Aubergine *** B

Julia Cho’s new play at Playwrights Horizons is a flawed, uneven work, but it packs an emotional wallop. Ray (Tim Kang), an assimilated Korean-American chef, moves in with his estranged father (Stephen Park) to care for him during his final days. Ray’s former girlfriend Cornelia (Sue Jean Kim) forgives him and pitches in to help. Lucien (Michael Potts), a refugee from a war-torn African country, is the kindly, helpful home hospice nurse. Ray’s uncle (Joseph Steven Yang) flies in from Korea as soon as hears about his brother’s condition. Diane (Jessica Love) is a wealthy foodie who appears in the opening and final scenes (and, in my humble opinion, should be excised). A common thread that stitches the play together is the important role of food in our memories and family relationships. Each character gets a food-centered monologue. Some of the dialog is in Korean with translations projected on the rear wall. There are many engaging moments, but they don’t fit together all that well. Some trimming would improve the play, especially dropping the facile ending. Derek McLane’s high-concept scenic design is dominated by a huge semicircular wooden wall that looks like the side of a huge vat. It parts and swings away to reveal a semicircular interior with partial concentric rings. The circle of life, perhaps? Jennifer Moeller’s costumes are appropriate to each character. Kate Whoriskey’s direction is a bit sluggish at times. Don’t see it when you are hungry. You also might want to avoid it you have recently faced or are about to face the loss of a loved one. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including intermission.

Maestro ** C-

Perhaps I am becoming jaded or maybe I just have been making bad choices lately. In any case, for the third time this week, I found myself surrounded by an audience having a far better time than I was. Onstage at 59E59 Theatre A was Hershey Felder performing as Leonard Bernstein. Apparently Felder has made a career out of using his pianistic and acting skills to create one-man theater pieces about such composers as Beethoven, Grieg and Gershwin. Bernstein does not fit neatly into this  group as he was more renowned as conductor than composer, a never-ending sore spot for him. Felder’s approach to his life is mainly chronological and gamely attempts to cover many aspects: conductor, educator, social activist, bisexual and flawed husband. The early scenes with his father, speaking with a heavy Yiddish accent, were embarrassingly stereotypical. Were it not for the lavish production featuring an impressive set by François-Pierre Couture and projections by Christopher Ash, I might have thought I was attending an enrichment program at a home for elderly Jews. The musical clips were frustratingly brief with more music by other composers and less by Bernstein than I would have expected. I was certainly surprised that the longest and most prominent excerpt was from Wagner’s Liebestod. There was a brief moment near the end, in which Bernstein lashes out at the world, that gave me a sense of how much more powerful the piece could have been. Joel Zwick (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) directed. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Bears in Space ** C-

This cult hit by the Irish theater group Collapsing Horse has arrived at 59E59 Theatres after sold-out runs in Dublin, Edinburgh and London. The four actors — Jack Gleeson, whose Game of Thrones credentials were no doubt a draw for many; Aaron Heffernan, who designed the puppets; Cameron Macaulay, who wrote the music and Eoghan Quinn, who wrote the script, are all appealing performers. The deliberately scruffy puppets and makeshift props are appropriate to the playful spirit. The clever staging includes animation techniques as well as Indonesian puppetry. The story of two ursine astronauts who have a misadventure on the planet Metrotopia struck me as less entertaining than it was meant to be. Douglas Adams did it better in his galactic hitchhiker series. Part of the problem is the theater. Even though there are only seven rows of seats, the action seemed remote and hard to decipher from my seat. I image it was much more effective in some tiny fringe venue. The audience was loving every minute of it, so I felt that I was the odd man out. Dan Colley directed. Running time: 75 minutes, no intermission.

Newsical: The Musical * D

Several years ago, I saw an earlier edition of this topical review and enjoyed it thoroughly. I remember it as being incisive and edgy. Alas, the current version, now playing at the Kirk Theater, is neither. The ratio of political to nonpolitical topics is lower this time. This is probably a wise choice, because today’s political scene is so absurd that it is not easy to satirize. The send-ups of celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Ryan Lochte mostly fell flat. The performers are enthusiastic, but the material lets them down. (I would name them, but there were no programs.) The music is monotonous. There are some very funny moments, but they are few and far between. I was quite disappointed. Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission.

Summer Shorts - Series B *** B

The tepid program offered by Series A of this year’s Summer Shorts festival at 59E59 Theater is partially redeemed by the three plays in Series B.

“Black Flag” by Idris Goodwin presents two freshman roommates meeting for the first time after a summer of online contact. Sydney (Francesca Carpanini) is from Georgia and Deja (Suzette Azariah Gunn) is from Detroit. Things get off to a bad start when Sydney hangs a Confederate flag over her bed, heedless of how it might affect her black roommate. Sydney regards it as a symbol of Southern pride given to her by her mother to remind her of her roots. Deja is reluctant to make a fuss and tries not to be provoked. Her Japanese-American boyfriend Harry (Ruy Iskandar) is less forbearing. The play ends on an ambiguous but satisfying note. The situation is a bit contrived and the scene with the boyfriend seemed false, but I credit the playwright for taking on a timely topic and giving it a nuanced presentation. The actors were convincing and the direction by Logan Vaughn was unfussy. 

