Primary Trust

 B+

Eboni Booth’s (Paris, “Julia”) new play at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre has much to recommend it, including a superb cast, a wonderful set, lovely musical accompaniment and sensitive direction. My reservations about it originate with the script, which takes a long time to reveal where it is leading us and is sparing with its dramatic moments. The acting could not be better. William Jackson Harper (After the Blast, “The Good Place”), playing Kenneth, a 38-year-old loner whose hard-won stability is suddenly undermined when the job he has held for 20 years disappears, is so likeable and vivid that he immediately draws us in. Eric Berryman (Toni Stone) makes a believable person out of Kenneth’s longtime imaginary friend Bert. The always excellent Jay O. Sanders (Uncle Vanya, Rhinebeck Panorama) makes the most out of three roles, Kenneth’s past employer, his new employer and a snooty waiter in a white tablecloth restaurant. April Matthis (Toni Stone, The Piano Lesson) plays Corrina, a waiter at Kenneth’s favorite bar who tries to befriend him, as well as other waitpersons and bank customers whom she convincingly inhabits. Luke Wygodny (Hundred Days), on keyboard, guitar and cello, provides unobtrusive but welcome music to support the action. Marsha Ginsberg’s (English) delightful set presents miniature versions of the buildings surrounding the town square of Cranberry, NY. A feature of Qween Jean’s (Black No More) costumes is the use of changing shoes to represent different social roles. Knud Adams (English) directs with sensitivity. One problem that I had was that Harper made Kenneth such a sympathetic character that it was difficult to realize how troubled he really was. A minor annoyance was the overuse of a service desk bell to punctuate scenes. The excellence of the acting makes it well worth seeing. Running time: 95 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.

Placebo *

I very much enjoyed the Playwrights Horizons production of “This,” the first play I saw by Melissa James Gibson several years ago, but it’s been downhill since then. The second play I saw, “What Rhymes with America” at the Atlantic, left me cold. Now Gibson has returned to Playwrights Horizons with “Placebo,” which might be subtitled “Four Characters and a Vending Machine in Search of a Play.” Louise (Carrie Coon) is a graduate student in female sexuality, earning money by working with patients enrolled in a double-blind study of an experimental drug to increase female libido. Mary (Florencia Lozano) is one of the patients who is eager to know whether she is receiving the new drug or the placebo. Louise has lived for four years with Jonathan (William Jackson Harper), a 7th year graduate student in Classics who has hit a brick wall in his dissertation on Pliny the Elder. (The fact that Jonathan is played by a black actor seems to be of no significance to the plot, such as it is.) Louise tells her dying mother the white lie that she and Jonathan are getting married soon. Jonathan does not find Louise’s attempts to be supportive helpful. Tom (Alex Hurt), who works for another study at the hospital, becomes friendly with Louise. The game they play with a vending machine is the liveliest scene in the play. The experimental drug study and the placebo abruptly disappear from view and the action shifts to the troubled relationship between Louise and Jonathan. The play ends with a very long, often ludicrous scene of them breaking up — or not. I found the characters little more than collections of tics despite the efforts of an appealing cast to breathe some life into them. The play is not helped by David Zinn’s dreary and confusing set which uses the entire width of the theater to represent both the hospital and Jonathan’s apartment. I’m not sure what more director Daniel Aukin could have done with this material. Gibson seems to appeal to the younger generation; the audience included a group of twenty-somethings who whooped and hollered at every opportunity. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes, no intermission.

NOTE: Why the sudden spate of one-word play titles beginning with P— Pocatello, Posterity, Placebo, Permission?