Noura

C

The program at Playwrights Horizons indicates that Heather Raffo’s (9 Parts of Desire) play about five Iraqi immigrants in New York was inspired by Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. My advice is to forget that fact because the connections between the two plays are tenuous at best. The titular character, performed by the playwright , is a woman approaching 40, an architect back in Mosul, who was uprooted with her husband and son eight years ago by ISIS. As a fair-skinned Christian, she had relatively little difficulty emigrating to the U.S. Her husband Tareq, now known as Tim (Nabil Elouahabi), was a surgeon back in Iraq but had to work in a fast-food restaurant when they arrived in New York. Their highly assimilated son Yazen, now Alex (Liam Campora; Marvin's Room), is mostly interested in video games. Rafa’a (Matthew David; Glamping), a Muslim obstetrician who emigrated several years before them, has been a friend of Noura’s since childhood and is a frequent visitor. As she prepares to celebrate their first Christmas as U.S. citizens, Noura is excited by the prospect of finally meeting Maryam (Dahlia Azama; Veil'd), a 26-year old orphan rescued from a convent bombed by ISIS, whom Noura has been sponsoring. Christmas dinner does not go well. Maryam is definitely not the deferential young woman Noura was expecting. She has already made an important life choice that her hosts find unacceptable and resents the mold they are trying to force her into. The play’s most grounded character, the likable Rafa’a, reveals a secret that he has kept hidden for many years. Tareq confesses to feelings about his wife that he has never admitted to her. Finally, Noura reveals her own shattering secret, one she has hidden for over a quarter century. There are many important issues raised by the play — the difficulties faced by immigrants, conflicting feelings about honoring a past that is forever gone while adjusting to a new life, dealing with nightmare memories of war. finding a balance between community and individualism, and facing the corrosive effects of tribalism, both in Iraq and in the U.S. Some of these are better worked into the fabric of the play than others. I am sorry that the author felt the need to add some melodrama to the mix. I was also troubled by the 180-degree personality change by one of the characters. The actors are good, especially Mr. David. Andrew Lieberman’s (The Glass Menagerie) set, while quite attractive, made little sense to me. Would a woman who can’t muster the commitment to buy a sofa install a massive brick room divider in her apartment? Tilly Grimes’s (The Thanksgiving Play) costumes suit each character well. Joanna Settle’s (9 Parts of Desire) direction is unobtrusive except that I was puzzled by scenes when Noura steps outside for an illicit smoke and we very faintly hear her thoughts. It is a play that, for me at least, did not live up to its ambitions. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo: Homelife & The Zoo Story

A-

About a decade ago, Edward Albee wrote Homelife, a one-act play that is set immediately before the action of The Zoo Story. Homelife fleshes out the character of Peter (Robert Sean Leonard; The Invention of Love) so we have more insight into this seemingly complacent textbook publisher before his memorable confrontation with the volatile Jerry (Paul Sparks; Buried Child, Blackbird) in Central Park. In addition, it lets us meet Peter’s wife Ann (Katie Finneran; Noises Off, Promises, Promises) and witness the communication difficulties in their mostly happy marriage. The two plays were presented together in 2007 at Second Stage under the title Peter and Jerry. Albee later decreed that neither play could be presented without the other. Now, as part of Signature Theatre’s Albee series, they are back under the clumsy title Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo: Homelife & The Zoo Story. It is hard to imagine a production that makes a stronger case for the conjoined plays. All three actors are superb in their roles. The semiabstract set design by Andrew Lieberman (Fulfillment Center) concentrates our attention on the actors. Leonard turns reacting into an art form. Finneran’s Ann is a sympathetic presence. Sparks’s Jerry is mesmerizing, deftly building the sense of menace. Even if you know what’s coming, you will be shocked. My only reservations are about Homelife. On the one hand, it fills out the evening nicely. On the other hand, my feelings about it are quite mixed. I find the talk of hacked-off breasts, shrinking genitalia and sexual attack downright unpleasant and cannot imagine the play standing alone. However, as a warmup to the main event, it serves its purpose and the main event is not to be missed. Lila Neugebauer, who has a reputation for expertly directing plays with large ensembles (The Wolves, The Antipodes, Everybody, The Wayside Motor Inn), demonstrates that she can also superbly handle something more intimate. It’s a bracing evening. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including intermission.

