Buena Vista Social Club

B+

 

This vibrant musical at Atlantic Theater Company was inspired by the bestselling 1997 album of authentic Cuban music from the 1950s played by the musicians who had performed it 40 years before at the long-gone titular venue, as well as by the Oscar-nominated 1999 Wim Wenders documentary about them. The talented director Saheem Ali (Fat Ham) developed the project with David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit) as creative consultant. Marco Ramirez (The Royale) wrote the book. The wonderful music, which is the beating heart of the show, is taken from the original album and its successors. The book, which overcompensates in breadth for what it lacks in depth, touches at least briefly on a lot of themes, including ambition, betrayal, colorism, class, regret and the stirrings of revolution. We meet several of the musicians at the time of the recording and flash back to fictionalized versions of their relationships during the 1950s. Omara (Natalie Venetia Belcon; The Glorious Ones) is a popular recording artist with a reputation as a diva, who condescends to fill in as singer on the album. In her youth, she (Kenya Browne) sang in a touristy sister act at the Tropicana with her sister Haydee (Dayana Esperanza; Mary Jane). When she is introduced to authentic Cuban music at the Buena Vista Social Club, she decides to leave her sister to sing with Ibrahim (Olly Sholotan; “Bel Air”) but his dark skin becomes an obstacle. The old songs played at the recording session stir up old feelings. The musicians are all superb, but I must single out tres player Renesito Avich and flutist Hery Paz for special mention. Choreographers Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck (Carousel) have created some lively nightclub dance numbers for three couples, but their abstract duos for surrogates of the young sisters left me cold. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (A Strange Loop) efficient set combines the seedy club with the recording studio, a seaside promenade and the Tropicana. Dede Ayite’s (Slave Play) costumes are appropriately colorful. At times I wished there were English translations for the songs, but surtitles might have been a distraction. The relative weakness of the book is more than compensated for by the quality of the musical performances. I think I would have enjoyed it just as much, if not more, if they had forgone the book and just presented a concert. Running time: two hours including intermission.

The Comeuppance

 C

My reaction to the works of playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins has been mixed. Three enthusiastically received plays that I enjoyed very much (Appropriate, An Octoroon, Gloria) were followed by two that I did not (War, Everybody). It has been six years since he has had a new play on a New York stage. Now he is winding up his Signature Theatre residency with this puzzling play now in previews at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre. In it we meet five friends who, except for one, are celebrating their 20^th high school reunion. These four, the membership of the self-styled Multi Ethnic Reject Group, have gathered for a pre-reunion get-together on the porch of Ursula (Brittany Bradford, Bernhardt/Hamlet), an underdeveloped character distinguished mainly by the fact that she has become a recluse since losing her sight in one eye. Her female friends are the childless Caitlin (Susannah Flood, Birthday Candles), who married a bigoted cop with two children and Kristina (Shannon Tyo, Regretfully So the Birds Are), a doctor who got her medical education in the military. A good Catholic with five children, Kristina has seen a lot, both in the military and in the pandemic, and eases her pain with booze. She has unexpectedly brought along her cousin Paco (Bobby Moreno, 72 Miles To Go) whose military service left him with a bad case of untreated PTSD. Emilio (Caleb Eberhardt, Choir Boy), a trendy artist living in Berlin who is back in the States briefly to supervise an installation of his work at the Biennale, has not seen the others in 15 years. There is another character as well. Through electronically modified voices, each character, at some point in the play, takes on the role of Death. By the third go-round, I had to stifle a giggle, which I don't think was the desired effect. The play touches on a checklist of traumas that the group has experienced, including Columbine, 9/11, and January 6. Furthermore, many underlying tensions within the group surface as the play progresses. The problem for me was that none of the characters or situations was sufficiently interesting to justify rambling on for two hours and twenty minutes without an intermission. The actors were all fine and the direction by Eric Ting (The Far Country) was fluid. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (A Strange Loop) set creates the cozy front porch of a small house, complete with swing, Adirondack chair, lots of plants and a bug zapper. Jennifer Moeller’s (Camelot) costumes are all suitable to their characters. I was disheartened when Jacobs-Jenkins decamped for the greener pastures of Hollywood to become showrunner, executive producer and writer for a Hulu series. Alas, his new play does not make his return to the stage cause for celebration.

