The Trees

An odd and lovely play is opening at Playwrights Horizons on March 5th and running through March 19th. Written by Agnes Borinsky and directed by Tina Satter, The Trees is the story of a brother and sister whose feet become rooted into the ground in a small park near their childhood home. Little by little a community develops around them, while developers want to turn the area into a mall. Within this premise, Borinsky explores relationships, the meaning of life, value systems, the importance of change, and what it means to grow up.

Crystal A. Dickinson, Danusia Trevino, Jess Barbagallo,
Photo: Chelcie Parry

The Trees is

• Written with compassion, insight, and humor by Borinsky
• Directed smoothly and smartly by Satter
• Remarkably well-acted by the entire cast: Jess Barbagallo, Marcia DeBonis, Crystal Dickinson, Sean Donovan, Xander Fenyes, Nile Harris, Max Gordon Moore, Pauli Pontrelli, Ray Anthony Thomas, Danusia Trevino, Sam Breslin Wright, and Becky Yamamoto
• Beautifully designed by Enver Chakartash, whose costume design is whimsical and witty, and Parker Lutz, whose scenic design, while completely non-park-like, manages to be just right, and beautiful.
• Though-provoking
• Great fun

Wendy Caster

The Pain of My Belligerence

My sister once said that, while the worst men are incredibly sleazy, the worst women are incredibly stupid. In the world premiere of The Pain of My Belligerence at Playwrights Horizons, writer Halley Feiffer spends 80 interminable, tedious, painful minutes demonstrating this point.

Feiffer, Linklater
Photo: Joan Marcus

The plot is simple: Cat, a needy woman, falls for an obnoxious, self-involved, asshole of a man named Guy who bites her, doesn't let her talk, and, oh, yeah, is married. They stay together for years. Time is marked--and faux significance is ham-handedly shoved into the show--by various elections, of course including that of Donald Trump. In her note in the program, Feiffer writes,

This play aims to explore the corrosive effects of the patriarchy on women and men alike—to examine the culture that has created the phenomenon of toxic masculinity and its insidious effects, and to start imagining ways we can break free...

Blah, blah, blah. Even the patriarchy deserves fairer representation than this boring, unpleasant play and the morons it depicts. Also, millions of humans have grown up in patriarchies but many still think for themselves, challenge themselves to grow, and take responsibility for their own behavior.

[spoiler]

In the third scene of The Pain of My Belligerence, Cat meets Guy's wife Yuki. She is a complicated, original character, and this scene is almost kinda sorta not terrible.

[end of spoiler]

Playwright Feiffer plays Cat; her acting is moderately better than her writing, but she lacks the sort of texture and subtlety that could make Cat bearable and/or sympathetic. Guy is played by Hamish Linklater, who is almost handsome enough to justify Cat's complete and voluntary subjugation to him. Yuki is beautifully played by Vanessa Kai, who brings way more class to the show than it deserves.

I have rarely hated a play as actively and deeply as I hated this one. The minutes nanometered along, and my desire to leave the theatre grew almost unbearable by the ninth hour of its ostensible 80 minutes. When it finally ended, I commented to my friend, "Of all the plays I've ever seen, this show would make the top 10 of shows I hated the most." She replied, "Top 5."

Wendy Caster
(third row on the aisle; press ticket)
Show-Score: 0

If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka

First, behold the title: If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka, sparkling with energy. Next, the structure: playwright Tori Sampson's dynamic, emotional play riffs on folklore, African music and dance, pop culture, teen competitiveness, overparenting, and African and Western ideas of beauty and its value, with a nod to Beyoncé (but, of course). While parts of it are familiar to anyone who has ever worried about her looks, the play is also something new, in turns thrilling, touching, and funny. This show is Sampson's New York professional debut, but we will hear from her again. (And again, and again, I hope.)

