Transfers

B+

Through a scheduling fluke, we have two interesting plays about college admissions running at the same time — Admissions by Joshua Harmon at Lincoln Center Theater and now Transfers by Lucy Thurber in an MCC production at Lucille Lortel Theatre. Both are worth seeing. (Go to https://gothamplaygoer.blogspot.com/2018/03/admissions.html for my review of Admissions.) In Ms. Thurber’s play, we meet two students from a New York community college, one African-American, the other Hispanic, who are vying with six other applicants for a chance to attend an elite New England liberal arts institution. This university admits two worthy low-income transfer students annually as a rather grudging token gesture toward affirmative action. We also meet the three members of the selection committee, an African-American humanities professor, a women’s rugby coach and a recruiter for the scholarship program. Clarence Matthews (Ato Blankson-Wood; Iphigenia in Aulis, Lysistrata Jones) is gay, black and an avid reader. Cristofer Rodriguez (Juan Castano; A Parallelogram) is a great wrestler, rough-edged and unfiltered. It turns out that the two boys knew each other in the Bronx when they were younger, under fraught circumstances. David DeSantos (Glenn Davis; Wig Out!) not only has recruited them but attempts to prep them for their admissions interviews. The bookish Clarence’s interview with Professor Geoffrey Dean (Leon Addison Brown; The Trip to Bountiful; Master Harold and the Boys) seems to go very well. Cristofer’s interview with Coach Rosie McNulty (Samantha Soule; The Philanthropist, Barbecue) is both hilarious and moving. When the committee meets, the behavior of its three members does not always conform to our expectations. Interesting questions about readiness for college versus worthiness for college are raised. Ms. Thurber (The Hill Town Plays) knows how to create vivid characters and write lively dialogue. The scenes occasionally run on too long. The story of what happened back in the Bronx remains a bit murky. The ending seemed a bit contrived. Nevertheless, the play fully engaged my interest. The actors are all fine, especially Mr. Castano, whose Cristofer is one of the most memorable characters I have seen on a New York stage this season. The scenic design by Donyale Werle (The Legend of Georgia McBride, Peter and the Starcatcher) transforms smoothly to five different locations. The costumes by Jessica Ford (Stuffed, These Paper Bullets) are apt. Jackson Gay’s (Stuffed, These Paper Bullets) direction is seamless. This will be MCC’s final production at the Lortel before their move to the Far West 50’s. I will miss them, but am glad they are ending on a high note. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Barbecue ****

Robert O’Hara’s raunchy and raucous new play at the Public Theater is full of surprises. It’s a challenge to describe the play in any detail without giving something away and spoiling the fun. Suffice to say that in the first act an extremely dysfunctional family lures their crack-addicted sister to a barbecue in her favorite park so they can perform an intervention. All is not what it seems. In the second act we move backward and forward in time to discover what preceded and followed the action of the first act. I wish I could be more specific, but to tell more might ruin your experience. The playwright skewers several cliches and pop cultural icons along the way. The talented cast of ten (Becky Ann Baker, Marc Damon Johnson, Arden Myrin, Paul Niebanck, Tamberla Perry, Constance Shulman, Heather Alicia Simms, Samantha Soule, Benja Kay Thomas and Kim Wayans) attack their roles with gusto (Perry, in particular). Clint Ramos’s set captures the feel of a picnic pavilion in a verdant park. Paul Tazewell’s costumes are delightful. O'Hara's inventiveness does not flag. Happily, he chose not to direct his own work this time (his direction of “Bootycandy” did it no favors.) Kent Cash handles the assignment admirably. While the satire is far from subtle, the play is so entertaining that I didn’t mind the heavy-handedness. The audience was demonstratively enthusiastic. It's not for everyone, especially those with an aversion to profanity and vulgarity. Running time: one hour 50 minutes including intermission.

And I and Silence **

Naomi Wallace, a playwright in residence at Signature Theatre this season, has a most impressive resume. It includes a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Obie Award, the 2012 Horton Foote Prize and the 2013 Windham Campbell prize for drama. I wish I could say that the reasons for all her honors were more evident in her new drama now in previews at Signature. The action follows the story of two young women both as teenagers in prison in 1950 and as roommates nine years later. Scenes of their hardships in the outside world are juxtaposed with scenes of their budding friendship in prison. Many of the prison scenes involve Young Jamie (Trae Harris), who is black, coaching Young Dee (Emily Skeggs), who is white, how to be a proper servant, the career they look forward to pursuing after prison. Part of the lessons involve learning where to establish lines that must not be crossed in dealings with their future employers. After prison Jamie (Rachel Nicks) and Dee (Samantha Soule) are living in abject poverty, struggling to find and hold jobs as servants. The disconnect between their personalities in prison and later is exacerbated by the lack of physical resemblance between the two actors playing them. Skeggs’s body type is so different from Soule’s that it is a stretch to accept the two as the same character at different ages. The reasons for their desperation are not made sufficiently clear. The sudden explosion of repressed lesbianism took me by surprise. The actors invest their roles with sincerity and energy. The spartan set by Rachel Hauck is effective, as are Cliff Ramos’s costumes. With the audience split into two facing sides, director Caitlin McLeod needs to work harder to insure that fewer lines are lost when the actors are facing away. It all seemed like a mash-up of “Girls in Prison” and “Thelma and Louise” with a touch of “The Maids” thrown in. I hope that Wallace’s remaining two plays will deliver more evidence of her talents. In case you were wondering, the title is a line from an Emily Dickinson poem. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.