The Coast Starlight

 B+

Keith Bunin’s (The Busy World Is Hushed, The Credeaux Canvas) clever, humane play at Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi Newhouse, takes place in the conditional. It deals with what might have happened if six passengers on the train between LA and Seattle had overcome their inhibitions and actually started to converse. The six are a diverse lot: Jane (Camila Cano-Flavia, Network), an animation artist who passes the time by sketching the other passengers; T.J. (Will Harrison, NY debut), a young Navy medic who doesn’t want to return to Afghanistan; Noah (Rhys Coiro, Dinner at Eight), a laid-back veteran who lives on a boat; Liz (Mia Barron, The Wolves), a hilariously unhinged woman fleeing a meltdown at a couples’ workshop; Ed (Jon Norman Schneider, The Oldest Boy), a beat-down salesman trying to find the hope to move on; and Anna (Michelle Wilson, Sweat), a black lesbian who has hidden the existence of her children’s uncle from them. All are vividly written and convincingly portrayed. The playwright explores how and whether they could have helped each other if only they had broken through to initiate a conversation. Arnulfo Moldonado’s (Power Strip) simple scenic design is well-complemented by 59 Productions’ projections (Flying Over Sunset). The costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter (The Wolves) are suitable to each character. Tyne Rafaeli’s (Selling Kabul) direction is unfussy and assured. If you are looking for more action than talk, you may be disappointed, but if you want to get to know how these six people represent the human condition, you should find the play rewarding. Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission.

To My Girls

D+

Since I had not seen a play in almost four months, I really hoped that my return to theatergoing would be an auspicious one. Alas, it was not to be. This alleged comedy, which somehow made it to Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theater, is a dud. If JC Lee (Relevance) set out to write a "Boys in the Band" for the 2020's, he missed the mark. A group of five 30-something gay men who have not seen each other since before the pandemic have rented a home in Palm Springs for the weekend from Bernie (Bryan Batt; Forbidden Broadway), an older gay man who lives just down the street. Curtis (Jay Armstrong Johnson; On the Town) is an aging cute white boy. Castor (Maulik Pancholy; Grand Horizons) is his motormouthed South Asian friend whose love for Curtis has gone unrequited. Leo (Bretton Smith; Be More Chill) is a black friend from New York, a character who remains frustratingly underdeveloped. Jeff (Carman Lacivita; Marvin's Room) and Tom are a couple whose arrival keeps getting postponed. (Tom may be the smartest of the lot -- he never arrives.) Castor brings home Omar (Noah J. Ricketts; Frozen), a superbly built, exotic younger man he meets at a bar. Underlying tensions rise to the surface. Amidst the bitchy one-liners, a few of which are quite funny, we are subjected to monologues on generational differences, white privilege, the privilege of good looks, the corrosive influence of social media, and the effects of living through the age of MAGA. Judging from this group, despite all the changes of the last couple decades, including same-sex marriage and greater LGBT rights, the emotional life of American gay men has not improved. The final message seems to be that there's no problem a lively drag number can't fix. Under the direction of Stephen Brackett (Be More Chill), the action moves fitfully. The deliberately (I hope) hideous set by Arnulfo Maldonado (A Strange Loop) is a tribute to bad taste. The transition between scenes is marked by garish colored lights, courtesy of Jen Schriever (A Strange Loop). The costumes by Sarafina Bush (Pass Over) are appropriately over-the-top. Honesty compels me to report that much of the audience seemed to be having a very good time. To each his own. Running time: a long 90 minutes without intermission.

Selling Kabul

B+

In her timely, gripping new drama at Playwrights Horizons, Sylvia Khoury (Power Strip) demonstrates great skill in building and maintaining enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat for much of the play. She further shows a remarkable ability to capture the workings of an entire society by focusing tightly on the life of one family. It is 2013 and the U.S. is drastically reducing its forces in Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to strengthen their grip on Kabul. They are determined to find and punish all Afghanis who aided the U.S. including those who worked as translators such as our protagonist Taroon (Dario Ladani Sanchez). We meet him after he has been in hiding in the apartment of his sister Afiya (Marian Neshat; Queens) for over four months awaiting the U.S. visa that he had been promised. Interestingly he is portrayed as reckless, selfish and shortsighted rather than as a sympathetic hero. His wife is giving birth to their first child, but it is not safe for him to visit the hospital. In an ironic twist, Afiya’s husband Jawid (Mattico David; Noura) runs a shop making uniforms for the Taliban and she assists by sewing some of them at home. Afiya has been avoiding all social contacts including her neighbor Leyla (Francis Benhamou; The Profane) and her 5-month-old baby to prevent anyone from discovering Taroon. A surprise visit from Leyla is cause for severe tension. The situation only becomes more tense when it is confirmed that the Taliban are definitely seeking Taroon and he must try to leave the country immediately. Decisions are made that test each character’s ethics and lead to momentous consequences. Some of the acting is superb, particularly Ms. Neshat and Mr. David. The set by Arnulfo Maldonado (A Strange Loop) and costumes by Montana Levi Blanco (A Strange Loop) are convincingly realistic and the direction by Tyne Rafaeli (Power Strip) is smooth. With so much going for it, you may wonder why I don’t praise the play more effusively. One reason is that Mr. Sanchez’s portrayal of Taroon leaves much to be desired; he does not have the range to match the character’s development over the course of the play. The other reason is that there are a couple of giant holes in the plot; you will probably be too caught up in the action to notice them while you are watching the play, but they are likely to bother you later. Despite these problems, the play is well worth seeing. I do wish that they had not found it necessary to bookend the play by assaulting the audience with the deafening sound of a helicopter. Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission.

