, The Seafarer) are evocative of the period. The playwright’s restless direction keeps the play in almost constant motion. While I realize that this will probably be one of the biggest hits of the season, I left the Public Theater frustrated and disappointed. Running time: two hours 20 minutes including intermission.

Final Follies

B-

Primary Stages is celebrating its long association with the late A.R. Gurney with an evening of three of his one-act plays at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Each satirizes one of his favorite targets: the decline of WASPdom, suburban ennui and academic shenanigans. 

The first offering, the presciently titled “Final Follies,” was Gurney’s last work. In it, Nelson (Colin Hanlon; In Transit, Dot), a feckless WASP, applies for a job as a porn star rather than accept an allowance from his generous but controlling grandfather (Greg Mullavey; The Sisters Rosensweig, Clever Little Lies). Tanisha (Rachel Nicks; War, And I and Silence) is the attractive receptionist at the film studio’s office. Walter (Mark Junek; The Hairy Ape) is Nelson’s uptight brother, whose jealousy leads him to attempt to turn their grandfather against Nelson. The results are unexpected. It’s all quite amusing, if slight. 

The second play, “The Rape of Bunny Stuntz” from 1965, actually had its first production at the Cherry Lane. Bunny (Deborah Rush; Noises Off, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot) is a buttoned-down suburban matron who is about to chair the meeting of some unidentified self-help group. Things get off to a bad start when she can’t find the key to the metal box containing everything she needs for the meeting. Her two minions Howie Hale (Piter Marek; Disgraced, Cyrano de Bergerac) and Wilma Trumbo (Betsy Aidem; All the Way, Nikolai and the Others) are of little help to her when the attendees retire to the cafeteria for refreshments until Bunny is ready to start the meeting. An unseen menacing figure in a leather jacket lurks offstage claiming he has her key. Bunny offers possible explanations that grow ever more self-incriminating. The play never really takes off and was by far the weakest of the three. The uncannily timely thing about the play is that Bunny talks about the detailed calendar she keeps to document her every activity. Sound familiar?

After intermission, we get “The Love Course” from 1969, the longest and strongest of the three. We meet Professors Burgess (Mr. Marek) and Carroway (Ms. Aidem) at the final session of the course they have jointly taught, “The Literature of Love.” It will not be offered again because she is moving to Mt. Holyoke after being turned down for tenure while he is moving up into administration. Sally (Ms. Hicks), one of Prof. Carroway’s favorite students, has brought her boyfriend Mike (Mr. Hanlon) along. The flamboyant Professor Carroway has boundary issues, confusing emotions on the page with those in the classroom. Her fury at Professor Burgess for perceived grievances boils over with hilarious results. There is not really much substance behind it all, but it’s very enjoyable.

The actors are all attuned to Gurney's sensibilities. David Saint (The Fourth Wall), a frequent collaborator of Gurney’s, directs with assurance. The minimalist set by James Youmans (The Fourth Wall) utilizes — some might say over-utilizes — concentric frames of colored light to frame the proscenium. David Murin’s (Steel Magnolias) costumes are spot-on. 

Two out of three isn’t bad. I think the evening would have been better without the second play, but it didn’t spoil things for me. Running time: two hours ten minutes including intermission.

