Anatomy of a Suicide

B

After an acclaimed run at the Royal Court and a Blackburn Prize, British playwright Alice Birch’s ambitious experimental play is now in previews at Atlantic Theater Company. Birch (Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again) certainly does not make things easy for the audience. There are three different scenes, each from a different time period, being performed simultaneously onstage. Occasionally scenes coalesce with the same dialogue occurring in all three. To further complicate things, five of the ten actors play multiple roles. In addition, two of the characters are played by more than one actor. The links between the characters in the simultaneous scenes only gradually become clear. I don’t want to give too much away here. The three leading characters, Carol (Carla Gugino; After the Fall, A Kid Like Jake), Anna (Celeste Arias; Uncle Vanya at Hunter) and Bonnie (Gabby Beans; Marys Seacole), all suffer from emotional problems. The author seems to be suggesting that depression and a tendency to attempt suicide can be inherited. While I certainly give her credit for ambition, I sometimes found it difficult to divide my attention three ways. Attempting to tell three stories involving 22 characters does not allow much time to develop a character in any depth. The fine cast also included Jason Babinsky (Network), Ava Briglia (School of Rock), Julian Elijah Martinez (Network), Jo Mei (The World of Extreme Happiness), Vince Nappo (The Jew of Malta), Miriam Silverman (Junk, A Delicate Ship) and Richard Topol (Indecent, Fish in the Dark). The sparse set by Mariana Sanchez (Marys Seacole) includes scattered plants and bushes of varying size that seemed a bit incongruous. Kaye Voyce’s (True West, After the Blast) costumes are a great help in creating the characters. Director Lileana Blain-Cruz (Red Speedo, The House That Will Not Stand) deserves much credit for making the multiple components run like clockwork. While I was initially fascinated by the play’s challenges, I was rarely moved. While I admired it, I didn’t find it truly satisfying. Running time: one hour 45 minutes, no intermission.

NOTE: Avoid seats in Row B at the Linda Gross Theater; there is no rise between Rows A and B.

Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine

C

As the first installment of Lynn Nottage’s residency, Signature Theatre has revived this work from 2004. Theatergoers who know her only from serious plays such as Pulitzer prizewinners Ruined or Sweat may be surprised to see something in a lighter mode. Undine Barnes Calles (Cherise Boothe; Milk Like Sugar) is the invented persona of Sharona Watkins, who grew up in the Brooklyn projects, won a scholarship to Dartmouth, broke off all contact with her family who, she said, had died tragically in a fire, and for 14 years has run a successful PR firm catering to nouveau riche African-Americans. Two years ago she married Hervé (Ian Lassiter; Junk), a sexy Argentinian. When we meet her, she is yelling at her assistant Stephie (Mayaa Boateng; Fairview) for being unable to find a celebrity to attend the Fallopian Blockage benefit she is planning. Imperious in her gold lamé outfit at her teak desk, Undine is clearly ripe for a comeuppance. In short order, her husband absconds with all her money, she becomes the subject of an FBI investigation, she finds out she is pregnant, she is forced to move back home to the family she rejected and she ends up in jail after being mistaken for a drug addict. We next see her in a drug rehab group session where a college professor (Dashiell Eaves; A Time To Kill) is waxing rhapsodic over the pleasures of cocaine. Guy (Lassiter again) is a security guard in the group who takes a shine to her. We see their first date at a BBQ restaurant. A scene of her frustrating visit to a social services office is a bit heavy-handed. Undine’s attempts to become a better human being are not completely convincing and the second act flounders a bit. Truth is Undine, with her droll asides, is much more entertaining company than Sharona. Ms. Boothe is excellent and is supported by a strong ensemble of seven (Heather Alicia Simms; Fairview; Nikiya Mathis, Skeleton Crew; J. Bernard Calloway, Memphis; Marcus Callender, plus the three actors already mentioned) who play multiple roles. Some of the costumes by Montana Levi Blanco (In the Blood, Fairview) and wigs by Cookie Jordan (Once on This Island) are delightfully outlandish. Adam Rigg’s (The House That Will Not Stand) set converts effortlessly to a variety of locales. Director Lileana Blain-Cruz (Red Speedo, War) keeps things moving. It is sporadically entertaining but the satire misses as often as it hits. Running time: one hour 55 minutes including intermission. 