Power Strip

B

Sylvia Khoury’s timely new play at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater is a gripping drama about Yasmin (Gina Shihabi; Dance Nation), a young Syrian woman at a refugee camp on Lesbos. In observing her tragic experience, we get a microcosm of the enormous refugee problem and the terrible human cost of the Syrian civil war on those who have fled their homeland. To escape the worst problems of the camp, Yasmin has chosen to stay in an olive grove outside the gates, where a power strip brings her the warmth of an electric heater and a charge for her phone. We soon learn why she is so mistrustful when Khaled (Darius Homayoun), a young man newly arrived at the camp with a sick mother, tries to steal her heater while she sleeps. Through flashbacks, we meet her fiancé Peter (Ali Lopez-Sohaili) and learn the awful circumstances that led her to flee Syria. We also meet Abdullah (Peter Ganim; Oslo), an older man who has suffered great loss, who turns to Yasmin for comfort. The story is never less than absorbing but makes an unfortunate turn toward melodrama at the end. The underlying feminist subtext pokes out a bit awkwardly at times. Ms. Shihabi makes a powerful impression. The appropriately drab set by Arnulfo Maldonado (School Girls; A Strange Loop) is marred by excessive use of dry ice. The costumes by Dede Ayite (Slave Play, School Girls) are appropriate. Tyne Rafaeli’s (Usual Girts, I Was Most Alive with You) direction is occasionally a bit slack. The playwright successfully made me care about Yasmin and, through her, the many others she represents. The play offers a suspenseful, occasionally uncomfortable experience but a worthwhile one. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

The New Englanders

B

In Jeff Augustin’s (Little Children Dream of God) absorbing new play at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage II, we meet a handful of residents of a picture-perfect New England town, plus one interloper. The central character is Eisa (Karla Young; Pretty Hunger), the 17-year-old mixed-race daughter of an interracial same-sex marriage. The Caucasian father is Samuel Stein (Patrick Breen; Next Fall, Fuddy Meers), a tech salesman whose job takes him out of town on alternate weeks. He sees life through rose-colored glasses that show him only what we wants to see, uninfluenced by reality. Aaron (Teagle F. Bougere; Socrates, Beast in the Jungle), the African-American biological father and primary parent, wanted to be a writer but ended up stifled in a dead-end part-time newspaper job. Now that Eisa is leaving the nest, Aaron would like to move to the city, but Samuel resists. The couple have spent many a session with an unseen feckless therapist whose platitudes have been of little benefit. Growing up different in a virtually all-white environment has made Eisa hard-edged and willful. She is eager to start a better life at NYU. Her unhappy English teacher Miss Charpie (Crystal Finn; Bobbie Cleary, Pocatello) thinks Eisa is her only bright student, but locks horns with her when she fails to complete an assignment. Aaron is visited by his Latino first love Raul (Javier Muñoz; Hamilton), with whom he broke up cruelly when they graduated high school. Raul has become a drifter, not putting down roots anywhere. His visit stirs Aaron’s thoughts about the road not taken. Atlas (Uly Schlesinger), who goes to high school with Eisa, works at a Chuck E. Cheese, where he sells pot on the side to earn money for college. He meets Samuel under rather implausible circumstances. Atlas is also eager to learn about the music that Eisa listens to. She’s a big Lauryn Hill fan, which would have meant more to me if I had heard her music. I guess the royalties would have been too high. The confrontation between Eisa and her teacher gradually escalates to dangerous heights. The consequences of Eisa’s actions lead Aaron to confront Samuel about the deep fractures in their marriage. My initial warm feelings grew cooler as the plot grew messier. Nevertheless, the play has much to recommend it. Seeing the dynamics of an interracial, same-sex marriage from the viewpoint of the child is enlightening. Getting a glimpse of the drug problem typical of small New England towns is timely. The lead actors are all very good. Ms. Young shows great promise. The role of Raul is too underwritten to show much of Mr. Munoz’s talent. Saheem Ali’s (The Rolling Stone) direction is smooth. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (Sugar in Our Wounds, School Girls) set is both attractive and functional. Dede Ayite’s (Slave Play) costumes are appropriate. I wish the last 15 minutes were better, but even with this reservation, the play is worth seeing. At the performance I attended, the audience was refreshingly diverse. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

