Cracking Open

In Honor Molloy's Crackskull Row, a hovel in Dublin becomes the unlikely setting for an emotionally overwrought, Oedipal drama. The play is set in 1999, but it has the audience fooled—Molloy's play has all the trappings of a mid-20^th-century, Joycean family narrative. Although the audience often hears references to staples of modern life—mobile phones, an ESB (Electricity Supply Board) company, even Oxfam—they sound anachronistic against this landscape of aged, mournful nostalgia. But for all its old-world charm, Molloy's riveting words don't translate perfectly to the stage. Directed by a courageous Kira Simring and staged by the cell at the Workshop Theatre, this beautifully written, hauntingly poetic story struggles to find the right tongues for its finely crafted words.

The production opens with the dour throb of a drum and that sprightly music so unique to the Irish musical tradition. An old man named Rasher/Basher, played by Colin Lane, enters, a lone figure with light streaming around him, and says that the sound we hear is "the thrum of the bodhran." It is a kind of Irish drum, well-known for its dooming, thumping sound. He talks wearily, anxiously, about his past, saying that his 'Da' was a musician, and that, although he's been away from home for 33 years, he's become the "spit and shite" of his father's likeness. A sense of foreboding takes hold, the rhythm of the bodhran notwithstanding. Then we see the ramshackle insides of a Dublin home. A vast, untidy sofa, wooden walls with peeling plaster, and a film of dirt covering the kitchen all clue us into the premise of Crackskull Row: a home has been leveled by the passage of time but seems ripe for renewed activity.

What follows is a disturbing but absorbing puzzle about Rasher Moorigan (John Charles McLaughlin), his father Basher (Lane, who also plays the older Rasher), mother Masher (Terry Donnelly) and daughter Dolly (Gina Costigan). Masher is almost literally rotting inside her electricity-less, plumbing-less home on Crackskull Row, her bills from the ESB piling up on the sofa. And while her past bothers her terribly, she is saved by the remembrance of her son, Rasher, and the sustenance of her daughter, Dolly. But it's soon apparent that the narrator, an aged Rasher, himself is unreliable, as are one's eyes and ears. Personae are fluid; the four players inhabit other bodies, take on different accents, and change their clothes easily. Suffice it to say that Rasher and Masher Moorigan are hiding a lethal, 30-year-old secret, the reverberations of which are still knocking around in their battered skulls.

There is much to admire about the production, including some fine performances from John Charles McLaughlin, who plays a young, on-edge, perversely romantic Rasher, and Gina Costigan, whose Dolly is a complex, willful thing. But their enthusiasm doesn't quite make up for the uneasy adaptation from script to stage. Crackskull Row often values dramatic potential over clarity, and while some climactic, intimate scenes (like Rasher's interactions with Dolly, or the dying moments of the play) are intensely dramatic, others fall into a spasmodic mode of meaningless activity. The result is not just an abrogation of Molloy's authorial intent for Crackskull Row, but a confusingly paced, occasionally overwrought performance.

Save for a few rare scenes of sparkling chemistry, the production threatens to come away at the seams. Molloy's dialogue is chock-full of intelligent wordplay, quick humor, and wit, but combined with the Irish brogue and quick delivery, her words (when delivered on stage) take a while to register. As a result, the enjoyment of the play is temporarily stunted. Much of the magic that can be read in Molloy's teasing, metaphorical writing is either difficult to find or nonexistent in the staging. We happen upon the wordplay, or a throwaway malapropism, a little too late to derive a complete appreciation of the story.

Yet, the production is redeemed and revived by its flowing, narrative core, and the actors who bring it to life. The chemistry between McLaughlin and Costigan is palpable; it's not for nothing that the Masher-Rasher relationship is central to the play. Lane brings a nostalgic weariness to his role, and lends a dreamy gravitas to the production. But it is Costigan who bears much of Molloy's light-hearted darkness from the page to the stage; she plays Dolly with riveting, minimalist understanding. Even her mirror, Terry Donnelly's Masher, does not waste a single movement (although words seem to be held in lower regard). To help us forget this latter discourtesy, M. Florian Staab (responsible for all the original music and sound design) punctuates scene changes with welcome percussion and fiddle-song. In moments of stillness or silence, there is Daniel Geggatt’s set to appreciate, in blue, brown and yellow, seeming for all intents and purposes like a living thing. As for the other living things taking the stage, they—and the playwright—are among the only reasons you should take a trip to the Workshop Theater this week.

The cell's production of Crackskull Row runs through Sept. 25. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. There are additional performances at 7 p.m. on Sept. 14 and 21. The Main Stage of the Workshop Theatre is at 312 West 36th St. (between Eighth and Ninth avenues). Tickets are $25. For more information about the show and tickets, visit www.thecelltheatre.org.

When Women Burn

The visual imagery presented in The Flea's The Trojan Women strikes two seemingly disparate chords upon viewing. One is of The Rape of the Sabine Women, an ancient Roman story about soldiers who arrived on the shores of Italy. The men abducted and otherwise ravished a group of Sabine women. Another image, more overt (and one we are asked to leave the theater with), is the violent uprooting of millions of Syrian refugees from their homes. As Hecuba, Helen, Andromache and Cassandra bitterly mourn their fallen city, we cannot help but think of their lives in a foreign, hostile country, as they are carried off in boats that are almost as precarious as their hollow futures.

This resonance, sometimes obvious and sometimes thrillingly unspoken, is the beating heart of this drama, written by the silver-tongued Ellen McLaughlin. Enveloping this drama, which has survived well past its antiquarian origins, is the tragic, antediluvian helplessness of postwar women at the hands of their conquerors. It is the human tension of the play, with its mostly female cast, that rings through McLaughlin's words and lifts the story into beautiful, complex territories. Directed by Anne Cecelia Haney and under the much-lauded artistic directorship of Niegel Smith, this adaptation of Euripides' antebellum narrative, if occasionally flighty, is moving and cinematic in its scope.

The play begins with the drugged monotone of waves crashing against a beach, as we are welcomed into The Flea's downstairs theater. It seats perhaps forty—the intimacy of the space threatens our bubble of suspended disbelief. As if painted onto the wall, a turbaned, blindfolded woman sits, waiting. On the floor lie some six women—this is the Chorus—curled up and covered in grey blankets. The music of the sea gradually bestirs the blindfolded woman, and from her commanding voice and gait, we gather that she is Hecuba (played by a marvelous DeAnna Supplee), former queen of Troy and war prize for the Greeks. The women of Troy have been captured by their enemies the Greeks following the sack of Troy, and are waiting to be shipped off to kings' courts as slaves, concubines or second wives—harder luck perhaps than their Sabine ancestors. Cassandra (a powerful Lindsley Howard) and Andromache (Casey Wortmann, wonderful) are among the most haunted: the former has been 'made mad' by the god Apollo for spurning his love, and the latter is the widow of Hector, a fallen Trojan prince. All are violently helpless and burning with war trauma, with nothing to do but wait.

Haney has expertly interpreted McLaughlin's words, which retain most of the flair and poetry of Euripides' original. As the Trojan women dream of their future lives, they repeat stories of far off countries: "If you wash your hair in their rivers," one of them says, "they come out gold." Haney builds particular emphasis around this optimism, for it is mirrored in the current refugee crisis that has shaken the world with its sorrow. Here is where McLaughlin, who first adapted the story with the Bosnian war and its aftermath in mind, becomes fickle: the plot is held together by the barest of backbones, and for all the characters' elegies and monologues, there are times when the postwar narrative seems too forced, too distant. But when we are reminded, it is powerful: doctors, engineers and artists leave behind their burning cities for lives as taxi drivers, postmen and even unemployment, just as Hecuba, Andromache, and their once regal companions become less than their former selves. They resign themselves to lives of physical and emotional imprisonment.

Hecuba embodies all the nostalgia, mad sorrow and pride of her fallen Trojan citizens. Supplee delivers the fallen queen's lines with wounded ferocity; even when she whispers, there is weight and regality behind it. Tears shine perpetually in Hecuba's eyes—her only equal is Helen (Rebeca Rad), played with a great deal more pathos and wit than the original character is intended to have. In the 1971 film, starring the luminescent Vanessa Redgrave and Katharine Hepburn as Andromache and Hecuba respectively, Helen is a teasing, dangerous, one-dimensional male fantasy (both ancient playwright and seventies era director were male, after all). Rad anneals this fantasy with humanity; her lines are the most moving ones McLaughlin has written in the play.