“Queen” by Alexander Dinelaris (“On Your Feet” and “Birdman”) was inspired by the Gabriel Garcia Marquez story “The Woman Who Came at Six O’Clock.” Queen (Casandera M. I. Lollar) is a world-weary hooker who shows up every day at six at the restaurant owned by Joe (Saverio Tuzzolo), a bachelor who has loved her unrequitedly for years and treats to to drinks and supper every night. On this day, Queen is quite agitated when she arrives and asks Joe, who is famous for his honesty, to lie for her. When a detective Chris McFarland) arrives and asks about Queen, Joe is put to the test. I thought Ms. Lollar looked too young and pretty to be convincing as Queen. Director Victor Slezak let the play overheat at times.

The evening’s most theatrical and most ambitious work is “The Dark Clothes of Night” by Richard Alfredo, an affectionate send-up of film noir and those who love it too much. Much is demanded of its three fine actors, who excel in the 13 roles they play. Dana Watkins is both Rob, a film professor in a failing marriage, and Burke, a sleuth with an attraction to femmes fatales. Sinem Meltem Dogan is wonderful as his wife Sylvie; an annoying student Emily; a nurse; Delilah Twain, the rich beautiful widow who hires Burke, and Delia, her younger sister. James Rees is a delight as Rob’s academic colleague Barry, a detective, the sisters’ dotty father, a wacky couples therapist and an evil doctor. The dialogue is archly hilarious. The production is greatly enhanced by projections by Daniel Mueller that evoke the noir milieu. The play falters a bit in its final moments, but not enough to dampen one’s enjoyment of an extremely clever work. The multitalented Alesander Dinelaris directed.

For the other productions credits, please see my review of Series A.

Summer Shorts - Series A ** C

The Festival of New American Short Plays is celebrating its 10th year with two series of three plays each at 59E59 Theater. The three plays in Series A, performed without intermission, last barely 80 minutes. 

“The Helpers” by Cusi Cram, presents two characters, a retired psychiatrist (Maggie Burke) and a former patient (David Deblinger), who meet on a bench in Greenwich Village on a cold winter day to settle some unfinished business. It’s a brief character sketch that doesn’t go very deep. The acting is adequate as is the direction by Jessi D. Hill.

Neil LaBute is back again this year with “After the Wedding,” in which a husband and wife (Frank Harts and Elizabeth Masucci) who have been married 5 or 6 years, face the audience in separate pools of light and engage in two overlapping monologues that start by relating amusing bits about their marriage but end up telling about a tragic event that occurred at the start of their honeymoon which they have tried hard to avoid thinking about. Since this is LaBute, there is some sexual content. The actors are convincing and Maira Mileaf’s direction is smooth. 

“This Is How It Ends” by A. Rey Pamatmat, by far the longest of the three plays, is an unwieldy absurdist look at the end of the world as seen by a gay man Jake (Chinaza Uche), Annie (Kerry Warren), the roommate he found on Craigslist  who reveals that she is really the Antichrist and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Death (Nadine Malouf), Famine (Rosa Gilmore), Pestilence (Sathya Sridharan) and War (Patrick Cummings). It turns out that the latter two are a downlow item. The plot is too disjointed to make much sense although director Ed Sylvanus Iskander (“The Mysteries” at The Flea) bravely tries.

The simple set by Rebecca Lord-Surratt features a back wall of louvred panels that swivel to reveal a smooth surface for projections on the reverse side. The costumes by Amy Sutton for the Four Horsemen are quite amusing. 

All in all, it was not a very satisying program. Before the first play, there was an interesting stop-motion short film of the crew assembling the set. The start was delayed for ten minutes by an argument over a seat between a man in a wheelchair and a woman with a walker that forced the house manager to intervene and got a round of applause from the audience when calm was restored. Would that the plays had been equally involving.

Men on Boats ** C-

The Playwrights Horizons revival of last summer’s Clubbed Thumb hit production has received almost unanimous critical acclaim. The Times made it a Critic’s Pick and it has been extended by popular demand. Playwright Jaclyn Backhaus's subject is the famed Powell expedition of 1869, during which 10 intrepid men in four small boats set out to traverse the Green and Colorado Rivers from Wyoming to Nevada and become the first white men to travel the length of the Grand Canyon. The top-notch cast, ably directed by Will Davis, recreates the rhythms of daily life, the rivalries, the insecurities, the dangers and defections the group endured. The perils of sailing through white water is memorably captured by effective choreography. The play’s gimmick is that all the roles are played by women. Its sensibility is archly contemporary, rather than historical. For the first twenty minutes or so, this worked for me. However, the play soon became repetitive and cartoonish. It eventually seemed like a very long pointless skit that trivialized its subject and wore out its welcome long before it ended. I will grant that the cast was uniformly good, the scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado was attractive and the costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter were apt. The audience seemed to love it; the young woman next to me broke into uproarious laughter at least once a minute. I wish I had been able to join in the approbation. Perhaps I would have been less disappointed if my expectations had not been raised so high by all the praise. Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission.