A Delicate Ship

A Delicate Ship

The Playwrights Realm

Peter Jay Sharp Theatre

August 28, 2015

Photo courtesy of The Playwrights Realm

A Delicate Ship, a new play by Anna Ziegler, is playing at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre on 42^nd Street (Playwrights Horizon on Theatre Row).  It was developed and produced by The Playwrights Realm.  The script makes a strong statement about memory and how certain events can change the course of your life, when proper attention is paid.

Sarah (Miriam Silverman) and her boyfriend Sam (Matt Dellapina) are spending a romantic Christams Eve together, when there is a knock on the door.  Enter Nate (Nick Westrate), a childhood friend of Sarah.  After reminiscing, smoking a joint, drinking some wine, and playing a parlor game that cuts deep, Nate opens up to why he dropped in.  The discomfort comes to an end when Nate is finally asked to leave.  “What if we just hadn’t opened the door?” ask Sarah and Sam a few times during Nate’s visit, but they did.  The bigger question is, “Which event of the evening will affect them the most?”

Nick Westrate, Miriam Silverman, & Matt Dellapina
in A Delicate Ship
Photo courtesy of The Playwrights Realm

All three actors create characters that grab attention.  Their portrayals are realistic and charming.  Ms. Ziegler’s script and Margot Bordelon’s direction breaks the fourth wall intermittently throughout the play.  This is an intriguing convention that suspends time and strengthens the script’s commentary on memory, yet becomes a hindrance to the development of deeper, revealing relationships between the characters.

The set, designed by Reid Thompson, is an interior living room, sparsely and tastefully furnished, surrounded by a lane of gravel on all four sides, which serves as the sidewalk surrounding the exterior of the apartment building.  This is a clever and well-defined way to utilize the space, since in some scenes two characters are inside the apartment at the same time that one of them is outside.

The Playwrights Realm was founded in 2007 and is “dedicated to serving early-career playwrights.”  A Delicate Ship is well produced and the playwright’s voice is strong and distinct.  This is a company worth checking out and supporting.

Domenick Danza