The House That Will Not Stand

C+

After runs in Berkeley, New Haven, Chicago and London, this play by Marcus Gardley (“The Chi”) has arrived at New York Theatre Workshop. The playwright set himself an ambitious challenge, taking characters and situations from Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba and overlaying them with a story about the status of black women in New Orleans shortly after the Louisiana Purchase. Once again there is a house of women in mourning with a fierce mother ruling over frustrated daughters —Agnès (Nedra McClyde; Marvin’s Room), Odette (Joniece Abbott-Pratt; u/s Eclipsed) and Maude Lynn (Juliana Canfield; “Succession”)— with an iron hand. There is someone hidden away in the attic, this time the mother’s possibly mad sister, Marie Josephine (Michelle Wilson; Sweat). And there is rivalry among the daughters over a man. The corpse lying surrounded by flowers in the parlor is the father of the three daughters, but not the husband of their mother Beartrice (Lynda Gravatt; Skeleton Crew). He is Lazare Albans, a married wealthy white man whose long-term common-law relationship with Beartrice made her the wealthiest free woman of color in New Orleans, with a fine house to show for it. The institution that permitted such interracial relationships, called plaçage, had been common throughout the French and Spanish Caribbean, but was now threatened by United States laws. Makeda (Harriet D. Foy; Amelie), the house servant who looks after mother and daughters, is a slave who has been promised her freedom upon her master’s demise. We also meet La Veuve (Marie Thomas; Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope), a neighbor with a longtime grudge against Beartrice. Two of the daughters want to attend the masked ball where quadroons and prospective white beaus meet and arrange relationships, but Beartrice is unalterably opposed as she considers plaçage little better than slavery, especially under new US laws. She is also confronted with a threat to retaining her house and her social position. Melodrama ensues. The play is stuffed, perhaps overstuffed, with issues — racism, skin colorism, class consciousness, empowering women, slavery, voodoo, ghosts, insanity, honoring African roots. It’s a lot to juggle and the playwright occasionally missteps. The dialogue is sometimes comic, sometimes poetic. The quality of the acting is frustratingly uneven. Ms. Foy gives an electric performance as Makeda. The usually reliable Ms. Gravatt repeatedly stumbled over her lines. Ms. Thomas is wickedly funny. The actresses playing the daughters and the aunt imbue each with individuality. Adam Rigg’s (Actually) set design of an elegant southern home with tall shuttered windows and crystal chandeliers is quite attractive, as are the period costumes by Montana Levi Blanco (Fairview, Red Speedo). Lileana Blain-Cruz’s (Pipeline, War) direction shows a comfortable grip on the material. While I found it sporadically involving, I left somewhat baffled and disappointed. The reaction from most of the audience was extremely enthusiastic. Running time: two hours ten minutes including intermission.