Níkẹ Uche Kadri, Leland Fowler
Photo: Joan Marcus

The story is simple. Seventeen-year-old Akim is held by popular opinion to be the prettiest girl in Affreakah-Amirrorikah. Her father is insanely protective of her. She has few friends. When she manages to gain a sliver of freedom she discovers that sexy, confident Kasim has a crush on her--and she is ready and eager to crush right back. Just one problem: Kasim is held by popular opinion (not including his) to "belong" to Massassi. Massassi and her friends Adama and Kaya "befriend" Akim in an attempt to get Kasim back for Massassi. 

The presentation is not simple: It is narrated by Akim's cell phone (humanized as a charming, silly young man wearing bejeweled specs). Magic plays a big role. And a truly wonderful, exciting dance (choreography by Raja Feather Kelly) makes the afterlife seem extremely attractive and a great deal of fun. [spoiler] Everyone in the afterlife wears the same plain mask, freeing them all from the tyranny of looks and looksism. [end of spoiler]

Maechi Aharanwa, Phumzile Sitole (behind Maechi),
Jason Bowen, Níkẹ Uche Kadri,
Rotimi Agbabiaka, Leland Fowler
Photo: Joan Marcus

For all of Sampson's playfulness and creativity, her sense of the cost of beauty and the lack thereof is deadly serious. Akim's father is a possessive idiot, but he is also correct about the dangers threatening his daughter (although his possessiveness actually makes her more vulnerable rather than less). Each of the teenaged girls knows exactly her worth on the awful, artificial, yet painfully real scale of perceived attractiveness. And the sheer exhaustion of being a young female is vividly etched throughout.

If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka brought to mind the often mis-quoted line "money is the root of all evil." The actual quote, as found in the King James Bible, is "the love of money is the root of all evil." Similarly, neither "pretty" nor "ugly" needs to hurt. It is the exaltation of beauty--good-looking people making more money, being more popular, being perceived as better people--that causes the pain, particularly to the nonbeautiful. 

***

In all the discussions of parity in theatre, with percentages of women and people of color getting work, etc., the emphasis tends to be on giving talented people a fair chance. What is also important is giving audiences new voices, different points of view, new forms of art. As an old-ish white woman who has seen thousands of shows, I am thrilled to be challenged and entertained and broadened by writers such as Sampson and directors such as Leah C. Gardiner and performers such as Rotimi Agbabiaka, Maechi Aharanwa, Jason Bowen, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, Leland Fowler, Níkẹ Uche Kadri, Mirirai Sithole, Phumzile Sitole, and Carla R. Stewart, all of whom contribute mightily to the many strengths of If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka. We all benefit when more and different people are heard.

Wendy Caster
(8th row orchestra; press ticket)
Show-Score: 90

Best of 2018

In 2018, I saw 74 shows. Only nine of them were on Broadway; those prices, even when discounted, keep scaring me away. However, I've lost little by skipping Broadway shows (as much as I would have liked to see some of them). But Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway remain amazing, with OOB being particularly affordable.

Before making this list, I did a quick grading of the shows I saw. It was a good year: 27 rated A; 28 rated B; 7 rated C; and 12 rated D. I didn't rate any of them F, because I love and admire theatre and the people who make theatre happen.

This is not a top ten. It's a top 13, and I managed to actually include 18 shows. In cases where I reviewed the show, I've linked to the review. Oh, and I certainly understand that this is really a list of "shows I liked best of the shows I saw" and not truly a "best of" list. But calling these lists "best of" is the custom, and I'm going along with that.

The list is alphabetical.

A Chorus Line: It was a truly extraordinary experience to get to see a first-class production of this wonderful show in such an intimate setting. Kudos to the Gallery!

Noura

I expected to like Noura, Heather Raffo's play at Playwrights Horizon. I knew it was about a Christian Iraqi family living in the US, which I found intriguing, and that it delves into assimilation and loss, individualism versus community, and lies and secrets, topics that are endlessly delve-able. In addition, it riffs on A Doll's House, opening all sorts of possibilities. I was optimistic going in.

As the play unfolded, I found I had questions. "Is he her father or her husband?" "What did she just say?" "Why do they keep walking around that large table instead of going straight to where they're going?" "Why does she keep standing around?" "Why isn't that recorded voice-over loud enough to hear clearly?"

