Breakfast with Mugabe ***

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Fraser Grace's thought-provoking drama, first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2006, has finally reached Manhattan via Centenary College in New Jersey, where the present production originated a few years back.  It was worth the wait. At the center of the play are Robert Mugabe (Michael Rogers), strongman of Zimbabwe since 1980, and Andrew Peric (Ezra Barnes), a fictive white psychiatrist engaged to treat him in the Fall of 2001 when he was plagued by an ngozi, the malevolent spirit of someone who died violently. Peric, a native Rhodesian/Zimbabwean, has a small tobacco farm overseen by his black African wife while he attends to patients in the capital. We also meet Grace (Rosalyn Coleman), Mugabe's attractive second wife, 40 years his junior, and Gabriel (Che Ayende), Mugabe's bodyguard, who have their own agendas. The therapy sessions are not just a sparring match between patient and therapist, but a microcosm of the struggle between the races and a displaced battleground for settling colonial scores. One justifiably fears for Peric's safety. The penultimate scene is a rousing campaign speech by Mugabe during the 2002 campaign. Powerful though it is, it seemed an intrusion in the flow of events. However, it does set up the touching scene that closes the play. The actors are all excellent, as is David Shukhoff's direction. Lee Savage's set design and Teresa Snider-Stein's costumes are effective. A Two Planks production at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes; no intermission. NOTE: I suggest arriving a few minutes early to have time to read the helpful glossary inserted in the program.

Him **

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Being the daughter of a famous playwright must be a mixed blessing for Daisy Foote -- it probably opens doors, but it also sets expectations high. On the basis of her new play at Primary Stages, I think her achievement does not yet match her promise. An emotionally stunted father dying from a stroke is attended by his three adult children -- Pauline (Hallie Foote), still single in her 50s; Henry (Tim Hopper), a gay man in his late 40s who, bullied at college, returned home for keeps; and Farley (Adam LeFevre), the youngest, who is both obese and developmentally challenged. Ironically it is Farley who finds love in the form of a similarly challenged new neighbor, Louise (Adina Verson). The father has run his small-town New Hampshire general store into the ground and the family is barely surviving. Upon his death, the children find out that he secretly owned land that is now worth a fortune to developers. Pauline is driven by a need to become rich to show up the neighbors. When Henry discovers his father's journals revealing a love for the natural wonders of his property, he has second thoughts about developing it. One of the play's weaknesses is that every so often the action freezes and a spotlight shines on one of the actors who declaims a passage from the journals. This device grew stale very quickly. It also did not help that the characters' New England accent came and went. The strident monotone that Hallie Foote has chosen for her character grated on my ears after a while. Le Fevre and Verson grossly overact the behavior of a challenged person. Marion Williams' set recreates a slightly rundown kitchen of a particular time right down to the avocado appliances. Teresa Snider-Stein's costumes are fine. Evan Yionoulis directed. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes including intermission.