Bernhardt/Hamlet

C

Roundabout Theatre Company is to be congratulated for commissioning a new play for Broadway by an established playwright starring a superb actor in a lavish production. That being said, I only wish the results had turned out better. Theresa Rebeck (Seminar, Mauritius) has taken a critical moment from the long career of the famous Sarah Bernhardt, added a fashionable dash of female empowerment, and embroidered actual events with a few liberties to pique interest. This would be fine if the play were more involving and coherent. Perhaps if I were a student of theatrical history and/or an avid Shakespearean, I might have found it more gripping. At the age of 55, Bernhardt (the charismatic Janet McTeer; Les Liaisons Dangereuses, God of Carnage) was tired of playing dying courtesans and thought taking on Hamlet might be the box office success she needed to fill her expensive new theater. Her last play, by the promising Edmond Rostand (Jason Butler Harner; The Crucible, Cock), although a critical success, had been a commercial disaster. Constant Coquelin (a droll Dylan Baker; The Front Page, Mauritius) is a veteran member of her company. Louis — for some reason, he doesn’t get a last name — (Tony Carlin; Pygmalion, Junk) is a pompous critic. Alphonse Mucha (Matthew Saldivar; Saint Joan, Junk) is the artist who created posters for all Bernhardt’s plays. We also meet three members of Bernhardt’s company, played by Brittany Bradford, Triney Sandoval and Aaron Costa Ganis. Rebeck’s conceit is that Rostand, although over 20 years her junior and married with young children, is her current lover. Furthermore, she asks him to rewrite Hamlet to remove the poetry and make Hamlet a more dynamic character. (She actually did commission a revision to her specifications, but not by Rostand.) Unable to say no to her, Rostand accepts the job, which requires him to neglect his own play in progress. Her request is the curtain line of the long, turgid first act. In the livelier but unfocused second act, we meet Bernhardt’s adult son Maurice (Nick Westrate; Casa Valentina, Tribes), who returns home from university suddenly to see what is rotten in Paris, and Rostand’s clever wife Rosamond (Ito Aghayere; Junk, Mlima’s Tale) who confronts Bernhardt over the affair. The Hamlet production seems to get lost. Instead of seeing Bernhardt’s Hamlet, we instead get a scene from the play Rostand had suspended work on, Cyrano de Bergerac, with Coquelin playing the career-making title role. The final scene has a clever coup de théatre that unfortunately offers too little too late. McTeer makes a convincing Bernhardt, but when she portrays Hamlet, her speech becomes too quiet and rapid. The impressive revolving set by Beowulf Boritt (Act One, Come from Away) captures the theater’s backstage, Bernhardt’s ornate dressing room and a few other locations. Toni-Leslie James’s (Come from Away, Jitney) period costumes are excellent. The pace set by Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s (Hand to God, Verité) direction often seems rushed. All in all, it was a disappointment. Running time: two hours 30 minutes including intermission.

The True

B

This new play by Sharr White (The Other Place), now at The New Group, offers a wonderful vehicle for Edie Falco’s return to the New York stage. For many, including me, that is sufficient reason to celebrate. Better yet, she is supported by a terrific cast that includes Michael McKean (The Little Foxes, Hairspray), Peter Scolari (Lucky Guy, Sly Fox), Glen Fitzgerald (Ripcord, Lobby Hero) and John Pankow (Dada Woof, Papa Hot; "Episodes"). The setting is 1977 Albany where potty-mouthed, no-nonsense Polly Noonan (Falco; Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune, House of Blue Leaves, “The Sopranos”) has been working as assistant to Mayor Erastus Corning II (McKean) for 35 years. Her long-suffering husband Peter (Scolari) has learned to survive by keeping a low profile and trying to ignore rumors that his wife is more than Corning’s assistant. Corning has been not only a boss but a close friend to Polly and Peter. When the death of the local Democratic Party chairman sets off a power struggle, Corning suddenly and mysteriously cuts off relations with the Noonans. Discovering the reason is the rather weak hook on which the plot is hung. Despite the pain of being frozen out, Polly loyally plows ahead to insure Corning’s success in an upcoming primary. During her efforts, she meets secretly with slick Howard Nolan (Fitzgerald), the man running against Corning, and wily Charlie Ryan (Pankow), the politician pulling Nolan’s strings. In a related subplot, Polly invites Bill McCormack (Austin Caldwell; Intimacy), a dim young man she is attempting to recruit to Corning’s team, over for dinner with hilarious results. Sharr has a flair for snappy dialogue, but resorts to shouting matches a bit too often. The view seen here is enough to make one nostalgic for the heyday of urban machine politics where the worst sculduggery was an envelope with a $5 bill in it on election day. The depiction of how little opportunity there was for a strong woman in 1977 politics reveals one aspect of the down side of that era. The main feature of Derek McLane’s (Jerry Springer — The Opera, Sweet Charity) set is floor-to-ceiling bookcases decorated with a variety of table lamps that initially depicts the Noonan’s home and morphs, with varying degrees of success, to several other locations. The period costumes by Clint Ramos (Sweet Charity, Violet) are spot-on. Scott Elliott (Good for Otto, Evening at the Talk House) directs with assurance. It’s not a wonderful play, but it’s quite entertaining. Running time: one hour 45 minutes, no intermission.