Then more serious questions came in. "Would anyone really do that?" "Would anyone really say that?" "Is she speaking Arabic or just mumbling?" "Why don't they ever close their front door?" "Why is she mad at him for being angry when she was angry too?" "Where did the Play Station come from?"

And then came the worst questions. "Is Raffo really pulling out that old soap-opera-y trope?" "Can't she at least do a better job of it?" "What is this play about, anyway?" "And why should I care?"

Heather Raffo
Photo: Joan Marcus

Noura has received good reviews in previous productions, so there may be more to it than I perceived. However, my plus-one liked it less than I did, and the applause the night I saw it was tepid. Oh well.

Wendy Caster
(press ticket, row J)
Show-Score: 60

The Thanksgiving Play

I see political correctness as largely a good thing. For me, it connotes trying to honor other people and their needs; calling people by their chosen names; respecting that people with different backgrounds have different experiences; and so on. On the other hand, political correctness can be taken waaay too far. Larissa FastHorse's wonderful new comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, takes place on the other hand.

Greg  Keller,  Jennifer  Bareilles, 
Jeffrey  Bean,  Margo  Seibert
Photo: Joan Marcus

Four people assemble to develop a thanksgiving play for an elementary school. They are to be the writers and the performers. Logan (Jennifer Bareilles) is the director. She works at the school, and the posters on the walls (the witty scenic design is by Wilson Chin) attest to her theatre tastes and values. Her boyfriend, Jaxton, self-righteously humble, is so thrilled to be involved that he is performing without pay. Caden (Jeffrey Bean), a history teacher and playwright wannabe, knows all about the truth of the "real Thanksgiving," which of course was not exactly full of turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and good will. The fourth writer/performer is Alicia (Margo Seibert), a well-known actress who has been promised a big paycheck. Logan and the others defer to her since she is Native American and therefore her opinions must come first.

I Was Most Alive With You

Craig Lucas's new play, I Was Most Alive With You, is impressively ambitious. Performed simultaneously in English and American Sign Language (ASL), with some use of supertitles, it is an extended riff on the biblical story of Job. Ash, a TV writer in his 50s or 60s, and Astrid, his somewhat younger cowriter, decide to use the recent events of Ash's life as the content for their latest project. As they discuss the script, scenes are enacted as they may or may not have occurred in real life. Ash is the Job figure, and much is taken from him.

Marianna Bassham (Astrid), Michael Gaston (Ash),
Russell Harvard (Knox), Tad Cooley (Farhad)
Photo: Joan Marcus

Ash's son, Knox, is Deaf. Although he was brought up to speak and read lips, at the start of the play he will only converse in sign language, even though that leaves his mother, the over-ironically named Pleasant, out of the conversation. Knox is clean and sober (as is Ash). He is in love with Farhad, who is deaf but doesn't sign. (Lucas makes clear that there is a difference between Deaf and deaf, but it goes by quickly. His decision not to define or clarify the distinction makes sense, since this play is written for a Deaf audience as much as--if not more--than a hearing audience, though a bit of explanation might have helped the latter group without hurting the former.) Farhad is a drug user, and although Knox adores him, he will not actually become involved with him until he becomes clean and sober.

Other characters include Ash's mother, Carla, who learned sign language to communicate with Knox, and Mariama, a hearing friend of hers who signs fluently and joins the family on Thanksgiving to translate, mostly for the benefit of Pleasant. The character of Mariama also allows Lucas to add more discussion of religion and loss and belief to the play; unfortunately, she feels much more like a device than a person. But, in truth, only a few of the characters are fleshed out; the others are mouthpieces rather than people.

