Indecent

Indecent

Cort Theater

April 28, 2017

Photo courtesy of Indecent

In Indecent collaborators Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman explore the power of the creative voice to change lives.  It tells the story of The God of Vengeance, a Yiddish play written by Sholem Asch in 1907.  The play traveled to major cities in Europe and then came to the United States.  New York was the only city where the play was censored.  It opened on Broadway in 1923.  The production was shut down due to its offensive subject matter.  Indecent is a tender, passionate, revealing, and inspirational telling of the journey of that production and the people involved.

Sholem Asch’s wife is most excited about her husband’s provocative new play The God of Vengeance.  She is particularly enthusiastic about the superbly written love scene between two female characters.  When Asch reads the play with the leaders of the Polish Yiddish theatre, they are appalled.  In their mind, not only is the lesbian scene highly inappropriate, but the fact that the main character, a Jewish family man, runs a brothel and disrespects the Torah is blasphemous.  Only one man in attendance, Lemml, finds the play life-affirming.  Together Asch and Lemml take the play to Berlin, where it is highly received.  Lemml stage manages successful productions of The God of Vengeance across Europe and then to New York City, where the lives of everyone involved change forever.

Photo courtesy of Indecent

The choice by playwright Paula Vogel to tell the story through the eyes of the stage manager is brilliant.  This character has the objective reminiscence of events as well as a deep personal connection to the progression of the story.  Richard Topol portrays Lemml, the Stage Manager, with multiple layers.  He grows with the advancement and acceptance of the production of The God of Vengeance, and never lets go of his belief in its value.

Photo courtesy of Indecent

The cast is an amazing ensemble.  They all play numerous roles, at times transforming in a moment in front of our eyes.  Some of Paula Vogel’s scenes are written in both English and Yiddish.  The brilliance of the collaboration between her and Director Rebecca Taichman is how the scenes shift from one language to the other.  The characters go from speaking fluent English to struggling with their words as non-English speaking Polish immigrants.  This illustrates the challenge the characters face when they arrive in the United States.  Their desire to succeed in a country where they cannot easily communicate is not hindered by this obstacle.  When their production moves to Broadway, the cast is arrested and the show is shut down, even after the lesbian scene is cut out of the play.  The disclosure of the specific indecency in the theme of the production is thought provoking and relevant to our present day moral identity.

Photo courtesy of Indecent

What remains beyond success and failure?  What lives on after a work of art is viewed, experienced, and then discarded.  This is what Indecent asks us to think about.  The creative impulse that motivates art to reflect the truth is what keeps the action of this play moving forward and the audience completely engaged.  Go see it.

Domenick Danza

How to Transcend a Happy Marriage

How to Transcend a Happy Marriage

The Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

April 15, 2017

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

Transcend: to go beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge; being beyond comprehension.

In How to Transcend a Happy Marriage playwright Sarah Ruhl explores what lies beyond the boundaries of societal definitions of relationship, marriage, and family to find a quality of love, acceptance, and happiness that is greater than the expected.  Through magical realism, she skillfully transports the audience into the experiences of the characters and induces an intense level of reflection on their journey.

Jane (played by Robin Weigert) tells her husband, Michael (played by Brian Hutchison), and her best friends George and Paul (played by Marisa Tomei and Omar Metwally) about Pip, a temp at her office who hunts and slaughters her own food and is living with two men in a polyamorous relationship.  The curiosity of the two couples is aroused, so they decide to invite Pip (played by Lena Hall) and her two male companions (played by David McElwee and Austin Smith) to a dinner party on New Year’s Eve.  This encounter sets these two happily married couples on a journey of no return.

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

In Act I you get a visceral sense of the characters’ discomfort with themselves when the movement, costumes, and dialogue seem stiff and choppy.  This sense is heightened when juxtaposed against the flow, smoothness, and ease of their invited guests.  Act II delves deeply into the psyche of George (Marissa Tomei’s character) as she struggles to transcend the defined boundaries she has accepted for herself.  The bond Ms. Tomei creates with her fellow actors (Robin Weigert, Brian Hutchison, and Omar Metwally) is strong and genuine.  They all resist and grapple with the truth as they allow their characters to look at their lives from a new perspective.  Ms. Ruhl finds the poetry and music in these characters tumultuous experiences that brings intellectual and emotional understanding of their growth and change.