The Rolling Stone

B+

Lincoln Center Theater is presenting the American premiere of this gripping drama by young British playwright Chris Urch (Land of Our Fathers) that won several prizes when it was staged in the U.K. The title comes from the name of a Kampala tabloid that, in 2010, published the names, addresses and photos of 100 Ugandan men suspected of homosexuality, thereby subjecting them to vigilante mobs and long prison sentences. Denbe (Ato Blankson-Wood; Hair, Slave Play) is an 18-year old student who is carrying on a secret affair with Sam (Robert Gilbert; Julius Caesar), a mixed-race Northern Irish/Ugandan doctor who recently arrived in town. Denbe’s sister Wummie (Latoya Edwards; School Girls, Miss You Like Hell) is a year younger but in the same grade as Denbe. Both are studying for an exam to qualify for medical school. Their older brother Joe (James Udom; Miss Julie, The Winter’s Tale) has just been chosen pastor of their church after his predecessor abruptly resigned under suspicion of embezzlement. Mama (Myra Lucretia Taylor; Nine, Familiar) is a neighbor devoted to the church who lent her influence in favor of Joe's selection. She has a daughter Naome (Adenike Thomas; Freedom Train) who has mysteriously not spoken for six months and hopes that Pastor Joe can cure her. The siblings are shocked to learn that their recently deceased father left them only debts. The church cannot afford a salary for Joe until his builds up the congregation. Joe declares that one of his siblings must give up the dream of medical school to support the family. When Sam’s phone disappears and his apartment walls are defaced with anti-gay graffiti, he and Denbe go into panic mode fearing that they will be outed. Although they love their brother, Joe and Wummie have zero tolerance for homosexuality. The pace of the first act is a bit slow. There are a series of gripping confrontations in the second act that, unfortunately, lead to a rather unsatisfactory ending. The actors are very strong, especially Mr. Blankson-Wood as Denbe and Ms. Taylor as Mama. The role of Sam is underwritten, leaving his motivation a bit unclear. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (Bull in a China Shop, Sugar in Our Wounds) scenic design has a bare circular stage with a striking backdrop of wire and fabric inspired by the art of El Anatsui. Dede Ayite’s (Secret Life of Bees, Toni Stone) costumes, especially for Denbe and Mama, go a long way toward establishing the characters. Director Saheem Ali’s (Passage, Fireflies) direction is assured. It’s by no means a perfect play but the superb acting and the issues raised make it well worth seeing. Running time: one hour 55 minutes including intermission. NOTE: The play does not address the fact that the anti-homosexual campaigns in Africa have largely been fomented and financed by American evangelicals.

Here is a link to an interesting article about the playwright:

https://www.audreyjournal.com.au/arts/chris-urch-writing-the-rolling-stone/

Mojada

B+

This season’s mini-trend of reinterpreting classic works continues with this New York premiere by MacArthur Genius award winner Luis Alfaro, whose Oedipus El Rey was a hit at the Public last year. Alfaro has once again superimposed a story about the Latino immigrant experience onto a Greek tragedy, this time Euripides’s Medea. The play originated in Chicago in 2013 and has played in Portland and Los Angeles with revisions en route that changed the location to the city of performance. The current version at The Public Theater is set in Queens’s Corona neighborhood in the backyard of the decrepit house where Medea (Sabina Zuñiga Varela) lives with her lover Jason (Alex Hernandez; Kingdom Come), their 10-year old son Acan (Benjamin Luis McCracken) and Medea’s lifelong family servant Tita (Socorro Santiago; Unfinished Women), who is our narrator and chorus. Medea is a skilled seamstress doing piecework at home because she is too afraid to leave the house. Jason is a construction worker with a Cuban emigre boss Pilar (Ada Maris; Bang Bang Blues) whose primary interest in him is not his work skills. Luisa (Vanessa Aspillaga; Anna in the Tropics), a food cart vendor who fled Puerto Rico with her husband after a hurricane wiped them out, provides comic relief. Jason is eager for Acan to assimilate as rapidly as possible while Medea wants him to honor old ways. There are lengthy flashbacks, for me the strongest parts of the play, that recollect the family’s horrific experiences getting from their Mexican home to New York. If you are familiar with the Medea story, you may find the ways Alfaro foreshadows the climax a bit clumsy. The incorporation of elements of Michoacan folk healing traditions works fairly well. He very skillfully weaves into the story the experience of undocumented immigrants in today’s America. A few references are right out of the headlines. The acting is mostly strong; however, I found the depiction of Pilar a bit unmodulated. I also thought that Hernandez’s portrayal of Jason showed him too thoroughly assimilated. Cynic that I am, I have a hunch he was chosen more for his good looks and physique than his acting chops. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (A Strange Loop) scenic design offers no clue that the location is New York. Haydee Zelibeth’s (Playing Hot) costumes are very effective in establishing character. Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design (We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time) contributes a lot to the production. Director Chay Yew’s (Oedipus El Rey) direction is fluid. Even though the contemporary and ancient elements don’t always fit together seamlessly, the overall effect is very strong. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission. 

NOTE: The Public Theater has an annoying habit of hiding valuable information pertinent to the production in obscure locations in the Playbill. In this instance, there is a worthwhile article “Immigration & the Perils of the Journey” that is hidden several pages after the list of Public contributors. When you attend the Public, you would do well to give the Playbill a thorough once-over before curtain time.  By the way, “mojada” is a derogatory term corresponding to “wetback.”

