Liza Birkenmeier’s Grief Hotel was part of Clubbed Thumb’s 2023 Summerworks program, and now comes to the Public Theater for a more extended engagement. This is great news, because the play very much deserves a longer look and wider audience. It is presented in partnership with New Georges, who produce “weird, weird-ish, and often impossible plays”; Grief Hotel is weird—gloriously so—but it’s not impossible. In fact, the strength of the play lies in Birkenmeier’s canny creation of an offbeat yet accessible style, thanks to her sharp ear for dialogue that is fundamentally naturalistic and works in productive combination with the play’s slightly surreal, collage-like structure, directed with bracing clarity by Tara Ahmadinejad.
The Hollower
Liza Birkenmeier’s The Hollower is the kind of play that tries to push the envelope in a variety of ways but ends up as effective as a pile of shredded paper. Perhaps that may be viewed as a tortured metaphor, but it’s nothing compared to the torturous path of what passes for plot in The Hollower. If you find yourself adrift after five minutes, you’ll be in full consternation when you leave.