Spain

 C-

Although Second Stage describes their new play by Jen Silverman (Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties) as “seductive” and “funny,” I failed to be either seduced or amused by it. Silverman presents an imagined version of the circumstances behind the filming of “The Spanish Earth,” a 1937 documentary intended to win sympathy and support for the Spanish Republican government against Franco and his Fascist allies. The film was directed by Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, written by John Dos Passos, Lillian Hellman and Ernest Hemingway, and edited by Ivens’s wife-to-be Helen van Dongen, all of whom except Hellman are characters in the play. Silverman posits that Ivens (Andrew Burnap; Camelot, The Inheritance) has become dependent on Russia to finance his films and has been ordered by his opera-loving KGB handler Karl (Zachary James; The Addams Family) to make a film promoting the Republican cause while carefully omitting any mention of Russian support. Karl, by the way, is the person who introduced him to Helen (Marin Ireland; Reasons To Be Pretty, Blue Ridge). Neither Joris nor Helen has ever been to Spain. We observe their strategizing to make the film, including their intent to play on the rivalry between Dos Passos (Erik Lochtefeld; Metamorphoses, Misery) and Hemingway (Danny Wolohan; To Kill a Mockingbird, Octoroon). Rifts in the relationship between Joris and Helen repeatedly emerge. After the film is made, the play suddenly jumps 80 years into the future with a scene in which the actor who played Karl is instructing the other four actors that movies are now passe and they must learn to use the internet to create propaganda. For me the play completely failed to cohere or find a consistent style. A couple of scenes that placed Hemingway in a recording studio seemed out of left field. His characterization seemed cartoonish compared to the other roles. Ireland and Bernap, who I have found compelling in previous roles, were bland here. James has a marvelous singing voice that I wish we had heard more of. Dane Laffrey’s (Parade, Once on This Island) set uses a revolving platform to create several settings with just a few suggestive props. Alejo Vietti’s (Allegiance, Beautiful) period costumes are apt. Tyne Rafaeli’s (The Coast Starlight, Epiphany) direction is unfussy, but cannot supply coherence  where there is none. All in all, it was a great disappointment. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

A Walk with Mr. Heifetz

C-

James Inverne’s impressive resume includes work as arts writer and commentator for the Daily Mail, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and the Financial Times, editor of Gramophone and founder of magazines for the Sundance Institute and other arts institutions. He marks his playwriting debut with this well-intentioned but dramatically inert new play for Primary Stages at the Cherry Lane Theatre. In Act I, set in Palestine in 1926 under the British mandate, we meet Yehuda Sharett (Yuval Boim), kibbutz choir director, composer and amateur violinist, who has just attended a concert by Jascha Heifetz (Adam Green). He takes Heifetz for a walk in the hills during which he rebukes the famous violinist for the egotism of his career but also implores him for advice on how to become a better composer. Heifetz suggests he go to Berlin to study. In Act II, set in 1945, Yehuda is visited by his brother Moshe (Erik Lochtefeld; Napoli, Brooklyn), who went on to become foreign minister and then prime minister of Israel. Yehuda has stopped writing music and has become a recluse after his wife and sister are killed in an accident. Moshe attempts to lure him back into the world by persuading him how important music is to the soul of a nation. It’s all very high-minded, but, infortunately, not very dramatic. The different accents of the two brothers interject a discordant note. Boim’s Israeli accent is so thick that I could not distinguish between “walk” and “work.” In addition to the three actors, there is a violinist (Mariella Haubs) whose occasional short passages were more of a distraction than an enhancement. The set by Wilson Chin (Cost of Living, My Mañana Comes) converts from a rocky, hilly scene in the first act to a gloomy apartment in the second. The period costumes by Jen Caprio seemed appropriate to their characters. Andrew Leynse’s direction was unfussy. Earlier this season, Primary Stages presented another play (The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord) that was more polemical than dramatic. While this play was a big improvement over the earlier one, I think it’s time to seek a new direction. Running time: 90 minutes including intermission.