Marissa Tomei & Lena Hall
Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

The parallels between the character of Pip and Roman mythology’s Diana, goddess of the hunt, moon, and birthing, and associated with wild animals and woodland, is superbly constructed.  The triad Diana made between the water nymph Egeria, and the woodland god Virbius is reflected in Pip’s polyamorous relationship.  Through these mythical images and the psychological and carnal impulses they arouse, the characters unearth deep-seeded realizations about the lives they have settled into.  In an emotional moment at the end of Act II, Jane blurts out that in order to bring children into the world you have to release your inner animal, and you then spend the rest of your life hiding that animal side from them.  This is one of the many profound insights the characters are propelled to face.

If you are a fan of Sarah Ruhl’s work, you will definitely find this play worth seeing.  The cast is excellent, the directing (by Rebecca Taichman) is unified, and the writing is authentic.  How to Transcend a Happy Marriage is playing at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through May 7.

Domenick Danza

Oslo

Oslo

The Vivian Beaumont Theatre

April 8, 2017

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theatre

Oslo is the untold story of the painstaking journey toward the 1993 Middle East peace agreement.  The play masterfully reveals the process by which representatives from Israel and the PLO  were able to see past their differences in order to stay in the present and change the future.  Playwright J.T. Rogers states in the program notes that “Oslo is the story of a hidden history that lies behind a public history.  But to be clear, it is my version of this story.  The events in the play all happened, but locations have been condensed and the chronology of events has been compressed… Though every character in this play is named for a real person, the words they say are mine.” 

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theatre

As the United States led peace conferences between the PLO and Israel moved along unsuccessfully, Norwegian sociologist Terje Rod-Larsen (played by Jefferson May) holds a strong belief that if his negotiation strategies could be applied, they would succeed.  He works closely with his wife, Mona Juul (played by Jennifer Ehle) to arrange an “unofficial” meeting between representatives from the rival entities in their home city of Oslo, Norway.  When the men come together, they admit that they have never spoken to their enemy face to face.  The initial meeting is highly successful, and leads to a second and third.  Through Terje Rod-Larsen’s negotiation strategies, they build trust.  As the stakes get higher, their trust is tested, yet their mutual and desperate desire for peace keeps them dedicated to moving forward. 

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theatre

Even though the ending of the play is historic fact, J.T. Rogers script keeps you riveted as to how the characters are going to achieve their goal.  His scenes are full of heated debate driven by deep-seated emotion.  His characters are a blend of truth and stereotype, full of charm, determination, and passion.  Director Bartlett Sher molds this masterwork by building tension and suspense, then turning it into playful banter that explodes into serious discourse and eventual agreement.

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theatre

The tight collaboration between playwright and director allows the multitude of detail in this complex historic struggle to unfold clearly and concisely.  The true genius of the piece is how the dramatic thread pulling the action together and moving it forward are the characters of Terje Rod-Larsen and his wife, Mona Juul.  While all the characters are unified in their striving for a peace and a future for their families, the determination of these two characters goes unaddressed.  Their belief in the power of negotiation process and how it must be unobstructed by favoritism and special interest is verified by the outcome.  The ending of the play offers hope for those who choose to see it, believe in it, and utilize it.

Seeing Oslo is a MUST!  It is playing at the Vivien Beaumont Theatre in Lincoln Center.  The cast is superb.  The production is stupendous. 

Domenick Danza

A Doll’s House, Part 2

A Doll’s House, Part 2

Golden Theatre

April 1, 2017

Photo courtesy of A Doll's House, Part 2

What happens to Nora Helmer after she leaves her husband and children, closing the door behind her?  Playwright Lucas Hnath tells his rendition of that story in A Doll’s House, Part 2.  The play digs deeply into the institution of marriage, the value of opening old wounds, and the futility of walking away.  Directed by Sam Gold, the production has a stark coldness that effectively triggers emotional response and intellectual discourse.

There is a knock on the door.  Nora (played by Laurie Metcalf) returns after fifteen years.  She is greeted by Anne Marie (played by Jayne Houdyshell), the housekeeper who raised the children in Nora’s absence.  When Torvald (played by Chris Cooper) arrives home from work unexpectedly, Nora is forced to face him without much preparation.  She is there because Torvald neglected to give her a divorce, and Nora now finds herself in desperate need for that legal document to be filed.  Torvald refuses.  Anne Marie recommends that Nora seek the assistance of her daughter Emmy (played by Condola Rashad) in convincing Torvald.  Against her better judgement, Nora agrees.  Her discoveries are difficult, yet her determination is unwavering.

