Suzanne (Robyn Peterson) and Fiz (Mehran Khaghani) explore their trauma in Emma Sheanshang’s The Fears.
People can be damaged by those they love or admire. They can sometimes be repaired, too, with the help of others. And often the shared desire to be healed is a salve in itself. Such are the truths swirling beneath the meditation and mindfulness sessions on display in The Fears. It is a toss-up as to whether playwright Emma Sheanshang has crafted a strikingly sad comedy or a quite funny drama. The play’s seven characters all walk a fine line between comedy and tragedy. And because the action is set in a Buddhist center, they do so without their shoes.
A room full of relative strangers seeking inner peace through team exercises is fertile ground for any writer. Dark secrets are bound to be revealed, altercations will likely erupt, panic attacks can easily be triggered and common ground can be found in desperation. Sheanshang unleashes all of these sorrows, with the group ever-grappling to maintain Tibetan calmness. As one member explains during an anxious moment, “This is the weather ... and we’re just in it.” Under the direction of Dan Algrant, a tight ensemble provides a roll call of characters who are all scarred in their own way.
Thea (Kerry Bishé, left), Katie (Jess Gabor) and Mark (Carl Hendrick Louis), each scarred in their own way. Photographs by Daniel Rader.
Maia (Maddie Corman), with her unruly hair, looks scattered, but she is the most devoted to the Buddhist teachings and, as such, has become the de facto leader. She is the calmest but also, as becomes apparent, possibly the most wrecked of any of them. When she says, “I’m so damaged,” it’s done so with the type of quiet trauma that could be mistaken for peaceful authority. Corman brings much humor and charm to the performance. Every little “Mmm…” that she murmurs is filled with subtext.
Katie (Jess Gabor) is Maia’s opposite, a young, anxious, and severely depressed woman dressed in goth outfits who spends much of her time in a cult called Children of Death. She spends most sessions scrunched into a tight ball of nerves. Gabor plays Katie, seemingly the least likely to find a happy ending, like a frightened, abused kitten who just might have found safe harbor.
Thea (Kerry Bishé), the group’s newest member, has a very specific trauma and a unique coping mechanism. Her mother was killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 and she spends her nights building an historical timeline, attempting to find the ultimate scapegoat for terrorism. “Alexander the Great is one of the people who caused what happened to me,” she declares.
Maia (Maddie Corman, left), Katie (Gabor) and Rosa (Natalie Woolams-Torres) with a Tibetan singing bowl.
Rosa (Natalie Woolams-Torres) employs a Fitbit watch to keep her cancer-related bouts of panic at bay. Constantly monitoring her pulse rate, she has learned, “I’m 130—that’s high, but all I have to do is turn myself down. It’s like I’m a thermostat!” Fiz (Mehran Khaghani) is funny and boisterous, all in the name of forgetting a horrific childhood and a sister who lives in denial. He is more a believer in Percocet and whiskey as treatments for his condition, but the human comfort he finds amid his peers is also clearly one of his cravings. Both actors excel at demonstrating how a loud personality can drown out grief for only so long.
Conversely, Mark (Carl Hendrick Louis) and Suzanne (Robyn Peterson) are mostly soft-spoken. He is a struggling actor whose path to peace involves “nonaggressive biking,” and any Manhattanite can relate to his angst when he explains, “You give way, you wait. It’s not easy— goes against the way the whole city is arranged.” Suzanne has been at it for decades, finding her way out from crushing instances of rape she experienced in high school, chasing the seemingly impossible acceptance that her abuser is still out there. Both performers utilize the power of understatement to fine effect.
Along the way, Sheanshang imparts Buddhist basics like Tong Len, a meditation where “we take in someone else’s suffering and give them compassion.” Imaging one’s self or one’s enemy as a child is another coping technique. Then there is the title exercise. Everyone anonymously writes down their fears (though “not the big one”) and they are then read aloud. It’s a devastatingly poetic list, to which Katie can only remark, “It’s nice to remember that everyone’s so afraid.”
The big pockets behind this production include Hollywood veteran Steven Soderbergh as producer and five-time Tony winner John Hart as executive producer. The happy result is a large-cast production in an open run on Signature Center’s main stage, and a perfectly adorned set, by Jo Winiarski, complete with glowing Buddha.
The Fears plays through July 9 at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and information, call (212) 239-6200 or visit thefearsplay.com.
Playwright: Emma Sheanshang
Direction: Dan Algrant
Sets: Jo Winiarski
Costumes: David Robinson
Lighting: Jeff Croiter
Sound: Jane Shaw