The entrance of a male soldier, Talthybius (Phil Feldman) towards the end spins the play into a climax. Suffice it to say, he is dressed in combat gear and bears bad news for the women, just as they have seemingly reconciled themselves to their futures. In happier moments, the play has spontaneous moments of song and dance, welcome augmentations to the narrative. Lighting and sound design (Scot Gianelli and Ben Vigus respectively) are both characters of their own, booming and crackling with emotion as the play progresses. Both are also responsible for the cinematic sweep of the concluding scenes, perhaps some of the best minutes of The Trojan Women. Come for the nostalgia and the instructive, present performances, but stay for those dying moments.

The Trojan Women runs through Sept. 26. Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15-$20 with the lowest priced tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis. The Flea Theater is located at 41 White St. between Church St. and Broadway. Purchase tickets by calling 212-352-3101 or visit theflea.org.

Order in the House

Are all plays that are lost and recovered theatrical treasures? At first, A Day by the Sea, the Mint Theater’s production of a neglected 1953 play by British dramatist N.C. Hunter, suggests the answer is no. However, under Austin Pendleton’s steady and gentle direction, we gradually see how effectively Hunter scratches the surface of social interactions to reveal what lies beneath: sadness, anger, and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams. As the play opens, Julian Anson (Julian Elfer), a civil servant living in Paris, has come for a visit to see his mother at the family’s seaside estate. He doesn’t really want to stay. He barely sits down, and when offered a lawn chair, appears extremely uncomfortable in Elfer’s fine characterization. He captures Julian’s physical and social awkwardness. His stooped posture and pinched face communicate frustration, and his body seems to lean toward the exit, like he’s yearning to make a quick escape.

Julian’s mother, Elinor Anson (Jill Tanner), has been keeping up the estate, but she is particularly frustrated by Julian’s lack of interest in the villa, and also by her aging uncle, David Anson (George Morfogen), who seems about to expire. Morfogen brings the right combination of lethargy and energy to the role, showing both a doddering elder and someone who’s not quite ready to give up on life. Elinor frets over the household expenses, part of which go to alcohol consumed by David’s live-in caretaker, Doctor Farley (Philip Goodwin), who often launches into dark, despairing tangents. Julian’s response is “the drinking isn’t dangerous, just boring.” Additionally, there is the estate’s accountant, William Gregson (Curzon Dobell), who also seems to be in limbo.

A group of visitors is also in the mix. Frances Farrar (Katie Firth), who is staying at the villa with her children while she disentangles herself from a marriage, has been away for 20 years. She was raised by Elinor, along with Julian, after she was orphaned. Though hardly scandalous today, in the period of the play divorce is talked about with a hushed air. Frances is what might be called a “hot mess.”

Another “hot mess” is the nanny, Miss Mathiesen (Polly McKie) who, at 35, has never been married, but has her eye on the doctor. The actual day of Hunter’s title occurs in the second act (of three), and it brings forth the tensions that lead to Julian’s recognition of his stiflingly rigid life. Elinor insists he join the family for the outing, which forces him to meet his boss, Humphrey Caldwell (Sean Gormley), at the beach, where Caldwell delivers unpleasant news. At first Julian’s reaction is angry and impulsive: he uncharacteristically climbs a cliff to retrieve a lost kite for one of France’s two children. Climbing the cliff, retrieving the kite, and tearing his trousers—all seem to loosen him up, and he becomes more candid and open.

A Day by the Sea initially seems like a play of manners. Hunter and his fellow playwrights (Noel Coward among them) were replaced in the 1950s by “the angry young men,” a group of writers who focused on the working class and their struggles living in postwar Britain, still reeling from the devastation of World War II. Plays like John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party presented human nature in a cynical way and had characters who were cruel and self-serving as they scrambled to survive.

Although Hunter’s play is not raw like those of Pinter and Osborne, it’s not Disney either—not everyone lives happily ever after. Instead, it shows how much we really just march through life. Expert lighting by Xavier Pierce and the sets by Charles Morgan suggest the ease and comfort of an English seaside villa, but they don’t undermine the fact that personal revolutions are often frustrating, fraught with despair, and don't always lead to the expected outcome. In the end Julian tries to make sense of it all but finds no simple answers. He looks out at the vista and talks about possibly transforming the landscape to get a better view of the sea. His mother, who has done nothing but goad and chastise him for not being more successful as a civil servant, is clearly happy that he might stick around a little longer. And why not? What more perfect setting to contemplate life?

The Mint Theater production of A Day by the Sea runs through Oct. 23 at the Beckett Theater (410 West 42nd St. between Ninth and Dyer avenues). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, with a special matinee on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Tickets are $57 and may be purchased online at Telecharge.com, by phone at 212-239-6200 or in person at the Theatre Row box office. For more information, visit minttheater.org.

Is It a Crime?

Director Whitney Aronson’s approach to August Strindberg’s rarely produced Crimes and Crimes is to streamline and bring out the dark comedy that the play encompasses. Her adaptation of the Swedish playwright’s work has been updated to present-day New York City. She has taken the attitude that the realism and harsh events that occur in the original version undermine the notion of it as a comedy. For her adaptation, she says in a note, she wanted the audience to see and understand Strindberg’s play. Aronson’s version begins with Jean (Ivette Dumeng) and her show dog Maid Marian (played by actress Katie Ostrowski), a Hungarian sheepdog, frolicking in the park, enjoying their time as they wait for Jean’s husband, Maurice (Randall Rodriguez). Emile, Jean’s brother, later joins them, and they discuss Jean’s concern that Maurice is planning to leave her. (Aronson doesn’t explain why these residents of New York should have French names.)

Jean is afraid that she will not be able to afford Maid Marian’s dog show expenses if Maurice divorces her. Emile and Jean speak of how Maurice, an author, rarely takes her on his book tours or to social affairs. She tells Emile, “I don’t know, but I have a feeling that something dreadful is in store for me.” Suddenly Maurice appears and begins caressing Maid Marian, whom he clearly loves. He also gives the impression that he loves Jean and enjoys her company and physicality. In fact, he invites her to the opening of one of his plays and she refuses. She tells him she will be better at home with Maid Marian. They part ways, and the play begins to unfold the “something dreadful” that Jean fears.

Maurice goes off to meet and start an affair with Henriette (Christina Toth), who is in a lesbian relationship with his close friend (a man plays the friend in Strindberg’s original). The tension increases: Maurice must now decide if he stays with his wife or goes with his new lover. As he contemplates his decision and how difficult it would be to see Maid Marian if he divorces Jean, the dog mysteriously dies.

One of Aronson’s most radical changes to Strindberg’s original text is that Maid Marian is a replacement for the mistress’s daughter. She writes that she made this choice because she wanted the play to be more believable: “I actually did it because in the original, the child dies and nobody really cares.”

Although there’s a logic behind Aronson’s choice, it may not resonate with the same intensity as Strindberg’s. “I thought that the audience would not be able to forgive anyone in the play for so easily moving on from the death of a human child. A treasured animal’s death, though tragic and upsetting, is more consistent with the general reaction and behavior that Strindberg’s characters demonstrate.”

But even though the change from child to animal does lighten the mood and makes Maurice’s actions somewhat more forgivable, some of the plot stretches credibility. After the dog’s death, animal law enforcement appears to investigate the crime. As serious a crime as animal abuse is, it seems rather fantastical that a Broadway-type play would be pulled because of animal abuse. In any case, Maurice is charged as the main suspect, but he is eventually exonerated. Within hours of his release, Maurice’s reputation is ruined, and his play is pulled.

Whether the choice to change the daughter to a sheepdog is fully justified or not, it does not take away from the lightness of the play. It does, however, make the circumstance melodramatic and absurd, which brings out the humor in the play.

Matthew Hampton and Holly Albrach’s costuming of the characters is impeccable: fashionable and in line with the current New York scene. They employ an approach to the Hungarian sheepdog that seems to draw inspiration from puppet theater. It was entertaining and just simply delightful to the eye.

The sound design by Andy Evan Cohen makes the transition between scenes lively, using instrumentals of popular pop songs. They are played with a classical twist, so the audience is left to try and identify the familiar tune.

Aronson has accomplished her goal. The play has witty moments and comic scenes. The absurdism makes for great melodramatic humor as well. The revision keeps the audience focused on its entertaining and engaging story for the entire duration.

Crimes and Crimes plays through Aug. 20 at the Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond St., in Manhattan. For tickets, call (212) 868-4444 or visit www.strindbergrep.com.

A Civic Jewel—and Free!

There is something appropriate about offering Shakespeare for free in the parks of New York City. Like the great rivers and mountains of the earth or the stars and planetary system—which charge no admission for us to admire them—Shakespeare is a force of Nature that belongs to us all.

Artistic Director Stephen Burdman has made it the mission of the New York Classical Theatre to bring free Shakespeare productions to various parks during the summer: following this year’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the late romance The Winter’s Tale, brilliantly conceived, acted, and deeply moving, to boot. 

