Bella Bella

B

Harvey Fierstein (La Cage aux Folles, Kinky Boots) has written an affectionate tribute to larger-than-life New York politician Bella Abzug, whose many breakthroughs for women and efforts for the marginalized are not often spoken of today. Set on the night of the 1976 NY Democratic senatorial primary, pitting her against five opponents including Daniel Moynihan, this solo piece at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage I shows Bella locked in the bathroom of a guest room (not a suite, she complains!) at the Summit Hotel, where she awaits the election results. The bathtub is piled high with campaign signs. On the other side of the door are her family, campaign staff and close friends. Downstairs in the ballroom hundreds are waiting for her to appear. What follows is an entertaining, informative look at highlights of her career and life story. I had thought I was generally familiar with her career, but I learned several things. I didn’t know that she defended a black man accused of raping a white woman in Mississippi. Nor did I know that New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger overruled his editorial board and withdrew their Abzug endorsement in the senatorial primary. The material includes lots of enjoyable anecdotes and several very funny one-liners. So far, so good. My problem with the show is Fierstein’s decision to play the role of Bella. It seems ironic that a play about female empowerment casts a man as Bella. From what I have read, several actresses (if one is allowed to use that word these days) turned down the role because of schedule conflicts. The producers were eager to do the show now to get a jump on a forthcoming documentary about Bella. Fierstein (Hairspray, Torch Song Trilogy) wisely does not try to impersonate Abzug. He wears a black shirt and slacks, but no makeup or wig. Only the big red hat he wears at the beginning and end of the play and the nail polish on his toes signal female. Harvey also has a big personality and a rough charm, so his version of Bella essentially works, but I found myself wishing that they had waited for a worthy actress to play the role. The production is first-rate with a set by John Lee Beatty (Doubt, Proof) that surrounds the playing area with the facade of the hotel and performs a clever transformation. Rita Ryack (Casa Valentina) did not have much of a costuming challenge. Kimberly Senior’s (Disgraced), direction is assured, never letting the pace lag. I wish the Playbill had included a few notes on her career and a Yiddish glossary. All in all, it’s an enjoyable production that might have been even better with a different Bella. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

The Niceties

A-

It would be hard to find a timelier, more relevant play around town than Eleanor Burgess’s ironically titled drama now at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage II at City Center. In a program note, the author states that she is intrigued by situations “when smart, well-meaning people, with great values and the best intentions, fundamentally can’t agree on the right way to behave.” Based on an incident at Yale in 2015, the two-character play explores the escalating conflict between Zoe (Jordan Boatman), a bright African-American student and her well-regarded professor Janine (Lisa Banes; Arcadia, Isn’t It Romantic). The two meet during office hours to discuss the term paper that Zoe has written for a course in Comparative Revolution. After pointing out a few grammatical and stylistic errors, Janine proceeds to attack Zoe’s thesis that slavery played an important role in preventing the American Revolution from becoming a radical one. After much back and forth, Janine challenges Zoe to find more impressive documentation than internet websites to back up her thesis. She offers Zoe more time to do so, but activist Zoe is more committed to upcoming protests than to her coursework. Their escalating arguments over racism, white privilege, biased curricula and basic philosophies lead to an outburst that has serious consequences for both of them. During the second act, they meet once more to see if they can find common ground to take action that might mitigate the damage that has been done. We do not get the comfort of an easy answer. The play is all the more poignant in that it is set in pre-election 2016, before we fully realized the depth of the chasms dividing the country. The play is not without its flaws: at first the author comes dangerously close to making Janine a caricature, but she partially redeems this with some humanizing information later on. I also would have liked to know more about Zoe’s background. The arguments occasionally become repetitious, but the topics are so timely and important that I didn’t mind. Some have compared the play to Oleanna, which it does resemble in structure, but the issues this play raises make Mamet’s play look trivial by comparison. Both actors are very strong. The set by Cameron Anderson (The Language of Trees) looks convincingly like a book-cluttered office on an Ivy campus. Kara Harmon’s (Dot) costumes are apt. Kimberly Senior’s (Disgraced) direction keeps things moving forward briskly. If you see it, I guarantee you will have lots to talk about afterwards. Running time: one hour 50 minutes, including intermission.

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord

C-

Primary Stages’ season opener at the Cherry Lane Theatre is this high-concept comedy of ideas by Scott Carter. The playwright’s main credentials are that he was a stand-up comedian and later a writer/executive producer for Bill Maher’s television show. The play’s concept sounds promising: Imagine Thomas Jefferson (Michael Laurence; Appropriate). Charles Dickens (Duane Boutté; Parade) and Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Thom Sesma; Pacific Overtures) locked together in a room for reasons they do not understand. They appear as they looked at the height of their careers, rather than at the time of death. When they realize that each wrote his own version of the gospel, they think their purpose must be to combine their efforts into a joint work. When that fails, each tries to persuade the other two of the superiority of his own version. Finally, it occurs to them that maybe their real task is to examine their lives and face up to the gaps between their writings and their behavior. It was only at that point, about an hour in, that the play came to life for me and I stopped struggling to stay awake. During their recriminations, poor Jefferson comes in for the roughest treatment. Neither the humor nor the lofty discourse engaged me much. Maybe I nodded off for a crucial moment that would have made all the difference. I doubt it. The production is on the lavish side: a gilded proscenium arch decorated with books frames a red velvet curtain which lifts to reveal Wilson Chin’s (Aubergine) minimalist set of a bare room with a metal table and two chairs. Words are occasionally projected on the back wall. The period costumes by David Hyman (The Treasurer) are excellent. Laurence has a quiet dignity as Jefferson, but Boutté’s Dickens is too much a caricature and Sesma’s Tolstoy barely registers. That this play attracted a director the caliber of Kimberly Senior (Disgraced, The Who and the What) makes me wonder what she saw in it that I missed. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission. 

