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.

The Waverly Gallery

C

Buoyed by the success of the revivals of This Is Our Youth and Lobby Hero, the powers that be thought it would be a good idea to bring back Kenneth Lonergan’s semi-autobiographical 2000 memory play about a dementia-addled octogenarian and the effects of her illness on her loving but frazzled family. Eileen Heckart’s powerful performance in the central role of Gladys made the original production a must-see event, even though the play was not one of Lonergan’s stronger efforts. I regret to say that Elaine May (California Suite, Luv) is no match for Ms. Heckart. The limited range of her facial expression weakens her performance and, therefore, the play itself. The actors playing her family are all strong. For me, the main reason to attend is to see the wonderful Joan Allen (Burn This, The Heidi Chronicles) onstage again, playing her daughter Ellen. David Cromer (Our Town) captures the well-meaning but clumsy behavior of Ellen’s second husband Howard. Lucas Hedges (Yen), in his Broadway debut, plays the long-suffering grandson whose apartment is just down the hall from Gladys’s and who therefore bears the brunt of dealing with her decline. He has the additional burden of narrating the play. A not very well-integrated subplot involves a naive, unsuccessful artist, Don (Michael Cera; Lobby Hero), just arrived in New York, whom Gladys befriends and installs in the back room of her failing Greenwich Village gallery. Even though Gladys fulfills his dream of a one-man show, he becomes disillusioned with life in New York. On the one hand, Cera avoids most of his usual annoying mannerisms; on the other, he does not create a very vivid character. I found it uncomfortable to laugh at Gladys’s behavior, knowing its source and its eventual outcome. There was no conflict within the family how to take care of Gladys and little insight provided about her illness or the best way to mitigate its effects. Perhaps it was cathartic for the author to describe her decline, but, in my opinion, there is little payoff for the audience. Without a really mesmerizing Gladys, the play’s weaknesses become more apparent. David Zinn’s (The Humans) set presents four distinct locations that are revealed behind a brick-wall front curtain. Old film clips of New York are projected on the wall between scenes. Perhaps director Lila Neugebauer (The Antipodes, At Home at the Zoo) could have found more depth in the play; perhaps not. Running time: two hours ten minutes including intermission.

Mary Page Marlowe

C-

After the glowing reviews the Steppenwolf premiere of Tracy Letts’ play received two years ago, I arrived at Second Stage’s Terry Kiser Theater expecting an absorbing evening. Alas, something essential seems to have been lost en route from Chicago, because this production, directed by Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves), left me wondering what the fuss was about. The play is built around two gimmicks: the title character is played by six actors (and a doll) and the 11 scenes from her life are presented out of sequence. The six who play Mary Page, in ascending chronological order, are Mia Sinclair Jenness (Matllda), Emma Geer (How To Transcend a Happy Marriage), Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”), Susan Pourfar (Mary Jane), Kellie Overbey (The Coast of Utopia) and Blair Brown (The Parisian Woman). Her parents are played by Nick Dillenburg (The Real Thing) and Grace Gummer (Arcadia) and her children by Kayli Carter and Ryan Foust (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Audrey Corsa and Tess Frazer (This Property Is Condemned) play her high school friends. David Aaron Baker (Oblivion Postponed) and Brian Kerwin (August: Osage County) are two of her husbands and Gary Wilmes (Chinglish) is her amorous boss. Marcia DeBonis (Small Mouth Sounds) is her shrink, Maria Elena Ramirez (Fish in the Dark) is her nurse and Elliot Villar (War Horse) is her dry cleaner. The play begins with a scene in which she is 40 and moves backward and forward almost randomly as far back as her infancy and up to her final months. Unfortunately, dividing her character’s scenes among six actors does not make her life story six times as interesting. Nor do the six actors create a convincing unity, at least not for me. Instead, they seem motivated to make the most of their relatively brief stage time. Subordinating their performance to a larger picture does not seem to be a priority. Perhaps this shortcoming will be overcoming during previews. The fact that three of the Mary Pages look roughly the same age made it difficult at times to place scenes in the correct sequence. A few of the scenes rise above the deliberate banality of the others. At times I thought I was watching a piece commissioned to provide as many roles as possible for the members of a repertory company. It was only 85 minutes long, but it seemed longer. When it was finally over, I was left scratching my head trying to figure out what made the Chicago production a hit, while this one, to me at least, is a miss. Perhaps it was Anna D. Shapiro’s direction or Carrie Coon’s acting that made the difference. In any case, the magic is missing. Kaye Voyce’s (Shining City) costumes are apt but Laura Jellinek’s (Marvin’s Room) sleek, curvy bilevel set seems somehow inapropos. The best I can say is that I am happy so many actors are employed thanks to this production. Running time: 85 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.