What the Constitution Means to Me

C+

This work by Heidi Schreck (Grand Concourse, "Nurse Jackie") now in previews at New York Theatre Workshop is hard to categorize. It combines memoir, civics lesson, polemic, debate and Q&A into a piece that is both engaging and frustratingly disjointed. As a teenager, Ms. Schreck earned money for college by entering American Legion contests that involved delivering an essay on one’s personal experience of the constitution combined with an extemporaneous explication of one it its amendments. The early section of the play recreates one such presentation. The contest is interrupted by personal observations that include the history of domestic abuse over several generations in her family and her own experience of the importance of Roe v. Wade. At one point, Mike Iveson (The Sound & the Fury, Gatz), the actor who has been portraying the American Legion official conducting the contest, breaks the fourth wall with some information about his own life. Next we get a debate on whether to abolish the constitution, for which Ms. Schreck’s opponent is Thursday Williams, a 17-year-old high school senior from Queens. (Ms. Williams alternates performances with Rosdely Ciprain, who is just entering high school.) The audience is invited to react enthusiastically to the debaters and one audience member is selected to be the judge. The ushers distribute pocket editions of the constitution. (It’s the second one I’ve received at a theater this summer; they were also handed out at “The Originalist.”) Finally, under dim lighting, Ms. Schreck and Ms. Williams ask each other three questions allegedly submitted by the previous audience. The questions were not very interesting, which made for a very flat ending. Fortunately, Ms. Schreck is a very appealing performer, which made the event more enjoyable than my summary might suggest. Much of it is quite entertaining, as well as educational. Nevertheless, it does ramble rather aimlessly. Its inner logic escaped me. Considering that it has been presented in various incarnations for a decade, I was surprised how unpolished it seemed. Rachel Hauck (Hadestown, Grand Concourse) has recreated an American Legion social hall, complete with wood paneling and about 200 portraits of Legion bigwigs. Michael Kress’s (Hadestown, Noises Off) costumes seemed apt. The house was barely half-full. Director Oliver Butler (The Amateurs, The Open House) has his work cut out for him bringing order to this rather chaotic event before opening night. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

Uncle Vanya (Hunter Theater Project)

B-

Under the leadership of Theater Department Chair Gregory Mosher, Hunter College has initiated a program of producing bare-bones theatrical productions at an affordable price ($37) in their intimate Frederic Loewe Theater. Launching the project is this version of a Chekhov masterpiece directed by Richard Nelson, who also collaborated on the translation with today’s go-to Russian literature translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. On the basis of his Apple Family Plays and the Gabriel trilogy, some have dubbed Nelson the American Chekhov, so it is fascinating to see what happens when he gives the Russian master his “let’s sit around the kitchen table and talk” approach. For me, the results are a bit disappointing; there is too much Nelson and too little Chekhov. Nelson’s approach restricts the play’s emotional range and drains some of its humor and pathos. Some of Chekhov’s words, such as Sonya’s concluding speech, just do not lend themselves to a conversational approach. The level of the acting is quite uneven. Nelson stalwarts Jay O. Sanders as Vanya and Jon DeVries as Alexander Serebryakov make powerful impressions. Yvonne Woods is strong as Sonya. Celeste Arias fares reasonably well in the enigmatic role of the old professor’s young wife Elena. In the minor roles of Sonya’s former nanny Marina, Kate Kearney-Patch is adequate. As grandmother Marya, Alice Cannon barely registers. The unfortunate casting of the key role of Dr. Astrov is the weakest element of the production. Although Jesse Pennington certainly looks the part, he barely whispers many of his lines and shows so little affect that he almost seems in a trance. During a few monologues, actors directly address audience members, which I think works rather well. John Ardizzone-West's scenic design consists mostly of three kitchen tables, several mismatched chairs and some dinnerware. Mark Koss's costumes do not look very Russian. I had forgotten that the play includes a strong ecological message that is even more relevant today. Fortunately Chekhov’s genius is resilient and comes through this adaptation mostly intact. While far from an unalloyed success, the evening is an interesting experiment worth experiencing and a promising start for the Hunter Theater Project. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