Napoli, Brooklyn

C

Playwright Meghan Kennedy does not exactly have a knack for titles. Her promising 2013 work for Roundabout Underground was titled “Too Much, Too Much, Too Many.” Whatever relationship that had to the play was lost on me. Now she has “graduated” up a level at Roundabout from the Black Box to the Laura Pels Theatre for this semi-autobiographical drama about an Italian family made up of a tyrannical father originally from Naples, a long-suffering mother and three daughters in Brooklyn in 1960. This title is an improvement, but not exactly an attention grabber. Perhaps she should have called it “Three Sisters See the View from the Bridge” or, for reasons that will be very clear near the end of the first act, just “Boom!” Actually the title of her earlier play would have been more suitable for this one because it suffers from too much plot and too many characters. Nic Muscolino (Lev Gorn) is embittered that he has no sons. His wife Ludovica (the excellent Alyssa Bresnahan) prays to God via an onion that she hopes will restore her ability to cry. 26-year-old Tina (Lilli Kay) has been forced to forgo an education and go to work in a tile factory to help support the family. 20-year-old Vita (Elise Kibler; Indian Summer) has been shipped off to a convent after her father has broken her nose and a few ribs when she threatened him with a pair of scissors to prevent him from attacking 16-year-old Francesca (Jordyn DiNatale) for cutting off her long curls. Francesca is a budding lesbian who is planning to stow away on a ship to France with her very close friend Connie Duffy (Juliet Brett; What I Did Last Summer). Connie’s widowed father Albert (the fine Erik Lochtefeld; The Light Years, Small Mouth Sounds), the neighborhood butcher, has a crush on Ludovica. Celia Jones (Shirine Babb) is an African-American coworker of Tina’s who becomes her only friend. The second act deals with the differing ways each character copes with the cataclysmic event that actually occurred in Brooklyn in 1960. After a fractious Christmas dinner, there is a quiet denouement. My many reservations include a gratuitous SM scene with a lit cigarette, an unclear explication of the circumstances of one character’s departure and a feminist pep talk at the end that seemed anachronistic at best. Furthermore, something is amiss when the most touching moment in the play is a brief exchange between two peripheral characters. Gordon Edelstein's direction was a bit sluggish. The set by Eugene Lee suggests multiple locations by the use of signs and symbols hung high above the stage. The costumes by Jane Greenwood are authentic to the period. The sound design by Fitz Patton and lighting design by Ben Stanton are most effective. All in all, I preferred the playwright’s earlier, more focused offering for Roundabout. Running time: 2 hours including intermission.

The Light Years

D+

Somewhere in the Playwrights Horizons program notes, it says that The Debate Society (Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, writers; Oliver Butler, developer and director) have been working on this piece for seven years. I wish the results of all their time and effort had produced a more satisfying result. This tale of thwarted aspirations loosely ties together two family stories linked to the Chicago world’s fairs of 1893 and 1933. One of the plots involves a real person, Steele MacKaye, a flamboyant actor, playwright, producer and inventor of such theater innovations as folding seats and fireproof curtains. In 1893 MacKaye (Rocco Sisto) had grandiose plans to build the Spectatorium, a 12,000-seat theater filled with the latest in theatrical technology, to house an epic panorama about Columbus. Master electrician Hillary (Erik Lochtefeld) and his loyal assistant Hong Sling (Brian Lee Huynh) are working on the “mooncart,” a large contraption with hundreds of light bulbs that will provide the celestial climax of the Spectatorium show. He even brings it home so he can work on it at night. Hillary’s lively, attractive wife Adeline (Aya Cash) displays a keen interest in her husband’s work. The Panic of 1893 leads MacKaye’s investors to abandon him and the Spectatorium is never completed. The second story introduces us to Lou (Ken Barnett), an unsuccessful jingle writer who hopes to find work at the 1933 fair. His wife Ruth (Aya Cash again) struggles to keep the family from starving by working long shifts at a pancake house at the fair. Their 11-year-old son Charlie (Graydon Peter Yosowitz) has his heart set on a stamp commemorating the Graf zeppelin. Out of desperation, Lou reluctantly seeks employment as a musician in a night club. The apartment Lou and family have rented is in the home formerly occupied by Hillary and Adeline. Their landlord is a mysterious figure who lives in the attic. In the play’s most implausible premise, the unfinished mooncart still sits in the living room. Things do not end happily for either family. The alternation of scenes between the two time periods is not really confusing, but produces a repeated loss of focus. Just as the aspirations of almost everyone in the play are not achieved, neither are the aspirations of the play’s creators. Despite the fine acting, impressive set design by Laura Jellinek, great period costumes by Michael Krass and an amazing lighting design by Russell H. Champa, the play fizzles rather than sizzles. I would have preferred a play about the fascinating life of Steele MacKaye. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Seating alert: During a few short scenes, the actors are in the wide aisle between rows D and E. If your seat is in rows A through D, be prepared to twist around in your seat to see the action.

