Something Clean

B

Roundabout Underground, the company’s new play initiative housed in the Black Box Theatre below the Laura Pels, fills the important function of introducing New Yorkers to new playwrights. Roundabout’s acute eye for new talent has launched the careers of Stephen Karam, Steven Levenson, Lindsey Ferrentino and Joshua Harmon, among others. Their latest offering is this absorbing three-actor drama by Selina Fillinger that examines the fallout of a sexual assault from an unusual vantage point, that of the perpetrator’s parents. Charlotte and Doug are a suburban couple whose college son Kai is currently in prison for a campus rape he committed while drunk. The leniency of his six-month sentence led to protests and brought unwanted notoriety into their comfortable lives. Doug (Daniel Jenkins; Oslo, Kid Victory) has taken refuge in his work. When we meet Charlotte (Kathryn Erbe; The Father, Checkers), she has presented herself as a would-be volunteer at an urban sexual assault center headed by a young gay black man, Joey (Christopher Livingston; Party People, Peerless). In a rather heavy-handed metaphor, she tells Joey that she is good at cleaning, particularly at removing stains. She hides her real identity and motivation from Joey and conceals her volunteer work from Doug. Over the next few months, the relationship between Charlotte and Doug grows increasingly distant while a friendship blossoms between Charlotte and Joey. Charlotte’s attempts to relieve her sense of guilt also include implausible late-night visits to a campus alley where she whips out her rubber gloves to tidy up the dumpsters. While there she meets a campus cop played by Jenkins and a drunk frat boy played by Livingston. The play, which rapidly alternates scenes between Charlotte and either Doug or Joey, leads to an inevitable climax when the three meet and Charlotte’s subterfuge is exposed. The acting is consistently strong, with Kathryn Erbe’s performance being especially powerful. Reid Thompson’s (Too Heavy for Your Pocket) set design locates the bedroom and part of the kitchen of the couple’s suburban home at one end of the rectangular stage with one wall of the assault center at the other end; the large table in the center is used to represent both places. The size of theater and the division of the audience into two facing sides increase the sense of intimacy. Valerie Therese Bart’s (Too Heavy for Your Pocket) costumes befit the characters well. Margot Bordelon’s (Do You Feel Anger?, Too Heavy for Your Pocket) direction is fluid and unfussy. While the plot has a few weak spots, the play is consistently absorbing and my overall reaction is quite positive. Running time: 85 minutes, no intermission.

Do You Feel Anger?

C

After a well-received run at last year’s Humana Festival, Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s absurdist comedy about the deranged staff of a debt collection agency and the hapless empathy coach who has brought in to work with them has arrived in New York at Vineyard Theatre. We meet Sofia (Tiffany Villarin; Teenage Dick), whose confidence that she can shape people up is soon put to the test. Jon (Greg Keller; The Amateurs, Belleville), the office manager, wants to think of himself as a nice guy, but we soon see that is a delusion. Eva (Megan Hill; Eddie and Dave), the sole remaining female employee, claims that she has been mugged in the break room with regularity. She can’t remember the name of the boyfriend she just broke up with and is given to oversharing with customers on four-hour phone calls. Janie, the other female employee, went to the bathroom several days ago and has not been seen since. Howie (Justin Long; Seminar) is obsessed with the idea of unreciprocated oral sex and has fearsome temper tantrums. Jordan (Ugo Chukwu; What To Send Up When It Goes Down) has no sense of propriety and fancies himself a poet. We also meet Sofia’s mother (Jeanne Sakata) via pleading phone messages to her daughter that go unanswered. The final character is an old man (Tom Aulino; On the Town) who has a very funny scene which has little bearing on the play and should probably be eliminated. The exercises Sofia uses to teach empathy often lead to hilarious situations. Each employee gets at least one scenery-chewing moment. Cumulatively it’s a bit like a string of very funny SNL sketches. The actors really give it their all, particularly Mr. Long and Ms. Hill. Greg Keller is a master at playing someone who is just slightly “off.” Will Sofia succeed or will they wear her down? It’s a close race. Late in the play, the set by Laura Jellinek (Marvin's Room, Oklahoma!) makes a showy transformation leading to a final scene that I found muddled and unsatisfactory. The costumes by Emilio Sosa (On Your Feet!) are appropriate to each character. The lighting by Marie Yokoyama (Daybreak) is a bit hyperactive. The direction by Margot Bordelon (Eddie and Dave) is smooth. If there is a message here, I would guess it is something about the sorry state of women office workers. Some of the play’s moments are so funny that it might be tempting to overlook the flaws that, for me, ultimately led to disappointment. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.