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.

After the Blast

C+

This new play by Zoe Kazan (We Live Here) at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater is, as its title suggests, set after a thermonuclear apocalypse that has driven a few of the best and brightest survivors underground where they live in a tightly controlled community devoted to preserving a remnant of humanity and working toward healing the surface of the planet for an eventual return. Their difficult lives are eased by vaping THC or ‘sim’-ing,  i.e., enjoying simulations of former pleasures via chips implanted in their brains. Oliver (William Jackson Harper; Placebo), an important scientist, and his wife Anna (Cristin Milioti; Once) have been turned down four times for permission to have a baby because Anna could not pass the Mental Health Evaluation (MHE) due to her depression. Oliver brings home a helper robot, allegedly for Anna to train to help blind children, and, by her good works, raise her score on the MHE. She at first resists, but then gives in. She names the robot Arthur and grows quite attached to him. It’s easy to see why; he’s a charmer. Oliver and Anna have friends Carrie (Eboni Booth; Fulfillment Center) and Patrick (Ben Horner; Fucking A), who don’t get much chance to make an impression. David Pegram, Will Connolly and Teresa Yenque also have small roles. Oliver’s attempts to do right by his wife backfire. Almost every scene runs on too long, particularly in the first act. The play eventually just runs out of steam and ends rather abruptly which is a shame because it contains much of interest. The premise is fascinating, the cast is appealing, the set by Daniel Zimmerman (Suicide, Inc.) is both functional and attractive and the costumes by Kaye Voyce (4000 Miles, Luce) are subtly futuristic. I could not find a credit for the robot operator which seems an unfortunate omission. Director Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves, The Antipodes), who seems to work best with ensembles, doesn’t seem at the top of her form here. Running time: two hours 30 minutes including intermission.

The Antipodes

C-

After being underwhelmed by Circle Mirror Transformation and angered by The Flick, I decided that Annie Baker was not a playwright I would ever appreciate. Then along came John, the first play of her Signature Theatre residency, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Now we have her second work for Signature, this strange piece that is essentially a fantasia on storytelling. I am beginning to think that John was a fluke, because I was once again disappointed. The set, by Laura Jellinek, is a conference room with grey carpet on the floor and walls, an enormous oval table surrounded by Aeron office chairs, a large oval light fixture overhead and a pile of colorful boxes of flavored soda water on the floor. The audience sits on the two long sides. Unfortunately, this configuration leads to at least three of the actors having their back to you for the entire play. When we arrive, a young man with a laptop is seated near one end of the table. He is soon joined by five men and a woman. Finally an older man, clearly the boss, arrives and sits at the head of the table. This is Sandy (Will Patton) who is in charge of the six writers around the table who are tasked with telling stories that will lead to the creation of an unspecified new project, perhaps a video game. Brian (Brian Miskell), the young man with the laptop, is there to transcribe their stories. Sandy emphasizes that anything goes in their stories, except for dwarves, elves and trolls. He induces them to tell about their first sexual experience, the worst thing that ever happened to them and their biggest regret. Dave (Josh Charles) and Danny M1 (Danny Mastrogiorno) dive right in. Adam (Phillip James Brannon) doesn’t have much to say until late in the play when he tells the longest, most fully developed story. Danny M2 (Danny McCarthy) has trouble getting into the spirit of things. Josh (Josh Hamilton) is troubled that he has yet to receive his ID badge or his paycheck. Eleanor (Emily Cass McDonnell) placidly knits most of the time. Sarah (Nicole Rodenburg), Sandy’s secretary with the affect of a Valley girl, pops in now and then to take lunch orders and announce the latest reason for Sandy’s absence. The passage of time is marked primarily by her changes of costume. Although storytelling is not part of her job, she tells one of the evening’s best tales. Some of their stories are raunchy, others gory and at least one, poetic. The stories that comprise most of the evening have no narrative arc that I could detect; nor do they really tell much about the characters who relate them. The relationships among the various writers go virtually unexplored. There are flashes of humor including a running joke about each writer having a different idea about how many kinds of stories there are. There’s a neat trick that I never figured out whereby food mysteriously appears on the table. What there is not is a cohesive plot or fully-developed characters. I suspect that the playwright had more fun coming up with ways to tease the audience than the audience has watching the play. Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves) directed. Running time: one hour 55 minutes; no intermission.