Small Mouth Sounds ***

After seeing Bess Wohl’s clever new play at Ars Nova, you may agree with the old adage that actions speak louder than words. Six participants in a spiritual retreat in the woods must observe silence for five days. Judy (Sakina Jaffrey) and Joan (Marcia DeBonis) are a lesbian couple going through a rough patch. The weepy Alicia (Jessica Almasy) is trying to get over a breakup. Ned (Brad Heberlee) is a hard-luck guy with a back story worthy of Job. Rodney (Babak Tafti) is a seemingly cool exhibitionist always ready for a showy yoga pose. Jan (Erik Lochtefeld) carries a framed photo of a young child with him everywhere. The unseen teacher (Jojo Gonzalez) spouts words of dubious wisdom which are practically the only ones we hear. Thanks to a uniformly strong cast, even through the silence we gain an understanding of and, in most cases, a sympathy for each person. (One character does break his silence with a well-timed monologue.) The costumes go a long way to establishing character. The cozy theater is a perfect setting for the production. It is a long, narrow shoebox all in blond woods and white panels with two rows of facing seats along the long walls and a small platform stage at one end. The panels above the seats serve as screens for projections of rain falling on leaves, sunsets and other images from nature that are reinforced by an excellent sound design. The bulk of the action takes place on the floor. Subtle lighting cues guide your attention to which of the six characters merits the most attention at any given moment. Their foibles are satirized with gentle affection. The talented director is Rachel Chavkin, who did such a fine job with “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812."  The play bears some similarities to Annie Baker’s “Circle Mirror Transformation,” but I think this is the better play. NOTE: There is some male nudity which is more comic than prurient. Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission.

February House **

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
The Public Theater is to be commended for commissioning Gabriel Kahane, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter, to write music and lyrics for a musical based on life at 7 Middagh Street in 1940-41. The flamboyantly gay editor George Davis hoped to turn a rundown Victorian house in Brooklyn Heights into a communal home for an unlikely bunch of talented misfits that included W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten and Gypsy Rose Lee. Surely, the concept was a promising one. Unfortunately, the result is wildly uneven. In general, Kahane's lyrics are better than his music. The way he makes seamless transitions from dialog to song is admirable. Through words and music, the first act leisurely portrays the characters and their relationships. The second, livelier, act describes the loss of utopia. The cast of nine (Stanley Bahorek, Ken Barnett, Ken Clark, Julian Fleisher, Stephanie Hayes, Erik Lochtefeld, Kacie Sheik, A.J. Shively, Kristen Sieh) is mostly strong, although Sieh's voice lacks color. For me, the play's worst moments involved Gypsy Rose Lee. Her character is much too broadly written and played. It is unfortunate that they felt compelled to include a striptease number -- after the one in Gypsy, it was doomed to fall flat. The book, by Seth Bockley, could use some more tweaking. Riccardo Hernandez's set and Jess Goldstein's costumes are excellent. Director Davis McCallum as allowed the play to gain 20 minutes since previews began. They should be trimming, not adding. A book doctor might be able to make significant improvements. In the unlikely event you are not familiar with the past and future achievements of the house's residents, you probably will not find the play interesting. Even if you are, you still might not. Nevertheless, I am glad I saw it and support the Public for taking it on. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes including intermission.