Plot Points in Our Sexual Development

D

Miranda Rose Hall’s new play about gender fluidity, now at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater, is so short (58 minutes) that my Metrocard transfer was still valid for the trip home. It may have been less than an hour, but it was so talky and tedious that it seemed much longer. When the play opens, Theo (Jax Jackson; Hir) and Cecily (Marianne Rendon; Lazarus) take seats facing the audience at opposite ends of the darkened stage. For the first twenty minutes, we get alternating monologues of episodes from their respective psychosexual histories. For the next twenty minutes, the stage lights come up, the actors move their chairs so they are facing each other and start to acknowledge each other’s presence. For the final third, they engage in an escalating argument about meeting each other’s sexual needs. A promotional video for the production gives away the spoiler, but I will merely say that all is not as it first seems. The concept is interesting, but the play seemed a work in progress, more confusing than elucidating, more theoretical than dramatic. Margot Bordelon (Too Heavy for Your Pocket) directed.

Too Heavy for Your Pocket

B-

Roundabout Underground is presenting this flawed but interesting work by promising young playwright Jiréh Breon Holder. It is set in a poor rural black enclave of Nashville in 1961. We meet two young couples who have a very close friendship. The husbands have been best friends since they were ten and the wives are almost like sisters. Sally-Mae Carter (Nneka Okafor; Our Lady of Kibeho), about to graduate from beauty school, is pregnant. Her husband Tony (Hampton Fluker) has a past that includes philandering and gambling, but has been stirred by impending fatherhood to become a better man. Evelyn Bardon (Eboni Flowers) is a nightclub singer. Her husband Bowzie (Brandon Gill; Bella), intelligent but aimless, has just been accepted to Fisk University. Evelyn and Bowzie seem to be a most unlikely couple. During the long first act, we get to know the characters and the underlying problems in each marriage. When Bowzie decides to quit college and become a Freedom Rider, his decision puts a strain on all their relationships. The second act, while more dramatic, was also more disjointed. Some of the developments seemed forced and others seemed unlikely. The ending is rather flat. If you don’t already know about the Freedom Riders, you won’t get much background here. The actors are strong and quite plausible in their roles. Ms. Flowers has a lovely voice. The set by Reid Thompson (A Delicate Ship) features walls of wooden slats all around the theater and, for reasons I did not grasp, a grass floor throughout. The costumes by Valérie Thérèse Bart (Vanity Fair) are apt. Director Margot Bordelon (A Delicate Ship) would do well to tighten up the first act. All in all, it was a worthwhile but not wholly satisfactory experience. Running time: two hours ten minutes including intermission.

A Delicate Ship ***

The Playwrights Realm is presenting this intriguing new play by Anna Ziegler at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Sarah (Miriam Silverman), a social worker in her early 30s, and Sam (Matt Dellapina), a budding musician, have been a couple for several months. Their quiet Christmas Eve at Sarah’s apartment is interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. The uninvited guest is Nate (Nick Westrate), Sarah’s close friend since childhood. Bearing champagne and weed, Nate insinuates himself into their evening. Sam and Nate have neither met nor heard of each other before. Nate is an intensely self-centered overgrown child, filled with existential dread that the world existed before him and will go on after him. He has longed for Sarah since childhood as the only person who can save him and has showed up that night to persuade her to choose him. Like Icarus in Breugel’s famous painting, he fears that his suffering may go unnoticed. Each character breaks the fourth wall periodically to tell the audience about previous as well as future events. The urge to please one’s parents is a theme that recurs. The title comes from the image of time as a ship delicately navigating the shoals between past and future. The events of that evening have a profound effect on all three characters.The actors are all excellent, the set by Reid Thompson is evocative, the costumes by Sydney Maresca are fine and the direction by Margot Bordelon is smooth. The playwright is not always in full command of her material, but shows considerable promise. Running time: 75 minutes, no intermission.