Log Cabin

Jordan Harrison's annoyingly didactic Log Cabin presents characters who come across as op-ed essays rather than humans. There's a gay couple and a lesbian couple who have done well in the world and are enjoying the benefits of legal marriage. There's the trans man who argues that he is more oppressed than the others are and offends the gay couple by calling them cis males. There's the trans man's girlfriend, a young woman who is somewhat pansexual but has a thing for trans men. And there's the lesbian couple's infant, who doesn't speak in real life but is amazingly articulate in the minds of his moms. (He speaks at one point without either mom there, which takes his speech out of imagination and into magical realism, but, whatever). A good 95% of what these people say is pedantic, and even intra-couple squabbling is forced to represent some point or other rather than being specific and personal. The scene changes are excruciatingly slow, and the sex scene is unpleasant. There are some funny lines; some of the performers are quite good; the show is rarely boring. But it is mediocre at best.

Wendy Caster
(member ticket; second row)
Show-Score: 55

Mankind

In Robert O'Hara's futuristic, dystopian fable Mankind, currently at Playwrights Horizons, women are extinct and men have evolved to reproduce without them. In an opening scene that is reasonably funny the first time, if exponentially less so each time it's repeated, Jason (Bobby Moreno) informs casual fuck-buddy Mark (Anson Mount) that he's pregnant. Despite Mark's impulse to "get rid of it," Jason ends up carrying the baby to term, because while women no longer exist, abortion remains illegal. As the play progresses, wackiness ensues: there are court trials and prison sentences, deaths, the invention of a new religion that splinters into various factions, a double marriage, many arguments, and two airings of a news-/reality-/game-/talk-show hybrid called "The Bob and Bob Show," featuring a Tom Brokaw-inspired Bob (Ariel Shafir) and a goofy, morning-show inspired Bob (David Ryan Smith).

Joan Marcus

In short, Mankind takes a lot of fantastical turns that I had no trouble buying: Absent women, the future is even more fucked up than it is now? Yup, sure. Money will win out over morality, ethics, or spiritual devotion? You bet. Various forms of lowbrow entertainment have merged with serious journalism? That's already happened, so why not? Lawyers will wear huge conical wigs and dress like the title character of The Wiz? Makes sense, especially since Andre DeShields himself plays the lawyer.

But abortion? Still illegal a century after women cease to exist? Even seemingly without the presence of some other oppressed group whose collective bodies become the endlessly manipulated tools of politics, religion, and all other aspects of culture? Sorry, buddy, you've lost me.

With Mankind, O'Hara repeatedly returns to the idea that the patriarchy destroys everything it touches: commerce, religion, intellect, law, the family, the environment, humanity. That's all well and good, but the play, which O'Hara also directs and which features an all-male cast, never attempts to wrestle with, or even approach, ways that a culture’s myriad ingrained hierarchies breed control, and thus institutionalized sexism. With some discussion of that in place--with even a fleeting examination of the fact that sexual inequality is bound with centuries of culturally sanctioned power and control ranging from the violently obvious to the impossibly subtle--O'Hara might have produced a compelling play about women's subjugation. But because he never digs below the surface--of the characters, the words they say, the world they occupy, or the ways any of this relates to the contemporary world--Mankind is simply an overlong, undercooked premise that has been explored more deftly elsewhere. The play purports to consider women's struggles for equality, but has erased women at every step. I'd say I've never experienced anything like it, but, of course, like pretty much everyone else in the world, I encounter entertainment that is overwhelmingly by, for, and about men, presented as universal, and dressed up as something more profound than it actually is pretty much every day, all my life.

Anyway, at least Mankind is too thinly developed, inconsistently written, and clunkily directed to be genuinely offensive. It comes off instead as sort of eye-rollingly typical: some man or another realizes that women have had it bad for a long time, does a smattering of research to back that eureka moment up, and then his project gets support, encouragement, and an audience. At its worst, Mankind's humor feels forced and its attempts at gravity patronizing; at its best, it's diverting. Truly, I dug "The Bob and Bob Show," especially the fine work done by Bob. The cast does what it can with scenes that go on too long, an awkward set, unflattering lighting, and a bunch of WTF costumes.