I Was Most Alive with You

C

Playwright Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss, The Dying Gaul) began with a noble goal: to write a play for charismatic actor Russell Harvard that would be equally accessible for a hearing audience as well as those who can read American Sign Language. To accomplish his goal he cast each character with two actors — one communicating primarily or exclusively by speech and the other by ASL. Playwrights Horizons is presenting the New York premiere. One of the characters is Deaf (capital D signifying one who identifies with Deaf culture) and another is deaf (small d signifying one who does not). There are so many interesting issues revolving around D/deafness, among them preferred method of communication and its implications, resistance to other methods, controversy over cochlear implants, attitude toward Deaf culture vs. assimilation, that there would seem to be rich material for a play with that as the main focus. Unfortunately, the playwright has chosen to harness the plot to the Book of Job, which is an uncomfortable fit. First of all, it is unclear who the Job figure is in the play. Is it Ash (Michael Gaston;Lucky Guy, The Cripple of Inishmann), a writer on a long-running TV show, who is beset with a variety of calamities on Thanksgiving Day? Is it his son Knox (Russell Harvard; Tribes, Spring Awakening) who is Deaf, gay and a recovering addict? Or is it possibly Knox’s deaf boyfriend Farhad (Tad Cooley) who suffered a horrendous childhood? If Job is about bad things happening to good people, it is not obvious which if any of these three qualifies as good. We also meet Ash’s writing partner and creative soulmate Astrid (Marianna Bassham; Our Town), his ironically named, boozy wife Pleasant (Lisa Emery; Marvin's Room, Marjorie Prime) who feels lost as both wife and mother, his mother Carla (Lois Smith; Marjorie Prime, John), who produces his TV show, and her nurse Mariama (Gameela Wright; Halcyon Days). When Lucas brings on the calamities, he seemingly throws in every topical social issue he can think of: alcoholism, opiate abuse, Ponzi schemes, bullying, sexual abuse, severe depression, capital punishment, antipathy toward Muslims, HIV, costly health care. The result is a play that is overstuffed and unfocused. As a further complication, the story is framed as a play within a play that the writers are developing. On the plus side, there are strong performances from the speaking actors and moments that are quite affecting. I never pass up an opportunity to see Lois Smith onstage. The shadow cast (Seth Gore, Beth Applebaum, Amelia Hensley, Harold Foxx, Anthony Natale, Kalen Feeney, Alexandra Wailes) performs on a balcony eight feet above the main stage, which makes it difficult to give simultaneous attention to them as well as to the actors below. I am not qualified to evaluate the quality of their ASL signing. The set by Arnulfo Maldonado (Iowa, Men on Boats) recreates the writers’ room of the tv show with gestures to other locations as needed. Unfortunately this requires some of the actors to be furniture movers. The costumes by David C. Woolard (The Rocky Horror Show) did not call attention to themselves. The lighting by Annie Wiegand is very helpful in establishing both location and time. Tyne Rafaeli (The Rape of the Sabine Women) directed with Sabrina Dennison as ASL director. The play could use some judicious cutting. There are repetitive passages, e.g. the same letter is presented twice, once in speech and later in ASL. While I admire the playwright for his ambition, I wish that he had not cluttered up the play with too many half-developed ideas. I do not grasp how the title relates to the play. Running time: two hours, 20 minutes including intermission.

NOTE: Here’s a YouTube clip of Russell Harvard’s prayer in the first act. Paste the link into your browser and press the CC button to see the captions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2392LaI0Ck&t=28s

Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties

C-

After productions in Washington, LA and London, Jen Silverman’s (The Moors) absurdist comedy is having its New York premiere at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. You should know that in addition to its subtitle, the play has a sub-subtitle which is printed in the Playbill and projected on the large panel above the stage before the play begins. I quote: “In essence, a queer and occasionally hazardous exploration; do you remember when you were in middle school and you read about Shackleton and how he explored the Antarctic? imagine the Antarctic as a pussy and it’s sort of like that.” (Poor Shackleton. Didn’t he suffer enough without becoming fodder for a twee 2017 musical and a pointless citation here?) Your reaction to the sub-subtitle should be an accurate gauge of whether this is the play for you. We meet five New York women who share the same first name. Betty 1 (Dana Delaney; Dinner with Friends) is an Upper East Side wife enraged by the daily world news and a cheating husband. Betty 2 (Adina Verson; Indecent) is an inhibited, lonely woman in a loveless marriage whose only friend is a hand puppet. Her life changes when the other Betties give her a hand mirror to look at her lady parts. Betty 3 (Ana Villafañe; On Your Feet) is a looker in a dead-end job who craves widespread acclaim. Betty 4 (Lea Delaria; On the Town) is a butch lesbian who loves to work on her truck. Betty 5 (Chaunté Wayans; “50 Shades of Black”), recently out of prison, runs a boxing gym. When Betty 3 attends her first play, she decides she wants to be an actor and recruits the other Betties to join her in recreating the play within a play from “Summer’s Midnight Dream” [wink, wink]. Rehearsals do not go smoothly. On the plus side, all five characters are vivid and the actors portraying them are a pleasure to watch. On the minus side, much of the material is banal and the overuse of the “P” word rapidly becomes tiresome (although there were several women of a certain age who laughed nervously at each repetition.) Mike Donahue’s (The Legend of Georgia McBride) direction keeps things moving along briskly, but cannot disguise the play’s weaknesses. Dane Laffrey’s (Once on this Island) set features an egg-crate ceiling from which large props periodically drop. Dede Ayite’s (School Girls) costumes aptly suit each character. This will be the last new production of MCC Theater at the Lortel before they decamp for Way West Midtown. I wish I could report that they were leaving in a blaze of glory, but I cannot. (In their defense, MCC had to quickly find a replacement for the LaBute play they pulled after he ran up against accusations of misconduct.) I wish the material were up to the level of the performances. Running time: 85 minutes; no intermission.