A Strange Loop

A-

Playwrights Horizons goes a long way toward redeeming a lackluster season with this final offering, a co-production with Page 73 Productions, an organization devoted to giving New York professional debuts to talented early-career playwrights. Michael R. Jackson (White Girl in Danger), who clearly falls into that category, has written one of the most original, unruly, affecting, outrageously theatrical shows of the season. Jackson’s protagonist is Usher, a 25-year-old overweight, gay, black man who supports his dream to write musicals by ushering at The Lion King. The musical he is struggling to write is about a 25-year-old overweight, gay, black man who supports his dream to write musicals by ushering at The Lion King. Thus the loop of the title. We witness the many roots of Usher’s self-loathing and the desperation to which it can lead. In one ironic twist, the negative prejudice he encounters when seeking sex is mainly from blacks, while he is an object of desire from whites who crave interracial sex. All Usher’s mother wants from him is to write a gospel play in the style of Tyler Perry, whose work he loathes. There is not really a linear plot; instead we get a stylized, occasionally metatheatrical, examination of Usher’s psyche. The show is often hysterically funny, but Usher’s pain cannot be suppressed and breaks through powerfully from time to time. Larry Owens (Gigantic) is no less than magnificent as Usher; he gives his all and then some. The six marvelous actors — Antwayn Hopper (The Loophole), James Jackson, Jr. (The Black-Ups), L. Morgan Lee (Jesus Christ Superstar), John-Michael Lyles (This Ain’t No Disco), John-Andrew Morrison (The Missionary) and Jason Veasey (The Lion King)—who share the stage with him are only identified as Thoughts 1 through 6 so I unfortunately can’t single out any of them for special praise. The music is lively; the lyrics are so dense that it is occasionally difficult to catch everything at first hearing. The production pulls out all the stops. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (I Was Most Alive with You) initially unimpressive set undergoes a series of amazing transformations. Montana Levi Bianco’s (Ain’t No Mo) multiple costumes for each actor are a treat to see. Raja Feather Kelly’s choreography (Funnyhouse of a Negro, Fairview) adds a lot to the production. Director Stephen Brackett (Be More Chill, Buyer & Cellar) skillfully holds everything together. This was certainly one of the most exciting and original shows I saw this year. Would that Playwrights Horizons achieved these heights more often! Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission. NOTE: If you are uncomfortable with rough language and simulated sodomy, this is most definitely not the show for you.

Playwrights Horizons has provided a trailer on their website. Here’s a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgHEnOb9B9Q

Usual Girls

C

At the risk of being branded a sexist, I think that Ming Peiffer’s new play at Roundabout Underground’s Black Box Theatre holds greater appeal for women than for men. It charts the course of female sexuality, as lived by Kyeoung, a Korean-American girl, from prepubescence to early adulthood. The enthusiastic response several scenes evoked from female audience members suggests that the playwright got many things right. From third-grade playground antics to a pajama party for girls on the verge of puberty to mean girls acting out in high school to a druggy collegiate visit to New York on to a personal #MeToo story and quotidian indignities, Kyeoung (Midori Francis; The Wolves) does not have it easy. It was unclear to me whether her shunning was due solely to racism or also to her personality. Her sometime friends Anna (Abby Corrigan), Lindsay (Nicole Rodenburg; The Antipodes), Marina (Ali Rose Dachis; Fish in the Dark), Sasha (Sofia Black-D’Elia) and a sorority sister (Ryann Redmond; Escape to Margaritaville) are nicely differentiated. We also meet Rory (Raviv Ullman; Russian Transport), a boy who enjoys taunting her, and her father (Karl Kenzler; Fiddler on the Roof), a bitter drunk who showed her his porno magazines at a tender age. Last but by no means least is the wonderful Jennifer Lim (Chinglish) playing an older version of Kyeoung. While I rarely enjoy watching adults portray children, I thought these energetic actors carried it off well. Be forewarned that the language is often explicit and there is considerable nudity. I’m not a prude, but watching a girl’s first pubic shave is not my idea of entertainment. Kyeoung’s difficulty in remembering the details of her rape provides an eerie echo of Dr. Blasey Ford’s recent testimony. There are many lively moments but somehow the result seems less than the sum of its parts. The simple set by Arnulfo Maldonado (Bobby Clearly) is quite functional. The costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter (Miles for Mary) are age-appropriate to each scene. Tyne Rafaeli’s (I Was Most Alive with You) direction is assured. Running time: one hour 40 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