The Winter’s Tale, first performed 405 years ago in 1611, is about the fallout of a king’s jealousy when the ruler, Leontes, wrongly imagines that his devoted wife, Hermione, has consorted with his best friend, King Polixenes, and that the child she is to bear him is not his. Only after the death of Leontes’ young son and sole heir, Mamillius (Peyton Lusk is delightful in the role), followed by the death of his faithful queen, does the king awaken from his madness and see his foul crimes for what they are.

Here is a feast of self-deception, delusion and jealousy for Shakespeare to plumb in all of the pity and horror his majestic language can inspire before the play resolves, after an improbable leap of 16 years in time, on happier notes: the reunion of the two friends, Leontes and Polixenes; the forthcoming marriage of their children, Florizel and Perdita; and most ridiculously wondrous of all, the revelation that the statue of the long-dead queen is really a living and breathing Hermione, now returned to the bosom of her husband and family. If the question is whether or to what extent a particular performance of The Winter’s Tale allows the audience to utterly suspend their disbelief when confronted by such leaps in time and “happy” endings, the production did very well indeed.

Brad Fraizer in his beautifully acted role as Leontes carries the emotional sweep of the play from his increasingly insane jealousy to the extremes and horror of recognition of his crimes, and from there to the reconciliations wrought by Time and Chance. It is a challenging role.

David Heron as his beloved childhood friend, King Polixenes, is commanding and passionate in his role. Hermione, so profoundly wronged by her husband, is portrayed by Mairin Lee with a queenly elegance, dignity and sensitivity. Mark August, who plays the clown, Autolycus, is extraordinary and deserves special mention for his comic brilliance and gifts. So, too, does the stirring performance of Lisa Tharp as Paulina, maid in waiting to the Queen, whose impassioned rebuke to Leontes for his treatment of his wife is heart-piercing. For all of the loveliness of the outdoor setting, it also places special demands in clearly projecting Shakespeare’s language, to which the cast rose magnificently.  

As the play moves from Act II to Act III, the audience also moves—from Clinton Castle (Leontes’ court in Sicilia) to a lawn overlooking the Hudson River (the shores of Bohemia). Burdman calls this his “panoramic” technique, a method by which the audience is less a witness to the actions before it than at the center of those actions. It is as if the viewers were really accompanying the courtier Antigonus, sent by the mad Leontes to abandon his own newborn daughter, Perdita. Over the Hudson, just in front of the audience, is a real cloud-flecked sky with real birdsong mixing with the sounds of the city in the background. Scene iii of the next act takes place on a different lawn (another location in Bohemia) to which the actors, again, lead the audience. The scene is one of a sheep shearing and, as evening gathers, the audience sits amid trees and grass exactly as they might at a real sheep shearing.

In Burdman’s “panoramic” approach, the entire park is our stage. There are no sets. Scenes are acted in different areas of the park with the audience sitting on the ground or grass, and the staff, in the first row of the audience, shining flashlights on the characters once it has become dark. Shakespeare’s language and his dramatic exploration of human character and heart fill the entirety of the space with no theatrical paraphernalia to draw off attention. And the effect is simply stunning, as less proves so much more! There is no lovelier way to spend an evening than to allow Shakespeare’s magic to sizzle and cast a net over you and over the city itself. 

Meet outside Castle Clinton in Battery Park at 7 p.m. nightly (except Thursdays) through Aug. 7 (via 1 train to South Ferry or the 4/5 to Bowling Green). The Winter’s Tale will then move to Brooklyn Bridge Park from Aug. 9-14 (take F train to York, 2/3 to Clark or A/C to High), also at 7 p.m. There will be no performance on Aug. 11.

(Un)Happy Family

Tolstoy said: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The origins of unhappiness are certainly a unique combination for every family. For the one in Ann Adams’s Strange Country, directed by Jay Stull at the Access Theater, mental illness, lack of loyalty, and addiction are the sources that lead to complications between siblings.

The play opens on a one-room efficiency apartment: beer cans, leftover foods and trash are strewn everywhere. The occupant, Darryl (Sidney Williams), is fast asleep on the couch, until his sister, Tiffany (Vanessa Vache), lets herself in. After she puts food in the refrigerator, she assesses the situation and wakes him up by spraying him with Fabreze. Roused from his sleep, Darryl cries: “That shit will give you cancer!” The irony of the line is not lost on Tiffany. Darryl is a slob who seems completely unconcerned with his personal hygiene, the cleanliness of his apartment, or his health. He even confesses that he medicates himself on a steady stream of beer and meds.

Tiffany gently tosses back an ironic barb of her own: “Maybe you’ll eat your dinner one day, rather than drink it.” As Tiffany bangs around the apartment trying to clean up, she orders her brother to go wash up so they can go to their mother’s re-commitment ceremony. This brings on a stalemate.

Tiffany seems abrasive and angry, but underneath her volatile outbursts and no-nonsense demeanor is a woman who really cares about her family. If she didn’t care so much, she wouldn’t spend her morning goading Darryl and trying to do what’s best for her family. This concern extends to her girlfriend, Jamie (Bethany Geraghty), who is stony-faced and avoids eye contact with Darryl. She seems highly displeased with the situation.

At one point in the play, which moves along organically even though the dialogue is a bit stultified in places, Darryl and Jamie find themselves alone in Darryl’s apartment. Darryl is thrilled to discover they are both trying to move forward while simultaneously being moored by addiction. He practically whoops: “You’re the first person who’s made me feel good about myself” and “You’re more fucked-up than me!”

While Tiffany tries hard to keep the family together, Darryl steadily consumes beer. As he opens one can after another, the sound of the initial pop of the tab, and then the fizz of the beer become a soundtrack for his character. Nonetheless, Darryl is like the idiot savant, or the fool in Shakespeare’s plays. For all his slovenly drunkenness, he has wisdom and insight. He’s right on when he says plaintively to Tiffany: “The whole of your life is trying to fix people who don’t want to be fixed. But you cling to it.” He knows her life’s purpose is to stay close to her family and try to keep them together, but he can’t help and doesn’t want to.

Strange Country does a good job of capturing the sadness that is brought on when a family member is suffering from a problem that is too difficult to fix. However, it also explores the complicated idea that what may be good for one person may not be good for another. Everyone has his own way of surviving, and the measures people use may not always be the right ones. For Darryl, this is his way of surviving; it’s his “normal.”  Tiffany has another “normal,” a more conventional and socially acceptable one. But she doesn’t seem happy. Although Darryl seems less productive and more destructive, he seems more content with his life and himself. It’s a philosophical conundrum.

Strange Country by Anne Adams, produced by New Light Theater Project, runs until Aug. 13 at 8 p.m. Wednesday–Saturdays at Access Theater(380 Broadway at White Street, in Tribeca). Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door, and can be purchased online at: http://www.newlighttheaterproject.com.

Wounds That Won’t Heal

The works of Northern Ireland playwright Owen McCafferty may be unfamiliar to regular theatergoers in America, but since the early years of this century he has been building an important body of work—a visit to London in 2002 brought this writer in contact with Closing Time, an early play with the inestimable Jim Norton. Hosting a production from the Abbey Theater of McCafferty’s Quietly, the Irish Rep is doing a service by introducing the playwright, even if the work at hand has its drawbacks.

The acting isn’t one of them. From the moment he enters, the shaved-headed Patrick O’Kane’s Jimmy is clearly a “hard man,” one that you wouldn’t want to face down in a bar, where McCafferty has set his story of confrontation and reckoning. Jimmy is tense, simmering with anger and radiating danger as he offers the bartender, Robert (Robert Zawadzki), his services in running off wild young teens gathering nearby. It’s the night of a soccer match between Poland and Northern Ireland—the play is set in Belfast in 2009—and Poland is Robert’s native country. “Do you want me to go out and get rid of them?” Jimmy asks, and Robert answers, “They’re only kids.” Jimmy responds, “Kids can do more damage than you think”—a deft foreshadowing of what’s to come.

Jimmy Fay’s production is splendidly designed by Alyson Cummins, though perhaps a bit too gleaming to be a rundown pub, improbably empty on the night of a major soccer showdown. Except for Jimmy, Robert, and the Ian of Declan Conlon—clad in a black leather jacket and no less imposing than Jimmy, even with a graying beard—nobody is in the bar watching the television match.