Pipeline

B

Dominique Morisseau (Skeleton Crew) makes an impressive Lincoln Center Theater debut with this wrenching look at our society seen primarily through the eyes of a black teacher and her teenage son. Nya (Karen Pittman; Disgraced) teaches English in a tough urban high school. Her only child, Omari (Namir Smallwood), is at a private boarding school upstate where he has just been involved in a third incident that could get him expelled. The natural concern of a black mother for the safety of her son in a dangerous world is exacerbated by the fact that he is her only child and that her ex-husband Xavier (Morocco Omari) is providing little for the boy except child support. While Xavier has moved on, Nya still has feelings for him. We see Nya in the classroom, teaching an ominous Gwendolyn Brooks poem, “We Real Cool,” that frightens her; in the lunchroom exchanging barbs with Dun (Jaime Lincoln Smith), the security guard whose flirtations she fends off, and commiserating with fellow teacher Laurie (Tasha Lawrence; Good People), who has been losing the battle against student violence; at Omari’s school where she interrogates his Latina girlfriend Jasmine (Heather Velazquez), another fish out of water at the lily-white school, to find out where Omari is; and at home alone, finding solace in cigarettes and liquor. Morisseau does not spell everything out for us. Only the projections between scenes, escalating from images of black students at school to violent students to handcuffed young blacks on a bus, indicate that the title refers to the school-to-prison pipeline too often traveled by black youth. The acting is uniformly strong; my one quibble is that Smallwood looks too old for a secondary student. The characters are vividly drawn. Jasmine and Laurie are such dynamic presences that they almost hijack the play. The elevated, rather poetic style of speech the playwright occasionally turns to has the effect of making the characters sound more alike than they should. There are individual scenes that are wonderful, but they don’t cohere into as satisfying a whole as I would have wished. The set by Matt Saunders with its cinderblock walls, linoleum floor and bright fluorescent lights creates an aptly harsh institutional setting. The costumes by Montana Levi Blanco befit the characters well. The direction by Lileana Blain-Cruz (War; Red Speedo) is unfussy and assured. Although I have some reservations, I found the play well worth seeing. Running time: one hour 25 minutes; no intermission.

Note: The Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater has been refurbished with very comfortable new seats. The space formerly occupied by the coat lockers, whose use was halted by security concerns, is now filled by a colorful attractive mural of Lincoln Center.

The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World a/k/a The Negro Book of the Dead ** C

Seeing Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home from the War, Parts 1, 2 & 3 was one of the highlights of my theater-going year in 2014, so I was eagerly awaiting Signature Theatre’s revival of this early work from 1990. Be careful what you wish for. According to the ushers, the running time was 80 minutes; it actually came in at 67 minutes. Let’s just say that I was not sorry that it ended 13 minutes sooner than expected. In principle, I admire the decision to mount such a complex, significant work, but in actuality I found it tough to sit through. The cast of 11, led by the talented Roslyn Ruff as Black Woman With Fried Drumstick and Daniel J. Watts as Black Man With Watermelon, perform with total commitment. I found the structure, in which the play is divided into panels and choruses, the titles of which are projected on the rear wall, confusing. The dialog has a lyrical, almost incantatory quality at times with many phrases and sentences returning, often with slight variation as in jazz. I got that the central character repeatedly dies, by electrocution, hanging and other unpleasant means and understood the plea that black history should not be allowed to remain undocumented and therefore become lost. I grasped why Ham (Patrena Murray), the source of biblical justification for animus against blacks, is a character. Ditto for Old Man River Jordan (Julian Rozzell) as well as And Bigger and Bigger and Bigger (Reyanldo Piniella), an allusion to Native Son. But why Before Columbus (David Ryan Smith) and Queen-Then-Pharaoh Hatshepsut (Amelia Workman)? I missed the apparent allusion of a character named Yes and Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread (Nike Kadri) or one called Lots of Grease and Lots of Pork (Jamar Williams) or Prunes and Prisms (Mirirai Sithole.) Calling one the Voice on Thuh Tee V (William Demeritt) seemed pointless. The significance of breaking eggs and eating feathers was lost on me. There are some funny moments, including a scene that’s a worthy riff on Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First.” The choreography by Raja Feather Kelly provided some of the most enjoyable moments. Riccardo Hernandez’s set design is effectively spare. Montana Blanco’s costumes are wonderful. Lileana Blain-Cruz’s direction is fluid. What the play lacks in coherence, it almost makes up for in sheer energy. Unfortunately for me, I prefer coherence. 