Bobbie Clearly

C

Clearly may be the title character’s last name, but it is hardly a description of the manner in which he is portrayed. As a 14-year-old in rural Nebraska, he murders a girl named Casey in a cornfield for no apparent reason. If you expect to discover his motivation, you will be disappointed. The play traces the impact of his senseless act on ten residents of his hometown, Milton, Nebraska (pop. 750) over a period of about 15 years. They include Darla London (Constance Shulman; Barbecue), the town’s sole police officer, who narrates most of the story; Casey’s parents, Jane (Crystal Finn; Kingdom Come) and Stanley Welch (Christopher Innvar; The Snow Geese); Casey's brother Eddie (Tyler Lea; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), who witnessed the murder; two friends, Megan (Talene Monahon; The Government Inspector) and Meghan (Sasha Diamond; Significant Other), who are friendly rivals; Derek (JD Taylor), a shallow guy who gets by on his good looks; Russ (Marcus Ho; The Last Match). a very close friend of Jane’s; and two townies Pete (Gabriel Brown; The City of Conversation) and Mitch (Brian Quijada; My Mañana Comes). Each deals with the tragedy in a different way ranging from hatred to stoic acceptance to forgiveness. Two years after the murder, the Welches set up a foundation in Casey’s honor and initiate an annual talent show to raise funds. After ten years, Bobbie Clearly (Ethan Dubin; Rancho Viejo) is released from prison. His return to Milton stirs up many passions, which are exacerbated when he decides to enter the talent show. I think playwright Alex Lubitscher was aiming for a portrayal of small-town life in the vein of “Our Town” rather than a portrait of Bobbie. The performances from the talent show are more entertaining than relevant. Watching a hunter eviscerate a deer was just nasty. The quality of the acting varies widely. There are a few scenes that totally engage our rapt attention. While I admire the playwright’s ambition and raw talent, I do not feel that he was able to maintain firm control over his material. The tone wobbles from moment to moment. Roundabout Underground has mounted a lavish production. The set design by Arnulfo Maldonado (Indecent, Charm) covers all four walls of the auditorium with husked and detasseled ears of corn behind chicken wire. The audience is seated on three sides on folding chairs stenciled with “Milton Comm. Center.” Director Will Davis (Charm) keeps things moving along smoothly. While I would not call it a success, I am not sorry that I saw it. Running time: two hours 20 minutes including two intermissions.

School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play

A-

One of the hallmarks of the current season has been the proliferation of fine plays with all-female ensembles. First we had the excellent Mary Jane at New York Theatre Workshop. A revival of The Wolves is currently in previews at Lincoln Center Theater. And now MCC Theater has brought us this delightful play by Jocelyn Bioh (In the Blood; Men on Boats), marking her New York debut as playwright. Set in a girls’ boarding school in central Ghana in 1986, it introduces us to four students who are members of a clique led by mean girl Paulina Sarpong (Maameyaa Boafo) who intends to be the school’s contestant in the upcoming Miss Ghana pageant. During the early scenes, we get an amusing look at how Paulina reigns over her subjects — cousins Gitty (Paige Gilbert) and Mercy (Mirirai Sithole), the bookish Ama (Nike Kadri; The Death of the Last Black Man...) and the food-addicted Nana (Abena Mensah-Bonsu). There are hilarious examples of their misunderstanding of American culture, e.g. that White Castle is an elegant restaurant. Paulina’s plans are endangered by the arrival of a new student Ericka Boafo (Nabiyah Be; Hadestown), recently relocated from Ohio, who has looks, charm and talent to spare. The rivalry between the two girls is paralleled by the tense relationship between no-nonsense headmistress Francis (Myra Lucretia Taylor; Nine, Familiar) and the stylish Westernized pageant recruiter Eloise Amponsah (Zainab Jah; Eclipsed), herself a former Miss Ghana, who had tangled as classmates in the past. There’s a nice bonus for the recruiter and a substantial gift for the school that yields the winning contestant. Bioh overlays the well-worn conventions of teen-age cliques and beauty pageant competition with an additional ingredient: colorism — the belief even within the black community that, when it comes to skin color, lighter is better. Eloise favors Ericka over Paulina because she is the fairer and thereby "more commercial" of the two. How far will Paulina go to prevent Ericka’s selection? How far will Eloise go to thwart Paulina? Why is Paulina so mean? What secrets is Ericka hiding? Will all their efforts have any meaningful impact anyway? Has anything changed since 1986? Come, find out and be entertained. The actors are all wonderful. Director Rebecca Taichman (Indecent, Time and the Conways) has demonstrated her usual sure but deft hand. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (Charm) schoolhouse set is perfect from the perforated windows to the corrugated ceiling and tropical fans. Dede M. Ayite’s (The Royale, Bella) costumes, especially for the pageant, are delightful. Running time: one hour 12 minutes.