The connection between Jimmy and Ian goes back to their boyhoods, and one instinctively knows—and it’s shortly apparent—that their enmity dates from “the Troubles” and the height of civil strife between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

McCafferty’s play focuses on the wrongs each side perpetrated on the other during the 1960s and ’70s—particularly in that same pub, on a night in 1974 when Poland also played Northern Ireland (a little too conveniently, perhaps)—and the damage inflicted on the country’s children, as well as the necessity of letting go of the past. McCafferty’s plot may be particular to that conflict, but his template is familiar from dozens of other plays. Nor, indeed, after an early moment of sudden violence, does one expect any more, for the longer the men talk, the clearer it becomes that there’s dirty laundry to be aired but that some form of nonviolent resolution will take place rather than more blood spilled. 

Jimmy’s anger dates from a bombing in the same Belfast bar on a crucial night in 1974. Six men were killed, one of them Jimmy’s father, but the repercussions have scarred both Ian and Jimmy. The talking that ensues, fueled by alcohol, of course, peels back layer upon layer of each man’s history, and Fay punctuates the dialogue with long, awkward silences that thicken the atmosphere with tension.

Still, it’s hard not to feel that the story may carry more weight for McCafferty and an Irish audience that it does for a foreign one that didn’t experience the strife decades ago. The analogous situation might be for a New Yorker and a bin Laden follower involved in 9/11 to meet in a bar, with the lesson that both must let go of the past, but that’s not likely, and there’s a whiff of unearned optimism in the ability of these men to abandon revenge in lieu of understanding. Still, McCafferty settles on a note of ambiguity to end Quietly, a moment that deftly suggests danger is unpredictable and never far away.

The Abbey Theatre production of Owen McCafferty’s Quietly, presented by the Irish Repertory Theatre and the Public Theater, runs through Sept. 11 at the Irish Rep (132 W. 22^nd St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Tickets may be purchased by calling OvationTix at (212) 727-2737 or visiting irishrep.org.

Revolutionary Relations

A powerful and thought-provoking drama, A Man Like You tells the story of a British diplomat abducted by Somali terrorists and held for ransom for months. Throughout the work, Kenyan-born playwright Silvia Cassini addresses one overarching question: What constitutes terrorism? The piece chillingly delves into a world ravaged by colonization, the plight of the Somalis, radicalization, Islam, the current political scene, and what exactly so many so-called legitimate governments do in the name of democracy and thinly veiled corporate interests. Very little is being referenced in the media about Somalia beyond piracy. A Man Like You is a play to be experienced.

The vast majority of the fast-paced and intricate dialogue, against the backdrop of a distraught wife, is between Patrick North (Matthew Stannah) and his abductor, Abdi (Jeffrey Marc). Andrew Clarke plays a Somali rebel guard.

Director Yudelka Heyer heightens the emotional and often violent physical relationship between North and Abdi. By design, the tension is palpable from the moment North, hooded and gagged, is thrown into the cell and chained to a metal cot. Taunted by his captor, North eventually acquiesces to what seems like his abductors’ only demand—that he sign a letter replacing a company that has been preferred for a government contract, but not after challenging them: “You really expect me to believe that all this is just to remove a single individual who some warlord ‘dislikes’?” If this were the only reason for his abduction, life would be simple, and A Man Like You is not simple.

It is wrenching and skillfully presented, with acting that is complete and detailed. The audience is on two sides of the stage and in some cases sitting at stage level. The smartly designed set, by Christopher Wharton, bifurcates the stage with a windowless cell at the front closest to the audience; behind it, slightly raised, is the living room of the North’s home in Nairobi.

Credit is due Cassini for what must have been exhaustive research, resulting in a script that is as tightly crafted as a century-old Berber carpet. The argumentative dialogue details the plight of the Somalis through decades of colonization, and it becomes clear that they are just pawns in a greater political and well-funded chess game.

Heyer is from the Dominican Republic, a country with its own history of strife and political upheaval. As director, she helps Stannah and Marc deliver a knockout punch that drives their performances to the edge of sanity. They, along with Clarke, realistically play the strongly staged fight scenes. Interjected as counterpoint to the scenes in the cell are the monologues of North’s wife, Elizabeth (Jenny Boote). Boote brings a calculated, reserved British air to her nuanced performance as North’s clearly distraught wife.

Much has been written about the American Revolution rejecting the control of Britain and the monarchy. No doubt the conversation in Britain was about the terrorists commonly referred to as “the colonies,” while on this side of the pond it was considered a revolution. Using the conflict in Somalia as the canvas, A Man Like You rips apart the oft-used language we are quick to label terrorism.

Performances of A Man Like You, presented by RED Soil Productions, are at 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and at 3 p.m. Sundays through July 31 at IATI Theater (64 East 4th St., Manhattan). Tickets are $30 and may be purchased by calling (800) 838-3006 or visiting BrownPaperTickets.com.

’Shroom Relief

Desperation courses through Adam Strauss’s performance in The Mushroom Cure. The solo show, which he has written and stars in, details his battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and his attempts to find help. It’s a serious subject: the illness preys on the mind of its victims, allowing them no assurance that what they’re doing at any given moment is the right thing. It keeps them on a psychological yo-yo, and can impair their ability to form lasting relationships. Yet Strauss, a stand-up comedian, tells his story with humor as well, as the best playwrights do for serious material. (The piece won an Overall Excellence Award for Solo Performance at the New York Fringe Festival.)

The Mushroom Cureis structured as a series of scenes, with Strauss playing varying characters. Sometimes Strauss is the host, sitting on a vermilion swivel chair and speaking to us about his drug dealer, Slo. The chair also serves as office furniture when Strauss seeks help from a bizarre psychotherapist who turns out to have post-traumatic stress disorder. (A scene when they meet for a session in Tompkins Square Park is very funny.)

Strauss is becomingly ordinary, with his mop of black hair itself displaying some disorder, but less than his personality provides. He works up the courage to speak to a pretty young woman named Grace in a bar. She’s from Kansas, and he envisions her as innocent and not quite beautiful but acceptable. His waffling is a subtle indicator of the OCD at a mild stage. In any case, they have a one-night stand, and he finds he wants to see more of her, but she has only been visiting New York and is leaving for California. Stepping out of the present, Adam speaks of the ex-girlfriend Annie who left him, and reveals that Grace is the first woman who has slept over since Annie.

His relationship with Grace leads Strauss to search ever more desperately for biochemical relief for his disorder. He has already read about psilocybin mushrooms in a psychiatric journal—Grace is conveniently also studying medicine, and supports him. The article relates that some people have found their OCD entirely eliminated after the mushroom cure, so he has tried to order them through his marijuana dealer, Slo. But mushrooms are nowhere to be had; there’s a shortage.

Strauss then embarks on a series of other cures. He tries strange white powders ordered from China, and they arrive in plastic bags coded with numbers and letters. As each new avenue opens up, he gets jumpier and more fraught with anxiety.

In his search for relief, Strauss also tries cacti, as he and Grace get out of the city to a sojourn on Martha’s Vineyard, in a segment that’s particularly evocative and poetic. They see shrimp larvae misting in the moonlight by the shore. But Strauss’s OCD still has hold of him, and Grace’s patience with it seems unending. Until she can’t do it anymore.

Under the direction of Jonathan Libman, Strauss does a splendid job of navigating romance, pain, desperation, and humor in the piece. (During the press performance I attended, however, Strauss broke character to ask a woman in the front row not to scribble notes; it was a stunning breach of theatrical protocol, but given the history he was pouring forth, it was understandable. He did his best to incorporate the episode as a joke later on and alleviate the writer’s discomfort.)

Ultimately, Strauss acquires the psilocybin mushrooms and returns to Martha’s Vineyard alone, in the winter, to try them out. (The playwright in him carefully indicates the passage of time.) The experiment skirts a near-disaster, and brings him a measure of relief. That’s surely why the actor/playwright is donating all profits from the show to the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). It is the nonprofit behind the study that caught his eye.

Adam Strauss’s The Mushroom Cure is playing at the Cherry Lane Theater (38 Commerce Street, three blocks south of Christopher Street) through August 13. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday and 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Matinees are Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets may be ordered by calling OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visiting themushroomcure.com.

Sliding into Darkness

 If you ever wondered how Nazi Germany and the Holocaust came to be, look no further than Good. Originally produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982, Good, by C. P. Taylor, asks the question, “What does it take for decent, intelligent, otherwise sane people to move to such an extreme that dehumanizing others seems normal?” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis created an extraordinary propaganda machine and manipulated a nation; Good shows exactly how it was accomplished. 

The play has been lauded as one of the best English-language examples of the German experience during the Nazi regime. It follows the life of John Halder (Michael Kaye), a professor devoted to his wife (Valerie Leonard) and children who falls in love with a student (Caitlin Rose Duffy). His elderly mother (Judith Chaffee), who can no longer see and suffers from neurotic breakdowns, is institutionalized in a health care facility. She laments often, “What have I got to live for?” Halder has been so moved by her experience that he has written a book on compassionate euthanasia that has caught the attention of the Nazis.