War **

After enjoying all three plays I have seen by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, An Octoroon and Gloria), I arrived at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater with high expectations. Unfortunately I was disappointed. Although I credit the playwright for his ambition and imagination, I did not feel that he had produced a coherent work. From reviews, I gather that the play has changed considerably since its 2014 Yale Rep premiere, Nevertheless it still did not seem like a finished product. The focus is divided among too many themes including sibling rivalry, family secrets, the scourge of dementia, dealing with parental illness, meeting parental expectations, racism in America and Germany from WWII to the present and man’s underlying simian nature. Particularly in the second act, there are too many long monologues that interrupt the flow. Roberta (the able Charlayne Woodard) is a well-to-do middle-aged African-American divorcee who has been rushed to a Washington hospital after suffering a stroke while visiting the ape house at the zoo. Her daughter Joanne (Rachel Nicks), a would-be children’s writer, is married to Malcolm (Reggie Gowland), a low key school teacher of no particular distinction, who is white. They have a young daughter. Joanne has only recently resumed a relationship with her mother after long years of estrangement. Her hostile brother Tate (Chris Myers), a political functionary working in Boston, flies in to be at his mother’s bedside and immediately lashes out at everyone including the kindly nurse (Lance Coadie Williams). We later learn that Tate and his male partner have recently split. Roberta was brought to the hospital by a mysterious woman who speaks almost no English; this is Elfriede (Michelle Shay), a German half-sister that Roberta has only recently discovered and, somewhat implausibly, never mentioned to anyone. Malcolm discovers a man staying at Roberta’s apartment, Elfriede’s angry son Tobias (Austin Durant), who is out to get a share of his late grandfather’s legacy. The nonstop shouting and bickering between Tate and everyone else grows quickly tiresome; Tate is so relentlessly nasty that I eventually cringed whenever he opened his mouth. The play’s most interesting feature is that for much of the first act we witness the comatose Roberta trying to regain her bearings with the assistance of a pack of gorillas led by Alpha (Williams again) whose language is projected as subtitles. It did not work for me. Simian imagery pervades the play from the monkey-sound taunts at Roberta’s father in Germany to the ape house at the zoo and the apes in her struggle for consciousness. Mimi Lien’s elegant scenic design is evocatively lit by Matt Frey. Montana Blanco’s costumes are apt. I can’t fault director Lileana Blain-Cruz for failing to bring all the disparate elements together better. While this evening was a disappointment, three hits out of four is still an enviable record for a playwright. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes including intermission.

Red Speedo **

Now in previews at New York Theatre Workshop, this new play by Lucas Hnath (The Christians) addresses several issues that arise from our obsession with competitive sports, such as the commodification of athletes, the cultivation of athletic prowess to the exclusion of all else, the temptation of performance enhancing drugs and the relentless pursuit of self-interest regardless of harm to others. A strong case of pathological sibling codependency overlays the other issues. Ray (Alex Breaux) is an Olympic hopeful swimmer, whose success has come at the cost of intellectual and emotional stuntedness. His brightest idea has been to get a hideous tattoo on his back to make him more easily recognizable by television viewers. He has a great entrance in the titular swimwear, plunging into the one-lane pool with a plexiglas wall that fills the front of the set. His sleazy older brother Peter (Lucas Caleb Rooney) is also his attorney and his would-be agent. When a stash of drugs is found in the team locker room’s refrigerator, Peter tries to persuade Coach (Peter Jay Fernandez) to look the other way until after the Olympic trials so that Jay’s tentative endorsement contract with Speedo will not be threatened. Jay’s ex-girlfriend Lydia (Zoe Winters) has lost her sports therapy license, partially due to some unethical behavior by Peter. Many plots and counterplots collide. Unfortunately the play sheds far more heat than light. The lack of a sympathetic character is not necessarily fatal to my interest in a play, but it certainly doesn’t help that there is no one to root for here. Breaux looks the part and is quite convincing as Jay. Rooney’s portrayal of Peter has only one note — extremely annoying. Fernandez is OK as the coach. Winters doesn’t get much chance to make an impression. Kudos to set designer Riccardo Hernandez for a convincing set. Boos to sound designer Matt Tierney for the loud horn blasts between scenes. Fight coordinator Thomas Schall has done wonders — rarely have I seen onstage brawling that was so realistic. Director Lileana Blain-Cruz does her best with an unsatisfactory ending. Running time: 80 minutes; no intermission. NOTE: I do not recommend seats in the first two rows, because you are below the level of the pool deck.