Charm

C

Philip Dawkins's new play for MCC at the Lucille Lortel Theatre is inspired by events in the life of Miss Gloria Allen, a transgender woman in Chicago who, while in her 60s, volunteered to conduct a class in charm at the local LGBT Center. Mama Darleena Andrews (Sandra Caldwell) arrives at the Center with her well-worn copy of Etiquette in hand and sets out to tame the motley crew who show up for her class. There is Ariela (Hailie Sahar), an attractive “working girl” in her 30s; Jonelle (Jojo Brown), a bright student who wears wings; Beta (Marquise Vilson), a menacing gang member; Victoria (Lauren E Walker) and Donnie (Michael David Baldwin), a married couple whose reason for attending is not immediately apparent; Lady (Marky Irene Diven), a strange figure who babbles and whose gender is initially a mystery; and Logan (Michael Lorz), an affluent, effeminate student who is there out of curiosity. We also meet D (Kelli Simpkins), the Center’s well-meaning program director who has philosophical and practical problems with Darleena’s curriculum. [By happenstance, this is the second character named D that I have encountered this month, the other being the first letter of the Dairy Queen sign in Inanimate.] The overlong first act has too many noisy scenes of the students acting out that shed more heat than light. We don’t get a crisis until the second act. What follows is fairly predictable and not very enlightening. Caldwell quietly creates a vivid character. The others act with more gusto than polish. Arnulfo Maldonado’s set is effectively simple. The costumes by Oana Botez are deliciously over-the-top. Director Will Davis could tighten things up a bit. It’s intermittently entertaining, but not interesting enough to justify its length. Cutting it to a tight 90 minutes might have improved it. Running time two hours 15 minutes including intermission.

The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Mathias

C+

The idea of a dark comedy about rape written by a gay male playwright did not exactly sound promising. Nevertheless, this ambitious, quirky work by Michael Yates Crowley now at Playwrights Realm turned out to hold greater interest than I expected. Grace (Susannah Perkins; The Wolves), a 15-year-old at Springfield High School, is almost a female version of Evan Hansen, socially awkward, with an overworked single mom, and overwhelmed by the events around her. The aftermath of a drunken night with Jeff (Doug Harris), tight end of the school’s football team (the Romans, of course!), recalls the notorious Steubenville case in which more public concern was expressed for the rapists’ ruined future than for the victim. Crowley introduces us to the local newsman (Chas Carey), the guidance counselor (Eva Kaminsky; The Lyons), the lawyer (Jeff Biehl; Poor Behavior), the teacher (Andy Lucien; The Qualms), Grace’s friend Monica (Jeena Yi), and  Bobby (Alex Breaux; Red Speedo), the Romans’ captain with a homoerotic attachment to Jeff. We also meet other townspeople including Jeff’s father - the town’s fire chief, a few fireman, a few football players, a preacher and a doctor. Grace becomes obsessed with the titular painting by David, so we also meet a few Romans and Sabines including Romulus and his wife Hersilia. Much of the play is structured around a court appearance by Grace, which fuels reenactments of past events. The playwright attempts to comment on our hypocritical hyper-sexualized “rape culture,” but his adults are often such cartoon characters that he subverts the message. For me, the impact was also lessened by the ambiguousness of Grace’s experience. Perhaps the point was that rape exists in many forms. An extended metaphor about a coal fire burning beneath the town and the fire burning in men's hearts that leads to rape is tied to Grace's ambition to be a fireman. Grace’s stylized class report on the David painting concludes the play. Arnulfo Maldonado’s set vividly recreates a high school auditorium/gymnasium. Some of Asta Bennie Hostetter’s costumes are a hoot. Tyne Rafaeli’s direction successfully navigates the play’s complex path. While the play tries to do too much and doesn’t fully integrate its various strands, it is an original. Crowley shows promise and I look forward to his next play. Running time: 2 hours including intermission.

Bull in a China Shop

C-

Mary Woolley led such an interesting life that it is hard to imagine that it could be turned into a boring play, but playwright Bryna Turner, making her professional debut with this LCT3 production, has managed just that. Among her many achievements, Woolley was president of Mt. Holyoke College for over 35 years and was largely responsible for transforming it from a sleepy regional seminary to a first-rate women’s college. One of her first official acts was to hire her lifelong partner Jeannette Marks, as a professor of English and, within the year, to make her department chair. Suspected favoritism toward Marks dogged Woolley’s career. What Turner has written came across to me as scattered chapters from a Cliff Notes summary of a biography. There was very little enlightenment and not much emotional involvement. Maybe it was more meaningful to lesbians. Since there were two excerpts from a lecture on Woolf’s Orlando, maybe it would have helped to have read that book. As I experienced the play, it shed little heat or light. I must confess that I had to fight nodding off a few times. The multicultural cast is led by Enid Graham as Woolley and Ruibo Quan as Marks. Lizbeth Mackay plays the college’s tradition-bound dean, Michele Selene Ang plays Pearl, a student with a crush on Marks, and Crystal Lucas-Perry’s character, Felicity, is either Marks’s landlady or roommate. The deliberately contemporary dialogue uses the title “Ms.” and is loaded with gratuitous F-bombs. Turner stretches anachronism too far for me when she describes a peace conference to which Woolley was sent by President Hoover: she says she wanted to tell Hitler to pull out of Poland. The conference was seven years before he invaded. Oana Botez costumes the leads in culottes. Did American women wear them 100 years ago? The set design by Arnulfo Maldonado features a back wall with a bright floral design and a large window, a slightly raked polished wooden floor and a walkway at the front. Before the play begins, the set is obscured by a large white rectangular object hanging down that looks like a mattress, but raises to form the set’s ceiling. When the play ended and the rectangle was lowered to its initial position, at least 15 seconds went by before there was applause. Lee Sunday Evans directed. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