Fulfillment Center

C-

I would not have been so disappointed with Abe Koogler’s new play at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage II if had not started promisingly. For the first 30 minutes or so, I thought it was heading confidently to an interesting destination. Unfortunately, as it progressed, the playwright seemed to lose control of his material and the play ended up at a dead end. In the well-written first scene, Alex (Bobby Moreno; Grand Concourse), the 30ish manager of an Amazon-like warehouse in New Mexico, is testing the speed of a 60ish prospective employee, Suzan (Deirdre O’Connell; By the Water, The Vandal). The interaction between the nice guy stuck in an unforgiving job and the down-on-her-luck ex-singer who desperately needs work is both funny and revealing. In the next scene we see Alex with his longtime girlfriend, the sassy Madeleine (Eboni Booth), who has just moved, reluctantly, from New York to be with Alex until an expected move to greener pastures in Seattle in six months. How they came to be an interracial couple and why they have stayed together almost ten years without even getting engaged are questions that remain unanswered. In the third scene we see Madeleine at the campground where she is staying as she tries to strike up a conversation with John (Frederick Weller; Mother and Sons; Glengarry Glen Ross), a taciturn 40ish carpenter whose most recent girlfriend has kicked him out. In the remaining scenes, each character meets with one of two others. The men never meet and the women never meet. The writing weakens, the play meanders and it finally grinds to a halt. Andrew Lieberman’s set, such as it is, is a long sand-colored platform running the length of the theater plus a couple of folding metal chairs. The audience sits on both long sides of the platform. Asta Bennie Hostetter’s  costumes are apt. Daniel Aukin is a director whose work has included some fine evenings of theater (4000 Miles, Bad Jews, The Fortress of Solitude) as well as some terrible ones (Fool for Love, Rancho Viejo, Placebo, What Rhymes with America?). His work here includes one gesture that I hate: forcing the actors not in the present scene to sit impassively at the edge of the stage in plain sight. It’s always a pleasure to see Deirdre O’Connell. Eboni Booth is a fresh new face. Bobby Moreno makes his “nice guy” role believable. Frederick Weller’s mannerisms annoyed me less than usual. With more work, the play might have amounted to something better. As is, it’s a missed opportunity. I very much doubt that the playwright knew where he was headed when he began. Running time: one hour 25 minutes; no intermission.

The Glass Menagerie

C

I don’t think that the new production of the Tennessee Williams masterpiece, now on view at the Belasco Theatre, is a good choice for anyone who has not seen the play before. It is too quirky. Director Sam Gold seems to be operating in Ivo van Hove mode, trying too hard to put his own revisionist stamp on a classic. He has chosen to emphasize the comic over the poetic; I have never heard that much laughter at any previous production. Sally Field’s Amanda is understated, avoids histrionics, and works rather well. I do miss a Southern accent though. Joe Mantello at first seems much too old to play Tom, but since he is narrating a memory play, his age doesn’t really matter. His performance is very strong and dominates the evening. Finn Wittrock’s Jim O’Connor is a tad too energetic, veering dangerously close to cartoonish at times. And then there is Madison Ferris as Laura. The decision to cast someone confined to a wheelchair as Laura was a noble but misguided choice. It is unsupported by the text, which specifically refers to her walking around and makes no sense at all when her mother sends her out to run an errand. It might matter less if Ferris were better able to hold her own with the other actors. Andrew Lieberman’s set design has the enormous stage bare except for a table and chairs, some metal shelves and a crate of phonograph records. The costumes by Wojciech Dziedzic are appropriate. There are two scenes where rain falls on the set, which leaves the actors senselessly splashing around in puddles by play’s end; there seemed absolutely no point to it. Gold’s take on the play is interesting, but distorts the piece too much for my taste. Running time: two hours, five minutes; no intermission.