Halder succumbs to the praise the Nazis have foisted on him. Though one of Halder’s best friends is Maurice (Tim Spears,) a Jewish analyst who is well aware of the coming dangers and hopes to get his family to Switzerland, Halder continually tries to reassure him, stating, “...all that anti-Jewish rubbish. Just balloons they throw up in the air to distract the masses.” They use his writings and his work at the university to pressure him to lead a book burning, which he does, asking if he can keep his books.

An underlying popular musical theme provides Halder an Everyman appeal as he shrugs off the propaganda as a passing fad. A longing to belong and the middle-aged man’s desire to avoid his family obligations round out the character. Whatever core beliefs Halder has held are overshadowed by the sheer power of the Nazi machine and the propaganda— “Deutschland Über Alles.”

The overall set design is inventive yet simple—wooden boxes of different sizes that are thrust together or pulled apart to create seating, along with an upright piano that is used to house props. Both are employed by Petosa to create the height, movement, and tension appropriate to the play. The palette for the costumes by Jessica Vankempen seems appropriate for late-1930s Germany. Only the lighting by Hallie Zieselman is problematic. It could be that she is at odds with the house trading off curtain times with the PTP/NYC production of Howard Barker's No End of Blame, but the lighting is sketchy, too often leaves the actors in the dark, and feels like an afterthought.

Frankly, the great challenge for director Jim Petosa’s heart-wrenching revival is the backdrop of politics 2016. The vitriol used to deliver misogyny, xenophobia, and homophobia among so many other divisive tactics being employed by politicians and pundits today makes this play almost pale by comparison. In Good, the horrors of Nazi Germany can be felt in Petosa’s direction of Kristallnacht, with so many good people standing aside. The question is, Can mankind learn?

C. P. Taylor’s Good runs through Aug. 6 at The Atlantic Stage 2, on 16th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Evening performances are 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Good runs in repertory with No End of Blame by Howard Barker; for exact days and times, visit PTPNYC.org. Tickets are $35, $20 for students and seniors and may be purchased  by calling 1-866-811-4111 or online at PTPNYC.org.

Out of the Past

First-time playwright Mat Schaffer is fortunate to have Brian Murray in the cast of his play Simon Says. Murray lends gravitas to the story of a “channeler”—emphatically not a medium, according to Murray’s character, Professor Williston—who connects to an entity named Simon. It’s been a while since the estimable Murray had a good part, and one wishes he were able to lift Schaffer’s serious-minded play beyond fiddle-faddle, but it just gets talkier and sillier in spite of the talented performers.

Williston, who has been the guardian of a young man named James since his childhood. James (Anthony J. Goes) has extraordinary paranormal powers as a channeler; but his mother exploited his renown until he had a meltdown during a tour, whereupon she abandoned him in Las Vegas. Williston then took guardianship. James has been lying low since that time, but the unscrupulous—or perhaps just blinkered—Williston wants to pursue James’s powers in the name of science and a book he has written. To do so, Williston has himself diverted funds for the overdue college education that James desperately wants in favor of their pursuing a money-making tour for the book. His plans change, however, upon the arrival of a young woman named Annie Roberts.

Annie has arrived for a channeling. She wants to contact her dead husband, Jake, who was killed in a car accident in the Berkshires that she survived. Strangely, the letter requesting this particular date was never opened by Williston, who nonetheless has expected her. Though James refuses to channel Simon for her, he ultimately relents.

Under Myriam Cyr’s direction, one’s disbelief may be suspended for awhile, and there’s certainly a frisson of creepiness when James, following the first channeling, says that he still hears Simon’s voice and a sudden, unexpected transformation occurs. Before you know it, poor James’s corporeal being has become Grand Central Terminal for spirits who are far from blithe, including Simon. Though Simon is known to Williston as a being who has existed through centuries and been “a priest at Luxor, a concubine in the Han dynasty,” the ancient shades go back to the Essenes, an early Christian sect  to which Simon belonged that is best-known for the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition to the sought-after Jake, the Essene intruders pop up in Williston’s cramped and book-strewn study (nicely realized by scenic designer Janie Howland).

From then on, the story of Judean love and betrayal is one that perhaps only Shirley MacLaine could buy whole hog. More notable than the direction is John R. Malinowski’s snappy lighting: it works overtime, changing with each new inhabitant’s arrival and departure, until you may find yourself admiring the light show more than the story.

Schaffer leaves it unclear whether a belief in the paranormal is the central issue or whether it’s reincarnation. Both are invoked as the bodies on stage become repositories for the insubstantial spirits, and though to some extent they can be related, the two prongs here overwhelm a story that needs more credibility.

Murray is blustery and gimlet-eyed as the sneaky Williston, and it’s pleasant to see him indulge in his formidable gift for comedy. Sitting under a teardrop glass lamp, he describes to Vanessa Britting’s Annie the division of labor: “He and I work as a team,” says Williston. Lightly flicking his fingers at a potted fern, he adds, “I create the ambiance.”

Goes is an effective and sympathetic James—working-class, sweaty and desperate to find his freedom from his past. One senses his yearning for independence, and Goes throws himself into the physical aspects, falling kerplop in and out of trances. Britting is a lovely and sympathetic Annie, although her hysteria at recounting her husband’s death is a bit over the top. As the catalyst for the evening’s revelations, however, she serves admirably.

The play is diverting, though one’s pleasure may depend more on individual thresholds of disbelief. For people with scant interest in credibility and a high tolerance for mumbo-jumbo, its romance-novel message of love surviving across millennia may be just the ticket.

Simon Says plays at the Lynn Redgrave Theater (45 Bleecker St., between Bowery and Lafayette) through July 30. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. For tickets, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit simonsaystheplay.weebly.com.

Liberty for All

Liberty: A Monumental New Musical captures an America not unlike the one we see today: a place where people want to come, but also where many struggle to find work and build a simple but stable life. The story begins when Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, a French artist, lovingly completes his statue and sends her to the United States (it's a gift from France to commemorate a century of independence), as if she were his own child. Liberty (played by teenage actress Abigail Shapiro) comes looking for a pedestal on which she can stand to spread her message of hope and freedom.

However, when she arrives at Ellis Island, she is given the same treatment as every other immigrant. She is poked and prodded, and given the twice-over; only to be rejected—after all, what is her purpose here anyway? Hope? That’s not enough. Commissioner Francis A. Walker, who was responsible for the census in the mid-1800s (played with a debonair charm by Brandon Andrus), schedules her to return to France on the next boat. Liberty perseveres. After all, hope is not only for the immigrant, but for everyone seeking freedom and a better life.

The wonderful cast brings life to a variety of characters: an Italian immigrant (Nick Devito), an Irish foreman (Mark Aldrich, who also plays news mogul Joseph Pulitzer), a Russian knish seller (Tina Stafford, who moves gracefully between the Russian Olga, and a wealthy American heiress named Regina Schuyler), a former slave (C. Mingo Lingo), and a native American Indian (Ryan Duncan).

Liberty is a love song to New York—a city that embraces everyone, or at least tries to—but it’s also a history lesson. There’s a great deal of information about Emma Lazarus, played with tight-lipped determination by Emma Rosenthal, who is the most well-drawn character in the play, and the most interesting. She teaches English to Giovanni, an Italian immigrant who seems to hang around the port (is he being deported, or just a loafer?). His improved English increases his betting options: “Ten to one!” he says triumphantly and skitters off. Emma looks after him with a wry smile, clearly amused. This intrigue, however, is forbidden: Emma is from an affluent Jewish family that has been in America for four generations. Hanging around the port and new immigrants is not what a society girl is supposed to do, even if she is a poet, and Regina Schuyler, a wealthy woman who puts her money where it will give her the highest profile, makes sure Emma knows she’s being watched.

With book and lyrics by Dana Leslie Goldstein, there are some laughs along the way. Particularly funny are “The Charity Tango” sung by Liberty, Commissioner Walker and Schuyler, and “We Had It Worse” in which the Russian immigrant Olga and the Irish immigrant Patrick McKay compete to see who had  it worse when they first arrived in America. However, as they crescendo in their comparisons, they also discover they agree on something when they sing: “Kids have no idea what hard work is” (…) “Soft” (…) “like a boiled cabbage,” and do a double-take in each other’s direction; they finish the song with a broad smile.