Kingdom Come ** C-

Jenny Rachel Weiner’s romantic comedy with poignant overtones is the latest offering at Roundabout Underground’s Black Box Theatre. Somewhat like LCT3, this program offers first-rate productions of works by emerging playwrights at affordable prices. Looking around at the audience, Roundabout seems to be more successful than LCT3 in drawing a younger audience. If you saw “Catfish,” you have an idea of the plot, except that in this instance both people are using deceitful online profiles. The twist is that they genuinely fall for each other. How the situation is resolved isn’t quite what you may expect. The characters are Samantha (Carmen M. Herlihy), a morbidly obese woman who rarely leaves her bed; Dolores (Socorro Santiago), Samantha’s home health aide; Dolores’s studly son Dominick (Alex Hernandez), an actor/busboy in L.A.; Layne (Crystal Finn), a repressed lonely bookkeeper; and Suz (Stephanie Styles), Layne’s younger, prettier, less inhibited coworker. Deceit breeds complications. The personable actors all make the most of their roles. There are some funny moments and clever twists along the way, but the material seemed thin and a bit forced. The set by Arnulfo Maldonado is simple but attractive. Tilly Grimes’s costumes are apt. Kip Fagan’s direction is smooth. Most of the audience reacted enthusiastically. For me, it was one online dating story too many. Running time: one hour 40 minutes, no intermission.

Men on Boats ** C-

The Playwrights Horizons revival of last summer’s Clubbed Thumb hit production has received almost unanimous critical acclaim. The Times made it a Critic’s Pick and it has been extended by popular demand. Playwright Jaclyn Backhaus's subject is the famed Powell expedition of 1869, during which 10 intrepid men in four small boats set out to traverse the Green and Colorado Rivers from Wyoming to Nevada and become the first white men to travel the length of the Grand Canyon. The top-notch cast, ably directed by Will Davis, recreates the rhythms of daily life, the rivalries, the insecurities, the dangers and defections the group endured. The perils of sailing through white water is memorably captured by effective choreography. The play’s gimmick is that all the roles are played by women. Its sensibility is archly contemporary, rather than historical. For the first twenty minutes or so, this worked for me. However, the play soon became repetitive and cartoonish. It eventually seemed like a very long pointless skit that trivialized its subject and wore out its welcome long before it ended. I will grant that the cast was uniformly good, the scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado was attractive and the costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter were apt. The audience seemed to love it; the young woman next to me broke into uproarious laughter at least once a minute. I wish I had been able to join in the approbation. Perhaps I would have been less disappointed if my expectations had not been raised so high by all the praise. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.

Iphigenia in Aulis **

This production of Euripides’s final play, the centerpiece of Classic Stage Company’s Greek Festival, is a decidedly mixed bag. The text is a “transadaptation” (her word, not mine) by Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns and 10 out of 12) that throws in a few modern words like “dynamite” and “centrifuge” for no particular reason. Director Rachel Chavkin (Preludes and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) has doubled roles so that there are three actors playing the seven parts in addition to a mixed-gender chorus of seven, dressed as if on their way to a Carmen Miranda look-alike contest. They sing rock songs by The Bengsons and dance vigorously to choreography by Sonya Tayeh. I would comment on the lyrics, but I was unable to make out most of them. Rob Campbell initially shouts too much as Agamemnon, but is stirring in the later scenes. As Achilles, he seems to be aiming for a mixture of Harvey Keitel and Donald Trump. Amber Gray (Oklahoma! at Bard, Natasha, Pierre…) is a fierce Clytemnestra, but having her also play Menelaus was a bad idea. Kristen SIeh, in addition to the title character, plays an old man and a messenger. As Iphigenia, her transition from rage against her fate to acceptance seemed too abrupt. The elegantly simple scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado depicts a tent and forest in the background with a bare square platform in front. There is a lovely stage effect at the end. Except for the incongruous costumes for the chorus, Normandy Sherwood’s costumes are tasteful. The thrust of the play survives, but this production’s innovations are not improvements. Running time: one hour, 40 minutes; no intermission.

NOTE: The performance was marred by cellphones ringing not just once or twice, but FOUR times, a record I hope I never see broken. The last two times it was clearly the same phone and the culprit, apparently too embarrassed to be identified, let the phone ring — at least twelve rings each time. Both of these occurrences were at key moments of the play when concentration was essential. I don’t know how the actors kept their cool. It was most disruptive.