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Theater Reviews
EDITOR’S NOTE
Manhattan Rep sets psychiatry-themed play
The Manhattan Repertory Theater will present Rita Lewis’s Rawshock, a new play set in a psychiatric hospital. The production will begin previews on Oct. 18, open on Oct. 24, and run through Nov. 3 at the Chain Theatre (312 W. 36th St., 4th floor). The play explores the tensions between therapists and the business mentality of a long-term psychiatric facility. The show received a developmental production in June 2023. For tickets and more information, visit manhattanrep.com. —Edward Karam
Loose Change Productions’ The Mulberry Tree will run from Oct. 10 to 20 at La Mama ETC (66 E. 4th St.). Set in 1948, the year that Israel was established, it follows a Palestinian boy and his neighbor, the village rabbi, whose friendship is imperiled by the growing tensions as the establishment of a Jewish state becomes imminent. Written by Hanna Eady, who was born in Palestine, and American-born Edward Mast, the play will open on Oct. 14. For tickets and further information, visit lamama.org/shows/the-mulberry-tree-2024. —Edward Karam
“Do you all eat grapes?” James Hindman asks, proffering a bowl of green grapes at the outset of his one-man show, What Doesn’t Kill You, directed by Suzanne Barabas, artistic director of the New Jersey Repertory Company, where this show began its theatrical life. And while Hindman perhaps doesn’t want anyone to leap to their feet and grab a grape, this kind of seemingly non-rhetorical question is part of the audience intimacy he develops throughout the piece (and indeed some audience members did call out at various prompts, though no one took a grape). Hindman’s friendly, casual style establishes rapport, and once everyone is comfortable, he becomes a tour guide on his personal journey into and out of a New Jersey hospital, after suffering the kind of heart attack that one nurse refers to as the “widow maker.”