Everybody

C-

No one can accuse playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, An Octoroon, Gloria, War) of repeating himself. Each play has been unlike its predecessor; the only common denominator (except for War) was their intelligence and theatricality. His latest effort, part of his residency at Signature Theatre, is a deconstruction of the 15th century Middle English morality play Everyman. In that tale, God enlists his assistant Death to lead Everyman to his final reckoning. Death consents to his plea to be allowed to bring someone else along, but no one is willing to make the journey with him. In this version, the lead character has been changed to the gender-neutral Everybody. The play has a gimmick: five actors (Brooke Bloom, Michael Braun, Louis Cancelmi, David Patrick Kelly and Lakisha Michelle May) draw lots to determine who will play Everybody and four other roles at each performance. There are 120 possible combinations. The other four actors (Jocelyn Bioh, Marylouise Burke, Liyana Tiare Cornell and Chris Perfetti) have the same role each time. Burke’s version of Death is so delightful that it hard to remember that one should be frightened. Bioh is also a treat as God and another role that I won’t give away. Friendship, Kinship, Cousinship and Stuff decide not to accompany Everybody, as do late arrivals Strength, Mind, Beauty and Senses. Although Catholicism is briefly mentioned once, religion is surprisingly absent from the play. A character not in the original, Love (Perfetti), turns up late in the play and, puzzlingly, proceeds to put Everybody through a series of humiliations as a price for accompanying him (or her). Only Love and Shitty Evil Things stick around for Everybody’s final journey. The emerging moral seemed muddled. I also think that a lot depends on who is playing Everybody; one reacts differently to the fate of a pregnant woman vs. a white-haired man. In another departure by the playwright, perhaps to break the monotony, there are several blackout scenes during which we hear friends arguing with a dying friend who is telling the play's story as if it were her recurrent dream. I, for one, do not enjoy sitting in the dark listening to disembodied voices. Brief reference someone makes to racial insensitivity seems to have no connection to the play. In another blackout scene we get a marvelous pair of dancing skeletons. The central feature of Laura Jellinek’s set is a row of seats facing the audience identical to ours. Gabriel Berry’s costumes are excellent. The lighting design by Matt Frey enhances the production greatly. Lila Neugebauer (The Wayside Motor Inn, The Wolves) directs with assurance. There is cleverness in abundance, but I was not moved. I suspect that those in the production were having a better time than those in the audience. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

The Wolves **** A-

The Playwrights Realm is a theater company, now in its tenth year, with a clear mission: developing and presenting first-rate productions of plays by emerging playwrights. Every Fall they present a play by a newcomer (e.g. Elizabeth Irwin’s My Mañana Comes). The lucky playwright receives a year-long residency with substantial perks. In the Spring they offer a play by one of their alumni playwrights (e.g. Anna Ziegler’s A Delicate Ship). The latest evidence that they have found a winning formula is this debut work by Sarah DeLappe now at the Duke on 42nd Street. The title refers to an indoor soccer team of nine adolescent — 17-ish — suburban girls whom we see mostly during their pre-game warm-ups and practice sessions. The play opens with two overlapping conversations, one about the Khmer Rouge, the other about feminine hygiene products. As the play progresses, we observe how each player attempts to navigate the difficult shoals between girlhood and womanhood, moving between personal concerns and the world at large. Although each one has her moment, some characters are developed more fully than others. I had some trouble remembering who was who, especially since they are only identified by the numbers on their identical uniforms. The numbers are often hard to see and there are strong physical resemblances among a few of the actors. The emphasis is not on plot, although there is a major offstage development that propels the last section of the play. The cast (Brenna Coates, Jenna Dioguardi, Samia Finnerty, Midori Francis, Lizzy Jutila, Sarah Mezzanotte, Tedra Millan, Lauren Patten and Susannah Perkins as the team members and Mia Barron as a soccer mom) is outstanding, individually and collectively. The ensemble work in their drills is amazing (and looks exhausting). Director Lila Neugebauer (The Wayside Motor Inn) certainly knows how to manage a lot of people onstage at once. Laura Jelinek’s scenic design features an astroturf field, brightly lit by Lap Chi Chu, flanked by facing stadium seating. Asta Bennie Hotsetter’s costumes looked like authentic uniforms. Although I found the final part of the play a bit manipulative (and I wished that the armless wooden seats were more comfortable), my overall impression was highly favorable. I look forward to Sarah DeLappe’s future work, as well as The Playwrights Realm’s Spring alumni production — The Moors by Jen Silverman. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