Disgraced (on Broadway) ***

When I saw the production of Ayad Akhtar’s powerful drama at LCT3 two years ago, before it won the Pulitzer Prize, I found it deeply affecting. (For my 4-star review of that version, go to http://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2012/10/disgraced.html). I wondered how it would hold up on second viewing in a much larger theater with a mostly new cast. The answer is that it still packs a wallop, but a slighter lesser one. The intimacy — and menace — of being only a few feet away from the action has been lost and the new cast members are, to my mind, less effective than their predecessors. As Amir, the assimilated Pakistani-American attorney and apostate Muslim, Hari Dhillon was a bit tepid. As Emily, his blonde artist wife with a penchant for Islamic art, Gretchen Mol also seemed a bit weak. Josh Radnor, as Isaac, the Jewish gallery owner who is considering showing her art, fared better. Karen Pittman, the lone holdover, is fine as Jory, Isaac’s African-American wife and Amir’s colleague. Danny Ashok, as Amir’s devout nephew Abe (f/k/a Hussein), was a bid broad. When Emily and Abe browbeat Amir into attending a hearing for an imprisoned imam, Amir’s carefully constructed world begins to collapse. The play’s commentary on religious and ethnic tensions in today’s America holds up very well. I had forgotten how many laughs the play has. The ending still seemed weak. Perhaps because the surprise element was gone for me the second time around, the play’s schematic structure seemed more apparent. John Lee Beatty must have been having an off day when he designed the set — the furnishings are quite unattractive and not at all what you would expect this couple to have. Lauren Helpern’s lovely set at LCT3 was far more apt. Jennifer von Mayrhauser’s costumes are fine — Jory’s killer heels fit her to a tee. Kimberly Senior’s direction is strong. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes; no intermission.

The Who & the What ***

Winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama must have put a lot of pressure on playwright Ayad Akhtar to come up with another play that is equally impressive. While his new play at LCT3 lacks the explosive power of “Disgraced,” it does have much to recommend it. Afzal (Bernard White) is a wealthy widowed Pakistani immigrant who has risen from cabdriver to owner of the largest taxi fleet in Atlanta. His two adult daughters are Zarina (Madine Malouf), a bookish, somewhat aloof Harvard grad who has been working on a novel for years, and Mahwish (Tala Ashe), her slightly flighty younger sister who would like to marry but cannot because tradition demands that the older daughter marry first. When Zarina wanted to marry a non-Muslim some years past, Afzal forbade her and she acquiesced. Unbeknownst to her, he has recently set up a profile for her on MuslimLove.com and even impersonated her to meet prospects he deemed worthy. One of them is Eli (Gregg Keller, "Belleville"), a white convert to Islam who is imam of a poor congregation, founder of a soup kitchen, and also a plumber. In the second act, which takes place a couple of years later, both daughters have married. Zarina has finally finished her novel (its title is the title of the play, which doesn’t explain a lot) which deals with the life of Mohammed as a flawed human rather than a sanitized prophet, as well as with the constricted role of women in Islam. When her family discovers the nature of her novel and considers the devastating effect its publication is likely to have on them (shades of “Other Desert Cities”), a deep fracture occurs. The well-crafted first act crackles with snappy, often comic, dialogue between pairs of characters. The play’s two scenes between the sisters are especially fine. The second act is not as tightly knit and the big confrontation scene fizzles a bit. Unlike “Disgraced” which peaked with an ensemble scene, the current play seems to flounder when more than two people are on stage. The acting is mostly strong. Jack Magaw’s three-module set with filigreed panels suggestive of Muslim art, is quite attractive and highly functional. Emily Rebholz’s costumes work well too. Kimberly Senior, who also directed “Disgraced,” is effective again here. I found it well worth my time despite its imperfections. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes including intermission.

Disgraced ****

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
Ayad Akhtar is having a banner year -- his first novel, American Dervish, was well-received last winter and this play, his first, has arrived at LCT3's Claire Tow Theater after making big waves in Chicago. It is easy to see why. In 90 tightly-plotted minutes, the playwright raises serious issues about life in contemporary America that, because they are painful, are usually ignored. The protagonist is Amir (Aasif Mandvi), a self-hating first-generation Pakistani-American, who has broken his ties with Islam. His blonde all-American wife Emily (Heidi Armbruster) is a painter who has found her inspiration in Islamic art. Isaac (Erik Jensen) is a Jewish gallery owner who is considering including Emily's work in an upcoming show. His African-American wife Jory (Karen Pittman) and Amir are both associates in the same New York law firm. Amir has a young nephew Abe (Omar Maskati) who has changed his name from Hussein; although largely assimilated, he is still a devout Muslim. When Emily and Abe bully Amir into attending a court hearing for an imam who has been accused of raising money for terrorists, things do not turn out well. At a dinner party for the two couples, prickly conversation escalates into verbal warfare and the evening ends disastrously. A final scene set several months later gives further insight into living as a Muslim-American, but does not provide a strong ending. The cast is quite good except for Mandvi, whose portrayal of Amir would profit from greater nuance and less stridency. Kimberly Senior's direction keeps things from lagging. Lauren Helpern's lovely set of a spacious Upper East Side apartment with modernist furnishings and a terrace will inspire real estate envy in most Manhattanites. Dane Laffrey's costumes are fine too. The powerful dinner party scene will probably stick in my memory longer than I would like. Tickets are only $20.