When the program comes with a glossary, that can be a trouble sign. The glossary for The Witness Room, Pedro Antonio Garcia’s drama-with-some-laughs, runs to three pages. So much legalese—J-D Redcap, Three and a C, Chomo—how much will an audience member be able to understand? And for the first several minutes, it’s a struggle to figure out what the heck’s going on in set designer Daniel Allen’s cluttered witness room. Stick around, though, and the narrative becomes clearer. And what follows is a compelling peek into the lives and interactions of NYPD cops, their legal maneuverings in pretrial, and how slippery their moral code can get.
Why should one have to go to the movies to see uncommonly attractive people flirt, fall in love, botch their relationship, have their heart broken but maybe live happily ever after anyway? Playwright Douglas Lyons has brought that beloved cinematic staple, the romantic comedy, to the stage with Table 17.
Life and Trust, a new theatrical event from Emursive, which produced the Punchdrunk hit Sleep No More, takes as its inspiration the Faust legend and mixes it with the 1929 stock market crash, the structure of A Christmas Carol, and glimmers of Citizen Kane. As with Sleep No More, attendees wear masks and performers do not, and silence is the rule. The audience, too, plays a part: The evening begins in a cavernous lobby with red-marble columns at “Conwell Tower” (formerly City Bank–Farmers Trust), half a block from Delmonico’s in lower Manhattan. A placard announces the date, Oct. 23, 1929, and the event: Life and Trust Bank’s Prospective Investors’ Fête. The audience is the “investors.”
Technology is being used more, and more inventively, in scenic and production design for the theater. Social media has become a vital part of marketing—and occasionally casting—shows. But tech has yet to make a big impression in theater as a subject. Three decades into the 21st century, plays about life in the digital age are still scarce. (Maybe that’s why Job, which recently transferred to Broadway, hit a nerve.)
Perhaps the first thing to clarify about Odd Man Out is that Martín Bondone’s play is unrelated to the 1947 movie by British director Carol Reed that starred James Mason as a robber on the run in Belfast. Although Reed’s work is a famous film noir, Bondone’s Odd Man Out is more than noir—it’s performed in total darkness.
Michael John LaChiusa’s chamber musical See What I Wanna See is receiving a rare revival at Theatre 154 with an Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) cast. Directed by Emilio Ramos, and based on three short stories of Japanese literary master Ryunosuke Akutagawa, it is a dark meditation on the subjective nature of truth.