Laurie Metcalf & Chris Cooper
Photo courtesy of A Doll's House, Part 2

The scene between Nora and her daughter is stunningly written, directed, and performed.  Mr. Hnath sets up the character of Emmy as a mirror image of Nora.   She sees her younger self as headstrong and idealistic.  Condola Rashad masterfully propels the action of the scene deeper with impeccable timing, eye contact, and subtle gestures that reveal the character’s intellect and independence.  Laurie Metcalf matches this skill as she allows her character to face her deepest fear and speak without regret.  Mr. Gold uses level and body position in this scene, as he does throughout the production, to illustrate the power struggle between the characters.  The scene where Chris Cooper and Laurie Metcalf face off is riveting and direct.  Jayne Houdyshell rises up as she refuses to have Nora compare her actions to the choices Anne Marie has made.

Playwright Lucas Hnath

Mr. Hnath makes very bold statements in his well-structured and skillfully crafted play.  When Nora returns, she speaks at length about the detriment of the institution of marriage.  This resonates with irony and humor against the political changes in legal marriage over the past few years.  Torvald explains how instead of leaving the marriage after her “epiphany,” she should have stayed to work it out with him.  By expressing this we see how Torvald has grown over the years.  With this concept of marriage as a challenging negotiable partnership juxtaposed against the one earlier expressed by Nora, we get an alternate view of Ibsen’s independent heroine through the lens of the adaptability of the characters she left behind.  In the closing scene we are compelled to ask ourselves where to look for evidence of the changes we seek in the world.

Presently in previews at the Golden Theatre, A Doll’s House, Part 2 opens on April 27 and runs for a sixteen week limited engagement.  It is relevant and absorbing.  See it for yourself. 

Domenick Danza    

The Hairy Ape

The Hairy Ape

The Park Avenue Armory

March 25, 2017

Photo courtesy of The Hairy Ape at the Park Avenue Armory

The production of Eugene O’Neil’s The Hairy Ape, now playing at the Park Avenue Armory and produced in partnership with The Old Vic in London, is a larger than life experience.  Director Richard Jones’ vision is titanic.  Designer Stuart Laing uses the vastness of the Armory space in ways that make your jaw drop.  His design gels with lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherin and sound by Sarah Angliss to magnify the power of the characters, make them feel small when encountering the larger world, and then encage them in isolation and loneliness.  Bobby Cannavale is riveting in the title role, leading an ensemble cast of brilliant actors in Eugene O’Neill’s classic, naturalistic tale.

Bobby Cannavale in rehearsal for The Hairy Ape
Photo courtesy of The Park Avenue Armory

Yank (played by Bobby Cannavale) is the fiercest of Stokers, keeping the coal fires burning in the bowels of a massive ocean liner.  He claims it is his strength and endurance that keeps the tons of steel moving in the open waters.  When Mildred Douglas (played by Catherine Combs), daughter of millionaire steel magnate, faints at the sight of him stoking coal, she calls him a hairy ape.  This sets Yank on a journey through the streets of New York City to find her.  Whether motivated by love, lust, or revenge, he is lead to the realization that he does not fit in anywhere in the class system of the day.

Photo courtesy of The Hairy Ape at The Park Avenue Armory

The themes of Eugene O’Neil’s play are viscerally understood as every element of this production comes together.  The audience, sitting in bright “yellow” seats, becomes a part of the rendition of Mr. O’Neil’s class system.  You identify with Yank as his physical strength leads the other Stokers to succeed at their backbreaking work, then struggles to redeem his lost sense of purpose.  Choreography by Aletta Collins is crisp and sharp.  The physicality of this production has a vitality that serves to establish the setting and tone of the experience and drives the action forward.

The Hairy Ape is playing at the Park Avenue Armory through April 22.  You have to experience the magnitude of this production.  It is a true testament to the potency of Eugene O’Neil’s writing.  

Domenick Danza

The Light Years

The Light Years

Playwrights Horizons

March 18, 2017

Photo courtesy of Playwrights Horizons

The Light Years, now running at Playwrights Horizons, is a story of inspiration and ingenuity.  The story covers forty years, and takes place during the 1893 and 1933 Chicago World’s Fairs.  Playwrights Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen weave fact and fiction into a heartfelt story of struggle, loss, and persistence.  Director Oliver Butler chooses a distinctive style for the production that captures the spirit of the time period.