At the curtain call, the company solicits contributions to Planned Parenthood from the audience, which is nice, but feels like a hasty afterthought: a curt, pitying nod toward the far corner where the poor relatives have been seated for the sumptuous, expensive feast. I'd have appreciated the gesture a lot more had O'Hara's play seemed as if anyone involved had actually attempted to genuinely concern themselves with the plight of women--maybe, even, to have consulted with a couple in the process of writing, directing, producing, mounting, dramaturging, and writing program notes for a play that pretends to include us and help us bear our trials while so casually, even chummily, shoving us aside.

Mankind

Robert O'Hara's new comedy Mankind, which he also directs, doesn't officially open at Playwright's Horizon until January 8, so it's way too early to review it. But I do have a comment or two.

The show takes place in a future in which only men exist. O'Hara takes this premise to some surprising and some unsurprising places.

Audience response was extremely mixed, with some people walking out during intermission and others laughing their butts off.

One problem is that the pacing is waaay, waaaay, waaaaay too slow. Between actors drawing out their dialogue with more pauses than words, much repetition, and tedious, too-frequent scene changes, the show runs easily 15 minutes longer than it needs to. I wonder if O'Hara would be better served by a different director than himself.

The Treasurer

There is a certain gravitas that automatically attaches to a play about dementia starring Deanna Dunagan and Peter Friedman and produced at Playwrights Horizons. Because of this gravitas, it can take a while to realize that there is very little there there.

Max Posner's play, as directed by David Cromer, has a certain power as any play about dementia must. Yet it distances itself from truly engaging the audience by having few face-to-face encounters (the play largely consists of phone calls), by using a cold and unattractive set, and by failing to establish the characters' personalities. The two main characters are difficult (her) and controlling and angry (him), and that's as far as it goes. Dunagan and Friedman do much to provide complexity and humanity, but the play limits their ability to draw truly human characters. The other characters barely exist.

Familiar

Familiar, by the in-demand playwright and actress Danai Gurira (Eclipsed, The Walking Dead), is a kitchen sink comedy-drama with an African twist. It focuses on the Chinyamwira family, a Zimbabwean brood who left their homeland decades ago, solidly sewing themselves into the fabric of the United States. Donald and Marvelous (Harold Surratt and Tamara Tunie) are pillars of their suburban Minneapolis community; he is a successful lawyer, she is a biochemist. They wear assimilation like a badge of honor: their well-appointed home betrays no trace of their Rhodesian roots; their flat-screen television blares Penn State football games and Rachel Maddow; they worship at the local Lutheran church. They raised their two daughters, Tendi (Roslyn Ruff) and Nyasha (Ito Aghayere), to follow American custom; neither girl could speak a word of Shona.

Despite their American upbringing, both daughters are fascinated by their culture, which sets much of the play's action in motion. Nyasha has just returned from Zim (as everyone in the family calls it), emboldened to embrace her roots. Meanwhile, the engaged Tendi and her white fiance Chris (sensitivity played by Joby Earle) insist on performing roora, a traditional marriage rite involving bride prices and a counsel of elders. The parents are not happy -- especially when Auntie Anne (Myra Lucretia Taylor), Marvelous' proud and brash older sister, arrives to perform the roora ceremony.

The first act of Gurira's play is full of solid exposition and clever writing. The game cast do well to make the audience feel like they're watching a family. Unfortunately, the action goes off the rails once the roora ceremony begins in earnest, and neither the playwright nor her fine company (under the generally steady direction of Rebecca Taichman) are able to right the ship.

The Christians

Lucas Hnath's The Christians, which has recently been extended through mid-October at Playwrights Horizons, is a compelling play about contemporary evangelical Christianity. It asks a number of interesting and complicated questions about religion as a means to unite and to divide, to connect and to alienate, to sustain and to harm. It also touches on the need for religions to grow and change in order to adapt to the contemporary world, and on altogether more earthly matters: building maintenance, membership numbers, mortgages, money. It is not a perfect play, but it is a very good one, which is worth seeing for the questions it raises, its conception and direction, its strong and committed cast, and its totally excellent megachurchy set.