The production is fun, and kid-friendly, but very uneven. While the libretto is outstanding, the music by Jon Goldstein sounds canned; all the tracks seem to have been created on a synthesizer. The stage also feels small, not only because it is small, but because Evan Pappas's staging lacks dynamics and, at times, deflates the production. Some choreographed movement would have given the actors some breadth and depth and the production real musical-theater flair. Nonetheless, the cast clearly has their musical theater chops, and is led to a hopeful finale by Lady Liberty, who proves that perseverance pays off—a message we know is often true.

Liberty: A Monumental New Musical plays an open run at 42 West, 514 West 42nd St., between 10th and 11th avenues. Performances are Sundays at 2 and 5 p.m.; Mondays and Wednesdays at 3 and 7 p.m.; and Thursdays at noon and 3 p.m. Tickets are $72/$36 (premium/child premium); $63 (adult); $27 (children 4-12) and may be purchased by visiting LibertyTheMusical.com.

 

Ripped From the Headlines

Kim Davies’ deftly written new play, Stet, is inspired by the hotly debated 2014 Rolling Stone article, “A Rape on Campus,” which detailed a purported gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia. The publication later retracted its story amid accusations of poor journalistic practices. 

Stet follows journalist Erika Novak (Jocelyn Kuritsky), a journalist assigned to write a story about rape on college campuses. The unsentimental Erika claims to be exhausted—“raped out” is the way she puts it—from a media saturated with similar stories, but her editor, Phil (Bruce McKenzie), challenges her to find a new way to cover the story—cutting to the heart of what really happens to the victims in the aftermath of sexual assault. The playwright herself is no stranger to the heavy topic. As an undergraduate, she attended a college with a pervasive date-rape problem. In 2014 her play Smoke was produced at the Flea Theater and received critical acclaim. Smoke took place at a bondage and fetish party.

In Stet, journalist Erika wades through endless accounts from victims as she tries to find one that stands apart from the typical “rape is bad” story. She discovers Ashley (Lexi Lapp), a college freshman with a horrific story of violent sexual assault by multiple men during her first few weeks on campus. Her accusations, ignored by the school because she didn’t file an official report, implicate a fraternity on campus.

Erika and Phil have found their hit cover story. Erika’s research leads her to Christina Torres (Dea Julien), the project coordinator for Sexual Misconduct Response and Prevention at Ashley’s college. Erika is frustrated by Christina’s confirmation that many cases go unreported to police or campus security, but Christina is adamant that her job is to support the victim in whatever course of action she wishes to pursue. Erika also speaks with Connor (Jack Fellows), the leader of “One in Four,” an activist group on campus. Connor also happens to be vice president of the fraternity Ashley claims is responsible for her rape.

As Erika becomes more invested in the piece, Ashley grows more and more concerned about the implications of speaking out against her attackers. When Ashley says she no longer wants to be a part of the story, Erika talks to Phil about presenting Christina’s personal story instead—a much more “normal” rape story involving drinking and an acquaintance.

Erika, clearly affected by the emotional nature of the piece and her own connection to the topic, must grapple with presenting a story that will turn heads and land her her first cover piece or relating a familiar tale that is often ignored. Kuritsky does a wonderful job portraying Erika’s transformation from unattached, factual journalist to emotionally involved storyteller, helped by Jo Winiarski’s straightforward set, alternating between Erika and Christina’s offices yet morphing easily into a college bar with the help of walls that double as screens. Thanks to Katherine Freer’s projections, the screens add a multimedia element to the production. Scenes from the advocacy event “Take Back the Night” play on the walls as well as text messages between Erika and Ashley.

Multiple red flags throughout her investigation give Erika pause and in the end, she must use her journalistic moral compass to decide what story she shares with the world. Will she forge ahead despite the truth and “let it stand”—literally the meaning of the Latin stet, a common term in editing journalistic copy.

Stet presents audiences with a myriad of moral questions throughout its hour and forty minute run time, which flies by due to the snappy script and smooth staging by director Tony Speciale. The supporting cast of characters really shine as well. As Christina, Dea Julien brings an immediately energetic and likable personality to the stage. There isn’t a line she throws away the entire time she’s performing—brilliantly delivering small talk and moving monologues with the same level of skill.

As Connor, Jack Fellows speaks powerful and thought-provoking dialogue while believably remaining the typical “frat bro.” McKenzie plays Phil with a frustrating lack of self-awareness and detachment.

Davies’ script is full of lines that may sound cruel or politically incorrect when they come out of the actors’ mouths, but what is so powerful is the realization that similar things are said time and time again in the national conversation around sexual assault.

Stet runs through July 3 at the Abingdon Theatre Company (312 West 36^th St.) through July 3. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; matinees are Sundays at 2 p.m., and there is an additional matinee at 3 p.m. June 25. You can order online at http://abingdontheatre.org/stet/ or by calling the box office at 212-868-2055. (A portion of all ticket sales will be donated to Take Back the Night.)

’Tis Better to Have Loved ...

Out of the Mouths of Babes, a fun new situational comedy by Israel Horovitz, explores both the light and dark sides of life. In it, four women, three older and one younger, gather on the eve of a funeral. The deceased was a man they were all either married to or lovers with. In the opening scene, Evelyn (the remarkable Estelle Parsons) and Evvie (the earthy yet fiery Judith Ivey) meet in his apartment. It is familiar to them both because they lived there at apparently separate times. However, it turns out there was some overlap, and you know what that means.

Added to the mix is the morose Janice (Angelina Fiordellisi, an actress with the commanding and stentorian voice of an old-school stage actress, and founding director of the Cherry Lane Theatre), who was not invited at first because she was thought to be dead—she has a history of suicidal tendencies. Her first attempt was out a window in the very same room where they are all meeting. She left him for the same reasons the others did: infidelity. Marie-Belle (effervescently played by Francesca Choy-Kee), the thirtysomething kooky and idealistic most recent girlfriend of the departed (who was 100 when he passed away), has invited them all here. She appears to have psychic access to the deceased man and channels his thoughts as well as appears to remain, literally, in touch with him when she breaks into fits of laughter from the tickling matches he engages in with her from beyond the grave.

Death, rarely welcome, but always inevitable, can provide a microscope for the living to look at their lives in the present. Although at first they are cynical and even antagonistic toward one another, the women develop a rapport and join together in their concern for Janice. Whenever they lose sight of her, they immediately bond and frantically ask: “Where’s Janice?” And, unfortunately, at one moment when the other women are caught up in a reminiscent reverie about the past and the man who is now gone, their worry proves valid. There is nothing funny about suicide, but a topic can be made funny by the right ratio of drama to comedy. Under Barnet Kellman’s direction, the balance is perfect.

Neil Patel’s scenic design not only captures the airy and orderly nature of a Parisian apartment but is further complemented by the warm and intimate space of the Cherry Lane Theatre where the play is running. Paintings adorn the walls in Parisian salon style (and turn out to be the works of famous actors such as Rosie O’Donnell, Billy Dee Williams, and Joel Grey, among others). The one painting, however, that is given the most attention is Untitled Peonies, a work that Evelyn recognizes as her own creation from when she lived in the apartment in the ’60s. She can’t believe he still has it hanging on the wall.

Each of the women—Evelyn, Evvie, and Janice—left the man for the same reason. His unfaithfulness drove them away, but the initial bitterness and anger over his infidelity covers up the sadness and lament for the loss of a great love. When Evvie says, “He was a collector,” she means it as a bad thing. However, Horowitz suggests that collecting things, like lovers or paintings of former lovers, is a way of celebrating life.

Marie-Belle turns out to have an odd agenda. She extends the idea that they should all live together after the funeral. She claims she is rich, and although she appears to be an interminable airhead, has made a lot of money playing the stock market on advice from a friend. Between the apartment and the money, she feels they could have a good life together. Perhaps she is onto some kind of new age, enlightened concept of co-housing. Janice jumps at the chance, rather than out the window again. Evelyn, who is 88, and Evie, who is 68, warm to the idea. It’s attractive, not only because of their age, but because, truth be told, they are lonely, and living together may be a good antidote. They certainly know the apartment, and for all the bad memories, there are lots of good ones as well. It was their home once before. Why not again?

Israel Horovitz’s Out of the Mouths of Babes is playing at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St. (near Sixth Avenue South). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. For tickets, call OvationTix at 866-811-4111, go online to www.cherrylanetheatre.org, or purchase them at the Cherry Lane box office. 

What If—Robots?

What would happen if technology rebelled against us? One possibility is explored in Mac Rogers’ Universal Robots, a science-fiction play set in Czechoslovakia after World War I. It is inspired by the 1921 sci-fi drama R.U.R., by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek. Čapek’s play, whose initials stand for “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” introduced the word “robot” to the English language and was instrumental in establishing the robot as a character.