Signature Plays **

On paper it must have seemed like a good idea to present a triple bill of revived short works by playwrights who were in Signature Theatre’s Legacy program. For someone like me who has a limited tolerance for absurdist theater, the results were not gratifying. Yesterday’s avant garde often seems quaint or just annoying today. 

Edward Albee’s “The Sandbox” at least offered a bit of drollery and a chance to see three fine actors — Alison Fraser, Frank Wood and Phyllis Somerville as Mommy, Daddy and Grandma, respectively— and hunky Ryan-James Hatanaka as The Young Man. Melody Giron played the cello. 

Maria Irene Fornes’s “Drowning” is a strange tale of unrequited love in which the three characters — Pea (Mikeah Ernest Jennings), Roe (Sahr Ngaujah) and Stephen (Wood again) — are dressed like humans but inexplicably wear grotesque masks that make them look more like sea lions. 

The longest and most complex work is Adrienne Kennedy’s “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” a surrealistic look at racial identity and racism through the mind of Sarah (Crystal Dickinson), a mixed-race graduate student on the Upper West Side. Except for her landlady (Fraser) and her boyfriend (Nicholas Bruder), all the characters represent aspects of Sarah’s inner conflict. They include Queen Victoria Regina (April Matthis), the Duchess of Hapsburg (January LaVoy), Patrice Lumumba (Ngaujah), Jesus (Jennings), and Sarah’s mother (Pia Glenn.) The short scenes are punctuated by blackouts. Along about the tenth one, I began praying that the next would be the last. While I can appreciate the impact the play must have had when new, it just didn’t work for me now.

The production values are first-rate with sets by Mimi Lien, costumes by Kaye Voyce and lighting by Mark Barton. Lila Neugebauer directed. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including two intermissions.

The Wayside Motor Inn **

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a devoted fan of A. R. Gurney’ plays. I was therefore very pleased to learn that Signature Theatre would present three of his works — two revivals and a new play —  this season. In addition, a Broadway revival of “Love Letters” with star (or stunt, depending on your point of view) casting is forthcoming. The play Signature chose to start the Gurney series is a rarely produced work from 1977. We meet five sets of people staying (or, in one case, working) at a nondescript motel outside of Boston. An elderly couple, Frank (the always fine Jon DeVries), who is suffering from heart trouble, and Jessie (Lizbeth Mackay, also very good) are in town to visit their newest grandchild. Vince, an overbearing father (Marc Kudisch, usually excellent, but stuck here with a one-note role) has brought his long-suffering son Mark (Will Pullen) for a Harvard interview that the father wants far more than his son. Andy (Kelly AuCoin) and Ruth (Rebecca Henderson) are a divorcing couple whose attempt to divide their possessions amicably goes awry. Phil (David McElwee) is a college student who has rented a room for the night to bed his girlfriend Sally (Ismenia Mendes) for the first time. Ray (Quincy Dunn-Baker) is a married traveling salesman who tries to pick up Sharon (an amusing Jenn Lyon), a waitress whose concern for her customers’ health is not appreciated by her employers. (Mendes, Henderson and Pullen appeared together recently in Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra at Playwrights Horizons.) The play’s gimmick is that all five stories take place simultaneously on the same set. (Gurney’s acknowledges Ayckbourn’s similar experiments.) This idea turns out not to be as interesting as it sounds. The set becomes cluttered with characters from different stories who barely manage not to bump into each other. It would have helped if the stories were more compelling and if they somehow enriched each other. Unfortunately, there is only one fleeting moment when two stories connect. Andrew Lieberman must have had fun designing the set; the plaid wallpaper and orange chenille bedspreads raise hideousness to new heights. Kaye Voyce’s costumes are unremarkable. I’m not sure what director Lila Neugebauer could have done to prevent this slender work from making such a tepid impression. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes including intermission.

Note: The stage is unusually high. Sitting in the third row, my eyes were level with its floor. Those in the first few rows on the right have a partially obstructed view.