Mrs. Murray's Menagerie

C+

For the first production at their new second home at Greenwich House, Ars Nova has selected this piece, created and performed by The Mad Ones, the five-person theater collective “dedicated to creating visceral, ensemble-driven, highly detailed theatrical experiences that examine and illuminate American nostalgia.” Banality and group dynamics seem to be hallmarks of their work. Last year’s Miles for Mary traced the changing relationships among a group of teachers as revealed at a series of faculty meetings over the course of a year in the late 1980’s, culminating in a memorable meltdown. The current play, set a decade earlier, traces the dynamics among a group of parents in a focus group about the children’s television show that gives the play its title. The show is about Mrs. Murray, played by an African-American woman, a singer who lives with a bunch of animal puppets. As its final season begins, the producers are looking for parental input to decide between two possible spinoffs. The session is led by the unctuous Dale (Brad Heberlee), assisted by his hapless assistant Jim (Marc Bovino) who struggles to write down on a blackboard all the participants’ responses. The six parents are Ernest (Phillip James Brannon), a bookstore owner; Roger (Joe Curnutte), a salesman who oozes male privilege; Wayne (Michael Dalto), an easy-going tool and die worker; June (Carmen M. Herlihy), affluent and a bit stolid; Celeste, who prefers to be called Cici (January LaVoy), cool and confident; and Gloria (Stephanie Wright Thompson), poor and insecure. Ernest and Cici are black. As they answer inane questions about the show, the six subtly reveal differences of class, race, gender and temperament. The actors are uniformly excellent. The period costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter and wigs and makeup by Alfreda “Fre” Howard are marvelous. The community room set by You-Shin Chen and Laura Jellinek is aptly dreary. Lila Neugebauer once again demonstrates her skill directing an ensemble cast. Unfortunately the play has more valleys than peaks and offers little in the way of catharsis. Such restraint may be admirable, but subtlety does not always lead to compelling theater. I thought it was a step backwards from Miles for Mary. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

Miles for Mary

B

This is the first offering in a new initiative by Playwrights Horizons — the Redux Series, which will remount well-received off-off-Broadway plays deemed worthy of a larger audience. The Mad Ones, a five-person New York company “dedicated to creating visceral, ensemble-driven, highly detailed theatrical experiences that examine and illuminate American nostalgia,” premiered this work in 2016 at the Bushwick Starr. The play is set in the phys ed faculty’s office of Garrison High School in Garrison, Ohio from 1988 to 1989. Five faculty members, including three coaches, the AV guy and the AP English teacher, are gathered to begin planning the ninth annual Miles for Mary telethon to raise money for scholarships. A sixth committee member, absent for unspecified reasons, joins the proceedings via a balky speakerphone. The telethon is a memorial to a talented student athlete who was killed in an auto accident. The play basically consists of moments from this committee’s meetings over the course of a year. Along the way, we learn bits and pieces about the teachers and their relationships. The meetings are a hilarious case study in group dynamics run amok. Psychobabble is the lingua franca. Techniques that might serve teachers well in the classroom are not so successful when applied to each other. After a long, slow buildup, one of the teachers has a spectacular meltdown. There is much to enjoy here. The writing by Marc Bovino, Joe Curnutte, Michael Dalto, Lila Neugebauer (dir. The Wolves, The Antipodes) and Stephanie Wright Thompson, in collaboration with Sarah Lunnie and the creative ensemble of Amy Staats and Stacey Yen, negotiates a delicate balance between realism and satire. The ensemble (all the above minus director Neugebauer and dramaturg Lunnie) is flawless. The scenic design by Amy Rubin (All the Fine Boys) and the costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter (Men on Boats, Fulfillment Center) recreate the look of the period down to the smallest detail. It’s all well-observed and often amusing, but becomes repetitive after a while. “Do More” may be the committee’s motto, but no one is quite sure what “more” means. As one teacher observes, sometimes less is more. Running time: one hour 55 minutes; no intermission.