Rogers expands upon Čapek’s world and creates his own universe filled with wired beings. The play eases into the realm of human-like robots in the first act. It begins with the gathering of the ensemble of robots (of which the audience is not aware) chanting of how they tell their story to remember. Remember what? This chant will surface again and connect many dots for the audience of whose story they are truly telling.

As the play opens, the characters are gathered at their local watering hole in Prague. The café is frequented by a playwright, Karel (Jorge Cordova), his sister, Jo (Hanna Cheek), who is a sculptor, and their barrage of friends. Here, they drink, laugh and discuss many of society’s conundrums. Life is good. Helena (Brittany N. Williams) enters the café, pushing a wheelchair containing an automaton, and introduces them to the object that will change their world. She asks them to come see the lab where the human-like robot was created. Their intrigue and fear grow, yet they ultimately agree to go with Helena to visit the plant and meet the automaton’s creator, Helena’s mother, Rossum (Tandy Cronyn).

After their visit, the world they know changes. They decide to embark on a mass production of automatons. They fear the loss of human employment and self-efficiency but establish ground rules to keep their creations in balance. They all agree to an established set of boundaries, and a union is formed. The robot production begins.

As the play progresses, Hitler is on the rise and a representative from the United States visits the President of the Czech Republic (Sara Thigpen), who is one of the major people in charge of the automaton project. Up to this point the group had decided that the automatons would not be used for war or programmed to kill, and now they are faced with saving millions of people or going against their values. They choose humanity—or do they?

Rogers outlines the deterioration of many of the close-knit human relationships from the beginning of the play. The pressure and guilt of programing the robots to kill prove to be too much to handle for some. One relationship with a sweet, sad dynamic is that of Jo (Hanna Cheek) and the robot Radius (Jason Howard), who was a human waiter, Radosh, who passed away and is later reincarnated as the face of the lead automatons. Radius is no longer human, but the physical association and emotions that tie Jo to Radius are very human. It brings up the question of where does humanity live, in the flesh or the soul? Howard shows versatility as he skillfully switches from human to robot with his diction and physicality. In his scenes with Jo he is able to capture the softness of a human yet parallel it with the sterility of a robot.

Rogers does a fantastic job of posing such deeply rooted questions that force the audience to really think about choices, good, evil and humanity as a whole. Rogers delves deeply into these complex themes and creation questions. He poses a hypothetical where choosing the lesser of two evils could be at the expense of humanity. Although the play deals with relevant issues, at times it feels as if he might be trying to tackle too many deep questions for one sitting.

Director Jordana Willams has put together a diverse cast of 10 in Universal Robots, a powerful, thought-provoking play that should be appreciated not only by sci-fi enthusiasts but anyone who is interested in thinking about the world’s “what ifs.”

Universal Robots runs through June 26 at the Sheen Center (145 6th Ave.; entrance on Dominick Street). Evening performances are at 8 p.m. tonight and Wednesday through Saturday; there is also a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. Tickets are $25 for general admission and $18 for students and may be purchased online at web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/957321.

The Private Is Now Public

Who doesn’t feel good when a posting on Facebook gets lots of “likes”? It’s a place where, when something momentous in your life happens, like a marriage, or a death, your FB friends—all hundreds of them—can give you a virtual hug. It’s also where the theater company Five on a Match culled the dialogue to create its production of Seen/By Everyone, directed by Kristin Marting at HERE Theater. Although the production feels fragmented—it’s nonlinear in both story line and dialogue—it does resonate. Primarily, it asks the question through the production itself: what is the effect of social media on our lives? It’s not an original question, and certainly not one that can be definitely answered, but it’s one worth considering from time to time.

The creators (Matthew Cohn, Amir Darvish, Meg MacCary, Enormvs Muñoz, and Jean Taher) use Facebook as a starting point, and every word in the show is from Facebook posts. The play, however, is not a head-on commentary on social media, but rather about the weight and depth of what is shared in this milieu. The writers focused on two major themes: relationships and death, and as in real life, conversation about these topics may be scaled down to their lowest common denominator, or fragmented. Also true to life is the pattern of everyday communication in which we respond to immediacy of information, as well as the tendency to meander down many different roads. No wonder we love social media so much: it mirrors our needs and patterns of communication so perfectly.

The play begins with a death, and picks up different fragments of different stories about relationships. One character, a perky but lost-looking character named Maggie (Alesandra Nahodil), dressed in a pleated white skirt and a crocheted blouse (costumes are by Oana Botez), sits at a bar. She says,­­­­­ “I made up a birthday so I felt justified getting wasted today.” Then, “I’m good at being homeless. But not that good.” The Bartender, dressed in tremendously tall lace-up platform boots, like the gatekeeper to a leather bar, addresses her with platitudes: “It’s OK to be alone,” he repeats over and over. Later, he gives her a list of all the things she can do to feel better: “write a story, read a new book or magazine, take a nap.” She seems unappeased. Later we learn why. She’s restless but not for the reasons we think. It’s a part of the play that remains a mystery until the end. However, in his attempt to soothe her, the gatekeeper/bartender (as usual) turns out to be the wisest one.

In some scenes, more naturalistic acting and narrative bring characters together. They gather at the bar, or at tall, round tables in the center of the space and gossip, fight, laugh, cry and over share. At one point, Rose (Katie Brustele) and Bernice (Jen Taher) exchange superficial tidbits. Bernice aptly launches into a diatribe about the elimination diet she’s doing in which she can’t eat any “gluten anything, no corn, soy, chocolate, booze, pork/beef/shellfish, no dairy/cheese/yogurt/egg, no sugar, maple syrup, agave, or honey.” It’s funny because it’s timely. Everyone knows someone, or knows of someone, who is consciously taking something out of their diet.

Without the development of characterization and a story line, however, it’s hard to get a sense of who these characters are. When Bernice accuses Fred (RollsAndre) of being cynical, we have to take her word. In this world, we have to take the other’s word, and there is some suggestion that social media nullifies our individuality. This is particularly implied when actors don masks with mirrored tiles, and line up. The masks make them faceless, and take away their individually, perhaps representative of the virtual FB community that is based on photos, disembodied words, and still images, rather than real interactive ones.

The experience of watching Seen/By Everyone can be disorienting if you’re not willing to leave your typical theatergoing road map of expectations behind. In the end, it offers a thought-provoking experience about the nature of what happens when important events, or everyday issues, are filtered through the lens of sharing vis-à-vis Facebook, a place where our identities are easily socially constructed, and where information, when isolated, can be disembodied.

Five on a Match’s world premiere of Seen/By Everyone runs through June 25 at HERE (145 6th Ave.; entrance on Dominick Street). Performances are at 8:30 p.m. June 16-19 and 22-25. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased online at http://www.seenbyeveryone.com/tickets/.

Love’s Lasting Effect

How tightly does the average American cling to a confabulation of love? If pop culture’s steady stream of uninspired TV shows and mildly erotic paperbacks is any indication, people seem to be grasping for any and all channels that lead to answering this question. Unsurprisingly, New York theater offers an intelligent, mesmerizing counter: The Effect, a play by Lucy Prebble. The Effect has a singularly moving tension at its core: can two people fall in love under “the effect” of a powerful anti-depressant? Or is love simply the side effect of that drug?

Barrow Street Theatre’s exceptional take on this award-winning play (it received rave reviews and multiple awards in London and has struck similar chords of awe Off-Broadway), pushes us to seriously consider a fanciful four-letter word that ordinarily inks the pens of poets. Director David Cromer orchestrates this production with white-knuckled excitement at the mere prospect of discovering something unknown about love. The Effect suggests a new, intoxicating interpretation of modern romance, unbothered by moral clichés or excessive sentiment.

The play opens inside a sanitized hospital room, with quiet colors and sensible chairs and white lab coats. Connie Hall (played by a fantastic Susannah Flood) is being interviewed by Dr. James, her clinical supervisor. She is careful and precise, answering every question with painstaking clarity—sometimes to humorous effect. Next, Tristan Frey (a terrific Carter Hudson) plops himself down in from of Dr. James and proceeds to flirt, extemporize and generally misbehave. These two main characters could not be more different from each other. In the confines of their six-week-long aphrodisiac existence as part of the drug trial of an antidepressant, Connie and Tristan discover each other in themselves, each pushing the other to believe in their respective ideas of love.

Cromer urges nervous humor in Flood and Hudson’s performances. The two protagonists carry conversations like precocious babes endowed early with the power of speech. Flood’s Connie is a study in fastidious, think-first-talk-later practicality, but Hudson’s inspired Tristan Frey is endlessly energetic, dancer-like and hell-bent on talking Connie into falling for him. It isn’t enough to say that their chemistry is palpable; when their eyes meet, each magnetizes the other’s performance, elevating the entire production to goosepimply electricity.