The Mystery of Love and Sex ***

About an hour into the first act of Bathsheba Doran’s new play at LCT’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater, I began to wonder whether the playwright suffered from AD/HD. Roughly every 10 minutes, a new plot line arrived, seemingly out of left field. By the end of this overstuffed dramedy, I felt like a guest at a dinner party where too many courses were served. Fortunately, we have four fine actors — Tony Shalhoub, Diane Lane, Gayle Rankin and Mamoudou Athie — onstage to guide us through the many twists and turns. Howard (Shalhoub) is a successful Jewish author of mysteries. Lucinda (Lane) is a southern belle who met him at Yale, converted to Judaism and married him. Charlotte (Rankin) is their neurotic daughter who turned down Yale to attend a Southern college with Jonny (Athie), her friend since childhood. Charlotte and Jonny may or may not be falling in love. Howard is opposed, but alleges that it is not because Jonny is black. Among the semi-digested themes that are hurled at us like pitches from a batting machine are conscious and unconscious racism, sexism and homophobia; the angst of confused sexual identity, the self-centeredness of writers, Jewish-Black relations, intermarriage, same-sex marriage, strained marriage, the tricky relationships between parent and child, the porous border between friendship and love, the chances for a fresh start. Lest our interest lag, the author throws in a little semi-gratuitous nudity — twice. Andrew Lieberman’s simple set has a wall of curtains at the back that are tugged this way and that from time to time. The actors have to shlep a lot of furniture between scenes. The overlong first act had a few false endings that were greeted by applause because the audience thought the act was over. Kaye Voyce’s costumes are fine. The ubiquitous Sam Gold directed. It is far from a good play, but nonetheless an entertaining one, thanks largely to the appealing cast and several comic moments. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission.

Picnic **

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
60 years ago, William Inge's drama of sexual repression in a small Kansas town won the Pulitzer. Alas, time has not been kind. What must have seemed daring and edgy then has lost most of its force. It may be churlish to find fault with a production that brings us such fine actors as Mare Winningham, Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Marvel and Reed Birney, but the focus of the play is on Maggie Grace and Sebastian Stan, who, although they each look terrific, do not generate much heat. The supporting cast, which includes Madeleine Martin, Ben Rappaport, Maddie Corman, Cassie Beck, Chris Perfetti and Lizbeth Mackay, are all fine, but that only underlines the relative weakness of the central couple. Marvel and Birney virtually steal the play. After the horrible set he created for "Look Back in Anger," I was surprised to see Roundabout turn again to Andrew Lieberman. He apparently likes shallow, cramped sets. The rusty corrugated panels that fill the stage behind the two houses are most unattractive. Perhaps his intent was to illustrate the confines of small-town life, but his set is ungainly. David Zinn's costumes recreate the period well. Sam Gold's direction works most of the time, but the lack of a charismatic lead couple undercuts the play's impact. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.

Look Back in Anger *

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
Roundabout Theatre's current revival of John Osborne's 1956 play is a puzzler. Granted, it's impossible to recreate the shock waves the play set off when it first appeared. But what's the point of reviving it if you strip out almost all the social and political background that makes the play comprehensible? One of the characters has been eliminated too. In the present version you would be hard put to figure out just what Jimmy Porter is so angry about. Matthew Rhys captures Jimmy's anger, but comes up short on the magnetism that would explain what holds people in his thrall. Also, it's a stretch to believe in him as a 25-year-old. Sarah Goldberg, as Jimmy's wife Alison, is fine in the first two acts, but doesn't find the right note for the final act. Adam Driver, as Cliff Lewis, is eminently watchable, but the reasons for his devotion to Jimmy remain a riddle. Charlotte Parry is strong as Helena. The production is very poorly served by Andrew Lieberman's set. A charcoal gray wall without windows or doors covers the entire stage, leaving a strip perhaps four feet deep for the action. This strip is cluttered with decrepit furniture, an iconic ironing board, and piles of trash and rotting food. If this is a metaphor for their circumscribed, squalid lives, it is a heavy-handed one. Mark Barton's lighting is problematic too. The audience is bathed in harsh bright light which gradually fades once the play begins. Sam Gold, in his third New York play this season, directed. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.