Rocco Sisto, Aya Cash, & Erik Lochtefeld
Photo courtesy of Playwrights Horizons

Steele MacKaye (played by Rocco Sisto) has a vision for the grandest theatre ever built.  In it he will mount his most spectacular production, telling the story of Christopher Columbus’ journey across the Atlantic Ocean.  Around the proscenium the audience will see the constellations that guided Columbus.  This might be a small technological feat for present day theatre, yet this vision was to be constructed for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, when electric light was first being introduced.  Hillary (played by Erik Lochtefeld) and Hong Sling (played by Brian Lee Huynh) are the inventors of the mechanical contraptions envisioned by Mr. MacKaye.  Is the vision too great to be achieved?  What keeps these ideas alive for forty years, connecting them to the Chicago World's Fair of 1933?

Aya Cash & Erik Lochtefeld
Photo courtesy of Playwrights Horizons

The production does an amazing job of traveling forward and back over time.  The actors create a clear illusion that makes it easy and enjoyable to follow.  Aya Cash plays two roles.  First we see her as Adeline, Hillary’s wife in 1893, then as Ruth, the wife a musician in 1933.  Ms. Cash skillfully creates the emotional connection that links the two stories over the forty year span of the play.  The entire cast does an amazing job with this well written and constructed script, yet the stylistic concept of the characterizations does not allow for a personalized connection to the audience.

The design (sets by Laura Jellinek, lighting by Russell H. Champa, and sound by Lee Kinney) give a clear insight into the size and scope of Mr. MacKaye’s visionary theatrical production and the challenges faced by the characters due to the technological limitations of the day.  This makes the story well worth seeing.  The Light Years runs at playwrights Horizons through April 2.

Domenick Danza

The Skin of Our Teeth

The Skin of Our Teeth

Theater for a New Audience

Polonsky Shakespeare Center

March 4, 2017

Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

The Theatre for a New Audience production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is life affirming.  This American Classic, written seventy-five years ago, is fresh and alive.  Thornton Wilder’s themes and messages are as pertinent to our lives today as they were in 1942, when he won the Pulitzer Prize for writing it.  Arin Arbus’ direction is spot on and clear.  She opens the action of the play in a way that pulls every audience member into the story.  The production rings with vim and vigor due to original music by Cesar Alvarez and choreography by Sonya Tayeh.  The cast of thirty-six unite to create an engaging experience that encourages deep contemplation.

Kecia Lewis, Kimber Monroe, & David Rasche
Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

Act I opens on Sabina (played by Mary Wiseman), the housekeeper to the Antrobus family, preparing for Mr. Antrobus (played by David Rasche) to return from work.  We meet Mrs. Antrobus (played by Kecia Lewis) and their two children, Gladys (played by Kimber Monroe) and Henry (played by Reynaldo Piniella).  They are the perfect family, except for the alarming secrets they keep hidden and their deep seeded resentment toward one another.  Their existence is threatened by the ice coming from the north, moving everything in its path.  They reluctantly open their home to a large number of refugees in need of shelter and warmth.  It is the ice age, and the world as they know it will soon come to an end. 

Mary Wiseman as Sabina
Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

Act II find the Antrobus family in Atlantic City among mayhem and merriment.  “Enjoy yourself” is the message of the day, yet a Fortune Teller (played by Mary Lou Rosato) predicts destruction by a great storm.  As the rain begins, the Antrobus family boards a huge boat with two of each animal species in order to start all over again.

Act III is dark.  The great war has ended.  The Antrobus family and Sabina have survived, and Gladys has a baby.  It is time to rebuild, yet Mr. Antrobus is tired and disheartened.  He tells of the three thoughts that got him through the war: the voice of the people, his home and family, and his books.  It takes community effort to restore the safety of their home and, as in Act I and Act II, mankind endures.

Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

Every member of the cast and ensemble is skillfully precise.  Mary Wiseman is vivacious as Sabina.  Her comic timing is superb.  Her Sabina plays amazingly well when juxtaposed against Kecia Lewis’ Mrs. Antrobus.  Their rivalry is fierce and superseded by their bond of understanding.  David Rasche grounds the action and keeps it moving as Mr. Antrobus.  Reynaldo Piniella creates a multi-dimensional Henry who is plagued by anger and driven by need.  Kimber Monroe’s Gladys grows and matures in the course of the three acts.  Mary Lou Rosato’s Fortune Teller is wild, crazy, and truthful.

Photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience

The hordes of refugees in Act I and rounding up of the animals in Act II harkens to the political challenges we face today.  There is a seductive conversation between Mr. Antrobus and Sabina in Act II about wealth and power that could easily be viewed as a (fictional) discussion between Donald and Melania Trump.  With scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez and costume and puppet design by Cait O’Connor, the production is astounding.  The Skin of Our Teeth is running at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Downtown Brooklyn through March 19.  It is a mammoth play with timeless themes and a stellar cast. 

Domenick Danza