As for the emotional trauma of falling in love—for it is, the play argues, a kind of trauma—Cromer reserves such hefty work for Steve Key and Kati Brazda. Understated, Brazda plays the most unexpectedly affecting character, Dr. Lorna James. As the lead psychologist of the antidepressant study, James begins her arc as a dry clinical supervisor, reining in the sexual urges of Connie and Tristan with the amused authority of an animal handler. But as her interactions with Dr. Toby Sealey (Key) reveal, she hides a deep, corrosive wound, thanks in large part to her beliefs in love and attachment. It is through James that we see the real pitfalls of love—the ones Prebble wants to warn us about.

The players are not Cromer’s only tools, however; moving walls, suggestively dark corners and flashing text are sleek supplements to the overall effect of the play (the scenic design is by Marsha Ginsberg and lighting design is by Tyler Micoleau). These additives do not distract from the entire play, as one might expect, but rather enhance Prebble’s narrative. A particularly hilarious scene involves both Connie and Tristan taking a psychological test in which they must name the colors of the words that flash on a screen before them. James dryly notes that her subjects will falter at words that they associate with emotional burden. “Father,” “diet,” “breasts” and “guilty” prove particularly difficult for our lovers.

Cromer aims to show us a precise examination of falling in love, with all its awkward pauses, fitful first moves and, yes, even sex, in all its clinical vulnerability. Prebble’s commentary on modern love is a moving, masterly ode to humanity’s endless pursuit of answers to nebulous ideas. The Effect disturbs and excites—your notions of everything from intimacy to depression will take a hit, for the better.

Barrow Street Theatre’s production of The Effect runs through Sept. 4. Evening performances are Tuesday through Sunday at 7:30 p.m.; matinees are Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets may be purchased by visiting SmartTix.com, on the phone at 212-868-4444, or in person at the Barrow Street Theatre box office, open at 1 p.m. daily. For more information, visit www.BarrowStreetTheatre.com 

Define Liberated

It’s difficult to get excited about six straight, homogeneous women sitting around in a weekly support group in Brooklyn eating Chinese, drinking wine, and going on about work, men, and sex in the age of Tinder. Imagine watching The View—add food, wine, and Zumba but without an ethnically diverse panel or politics and you’ve got a gist of #liberated, playing at the IRT Theater in Manhattan. Conceived and written by Lillian Meredith, who is one of the actors, the play is created by an ensemble of artists known as The Living Room, dedicated to creating work about contemporary American women.

#liberated starts out relatively innocuously. The “Sister Support Group for the Daily Trials of Being a Woman,” a.k.a. W-I-P-E (an acronym which is never explained), meets weekly and begins each meeting with a fast and crazy video on learning Zumba moves. This week one of the members has invited another woman to join them without asking the group first. The women seem to be put off by someone new inhabiting their “safe space,” but they soon acquiesce. They pour her a generous mug of wine as if to symbolize acceptance into the tribe. The topic this evening starts out smartly enough about the sexual exploitation of women in advertising, and the conversation devolves into who watches porn and who doesn’t. Over the next few meetings the women decide to bring samples of porn that each likes to share with everyone, and the reactions to one another’s choices are quite funny. Then they get the idea to create a more feminist version of porn, with each creating a scene to be acted out and videotaped. Realizing that this may actually empower and liberate other women, they upload the finished product to the Internet with one swift click.

The video takes off—like after like, share after share—that is, until the Internet trolls, hiding behind avatars and fake names (probably sitting in the dark in their underwear in their parents' basements) come out of the woodwork. The scene is similar to watching celebrities read mean tweets about themselves. The trolls are horrific, one wishing they would “drink bleach and die” and another spewing, “I’m ready to pump GENIUS level sperm into your football-shaped body.” The women lose focus on their original intent and create a new set of sexual videos trolling the trolls. Nothing good comes of it, and the play turns extremely dark.

#liberated is codirected by Rachel Karp and Jaki Bradley—it’s almost as if one directed the first half and the other directed the second. There are some good comedic moments early on, although not sustained, and it’s easy to see that the women enjoy being with one another. Dancing to Enya with multicolored scarves to simulate an undulating vulva is actually a pretty funny moment. However, there is nothing sexy enough nor hardcore enough to warrant the vitriol foisted on them by the Internet trolls. The sexual scenarios mostly come off as silly and tame, which begs the question, why the backlash? These are women who most likely would have experimented in college. They know of PornHub and Max After Dark, but beyond that the script lacks imagination and daring.

As an ensemble piece, #liberated includes Tamara Del Rosso, Zoë Sophia Garcia, Lillian Meredith, Gabby Sherba, Taylor Shurte, and Madison Welterlen. They are good enough, given a marginal script. The Brooklyn apartment set design by Frank Oliva has an Ikea look, which includes nice lighting credited to Scot Gianelli. The sound design by Ben Vigus is across the board and oddly employs misogynistic rap music between the scenes. Vigus evokes Internet sounds, television newscasts, and lively Zumba-type music.

In the world of oversharing on the Internet, between Facebook and every social media app, #liberated seemed to want to say something profound. Unfortunately, it never says enough. It does not include women of color or create a powerful, lasting conversation. In a year where we may see the first female president in this country, it’s way past time for women to step up and truly make a difference in the world for women. At best the only message here is don’t engage in a battle on the Internet—no one ever wins.

#liberated runs until June 19 at IRT Theater (154 Christopher St., 3 Floor, #3 B) in Manhattan. Performances are Wednesday through Monday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $18 and are available at rttheater.org.

Paranormal Problems

For the first production by Irish Repertory Theatre on its return to its 22^nd Street location after a year’s renovation and exile, artistic director Charlotte Moore has chosen (or perhaps approved) Conor McPherson’s Shining City, a 2004 play about a psychiatrist and his patient who wrestle with secrets and regrets that is directed by longtime associate Ciarán O’Reilly. (Shining City was eventually seen on Broadway in 2006.) In some ways the play is a mixed bag: McPherson’s early works, such as The Weir (1997) and Port Authority (2003), rely on interrelated monologues to tell a story. In The Weir, for instance, a group of people gather in a bar and tell ghost stories, one by one. In later works, such as The Seafarer and The Night Alive, McPherson becomes less reliant on speeches than on give-and-take that resembles real conversation.

Shining City concerns a Dublin psychiatrist, Ian (Billy Carter), who has taken on a patient, John, a man who cannot sleep in his home since he saw the ghost of his dead wife, Maury, killed in a violent traffic accident. Played by Matthew Broderick with a deft Irish brogue, John is worried about his sanity. The memory of the apparition haunts him, and he cannot stay overnight in his home. John seeks Ian’s help in restoring him to sleep at night. In a series of near-monologues with the psychiatrist, John reviews his life and marriage.

Ian, meanwhile, has troubles of his own. He wants out of his marriage to Lisa Dwan’s Neasa, and when Neasa arrives and listens to him explain, she seems rather a dunce, cottoning to the fact that he’s leaving her long after the audience knows it. The couple have a row in his home office, and he assures her he’ll take care of her but that he won’t return to the marriage. There’s less give-and-take than there is of Ian’s staking out his position fully, and then Neasa delivering her side of the story. O’Reilly’s direction can’t disguise that the playwright is still adapting to conversational back-and-forth.

Anyone familiar with McPherson’s work knows that something eerie is going to happen, but when it does, unfortunately, the effect is much less chilling than it was in the Broadway production. Whether it’s due to Broderick’s laid-back delivery, which, although an appropriate choice for the character, somehow makes the proceedings too cozy, and the audience too comfortable, or whether O’Reilly’s staging simply fails to do the moment justice, is unclear.

But Broderick is doing better work than he has in a long time. He’s taken on a gigantic role and he’s never less than enjoyable in it. Billy Carter as the psychiatrist is also exemplary. His Ian is energetic, sympathetic, emotionally torn and yet willing to face hard truths. A late entrance by James Russell’s Laurence, a pickup for sex, reveals much about Ian, who abandoned the priesthood in order to marry Neasa. Yet a final scene further complicates the nature of Ian’s character, and one senses that perceptions are not to be relied upon. It calls to mind Hamlet’s observation, “There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” It's a good epigraph for the play’s finale as well.

That Ian’s name is the Gaelic version of “John” is a subtle hint at the haunting climax. The Irish Rep’s Shining City is a satisfying, if not ideal, rendering of what feels like a transitional play by an important modern playwright.

The Irish Rep’s Shining City plays through July 3 at the company’s refurbished home at 132 W. 22 St. in Manhattan. Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Matinees are at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. For tickets, call Ovationtix at (212) 727-2737 or visit irishrep.org.