Joan Marcus

At the start of the play, which begins with a few energetic (if seriously underharmonized) numbers by the church choir, Pastor Paul (an appropriately soothing Andrew Garman) delivers a sermon in celebration of his huge church's final mortgage payment. Professing a spiritual crisis that began when he learned of a boy who gave up his own life to save his sister from a burning building, he announces to his congregants that such a boy should not be damned to Hell because he was not a Christian. Even further, he informs them, he no longer believes in the concept of Hell and feels that no one in his congregation should, either.

The Qualms

Photo: Joan Marcus

Bruce Norris can write. His dialogue crackles, his jokes mostly land, and occasionally he creates surprisingly vivid, three-dimensional characters. He's also a polemicist, and while he's less didactic -- and far less capital-S Serious -- than present-day windbag David Mamet, it's always clear that he has a point to put across, and he won't rest until you get it. This usually results in his plays, at some point, devolving from breezy, mildly unsettling evenings into a full-on death match, in which the characters basically form a circle and start berating each other. (For reference, see: pretty much the entire second act of his Pulitzer Prize winner, Clybourne Park). Again, this is not to say that the man's without talent. It's just that some people are better at using the sugar to make the medicine go down.

Norris' latest, The Qualms (at Playwrights Horizons through July 12), has a lot going for it. For my money, it boasts the tightest acting ensemble currently treading boards in New York. The action -- no pun intended -- centers around a beachfront condo where a group of middle-aged, well-to-do suburbanites have gathered to swap partners. Most of the guests are old pros; the too-cutely named Chris (Jeremy Shamos) and Kristy (Sarah Goldberg) are the newbs. Kristy hooks up with the host's partner (the brilliant Kate Arrington) within the first five minutes of the play; Chris spends the full ninety minutes resenting the entire arrangement, despite the fact it's implied that the idea to attend was his. 

Placebo

Carrie Coon and Florencia Lozano
photo: Joan Marcus

I can’t stand people who talk during a performance. It demonstrates rudeness in the extreme and an utter lack of consideration for the enjoyment of fellow audience members. Yet when the man sitting next to me at Placebo, the new play by Melissa James Gibson, currently in previews at Playwrights Horizons, turned to his wife and whispered, “this is one of those plays where everyone just sits around and whines,” I couldn’t help but nod and agree. (Though in the future, sir, please save your commentary for after the show).

Pocatello



photo: Jeremy Daniel

Since his brilliant debut play, A Bright New Boise, had its New York premiere in 2010, Samuel D. Hunter's output has been both prodigious and prolific. At 32, he's already picked up an Obie, a Lucille Lortel Award, and a MacArthur "Genius" Grant. He's been averaging 2-3 new plays a year, including The Whale, a problematic, fascinating look at obesity and isolation, and The Few, a strange and satisfying little play that recalled early Sam Shepard. Time and again, Hunter has chronicled life in his home state of Idaho with the same gimlet eye that August Wilson once brought to Pittsburgh. All of which makes the spectacular failure of his latest work, Pocatello, so nakedly glaring. Set in a failing Italian chain restaurant (you know the one, even though it's never named), this boring and formless attempt at dark comedy is staler than a day-old breadstick.

Bootycandy

By intermission, I found Bootycandy to be an entertaining, occasionally insightful, and random collection of skits. By the end of the play, I realized that Bootycandy is a smart, brave, wily, and important exploration of race, sexuality, and humanity, and an entertaining, very insightful, not-so-random collection of skits.

Phillip James Brannon, Jessica Frances Dukes,
Benja Kay Thomas, Lance Coadie Williams
Photo: Joan Marcus

Written and directed by the impressive Robert O'Hara, Bootycandy mainly presents scenes from the life of Sutter, a gay African-American. There are also scenes without Sutter. One of them, a rather extraordinary sermon, is clearly part of Sutter's story. Another, an almost mugging, seems out of left field, but turns out to be a set-up for a later scene. Together, they add up to an amazingly complex whole that depicts and often satirizes black culture, white culture, theatre culture, black homophobia, white homophobia, human stupidity, and the ways that difficult childhoods can warp people's souls.