What to consider while you’re digging out and planning your next theater outing!
Josephine Moshiri Elwood and Dennis Trainor, Jr. Photo: Benjamin Rose Photography.
JOB--MUST SEE THIS at SpeakEasy Stage! Buckle up- the opening scenes of this psychological thriller might give you a heart attack. One set. Two actors. 80 minutes. No intermission. It’s set in a therapist’s office (Dennis Trainor, Jr.) where the therapist is treating an employee (Josephine Moshiri Elwood) of a big tech firm whose been sent for therapy after a video of her having a meltdown goes viral. She needs this therapist to certify her mental health in order for her to return to work.
Brilliant actor/director Marianna Bassham does a masterful JOB of containing the action as though in a pressure cooker. This explosive confrontation swirls around dense swaths of escalating dialogue courtesy of playwright Max Wolf Friedlich. Every utterance takes us to a new level of paranoia, insight, and anxiety as the duo grapple– across a generation– with each other and her wobbly mental health.
The encounter unfolds within the larger confines of an assaultive world and its horrors amplified by the power of social media to overwhelm our identities, relationships, hearts, souls, minds, and reality. This is a life and death struggle where everything is questioned and who holds the power shifts moment to moment. My pulse is racing as I write this … see it before I pass out, through February 7!
L-R Yetunde Felix Ukwu and VictoriaOmoregie Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography
THE GREAT PRIVATION presented by Company One and D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co is now on stage at Suffolk University’s intimate The Modern Theatre. A new play written by Nia Akilah Robinson, it is well-acted, thoughtful, and references HAMLET to Alice Walker, but I found it dramatically flat.
The plot spans two time frames with one set of actors: a mother and daughter in 1832 standing watch at the gravesite of their husband and father to protect it from plundering by med students. The graves of African-Americans were particularly vulnerable to this crime. Time then jumps to contemporary Philadelphia where their descendants are counselors at a sleep-away camp. Through some arduous plotting and supernatural goings on, these two find themselves standing at that very grave on a dark summer night.
The tone is a tricky mix of serio-comic and supernatural elements which require a deft script and directorial finesse. The actors do their best; Yetunde Felix-Ukwu as the mother in both scenarios embodies grace and gravitas. Victoria Omoregie is a standout as her funny, frisky daughter Charity who brings great charm, energy, and comedic timing to the proceedings. Literally about grave-robbing, the plot is metaphorically about buried Black American history and the desecration of Black bodies on which this country was built. The playwright has excavated the story and a framework, but not the drama buried in that rich historical premise — as well as how, once uncovered, we all move forward. THE GREAT DEPRIVATION Through January 31!
Photo: Hawver and Hall
Finally the American Repertory Theater– no stranger to premiering new musicals– has done it again with the world premiere of WONDER, based on JR Palacio’s best-selling book and middle school staple, later the 2017 movie version starring Julia Roberts. Now playwright Sarah Ruhl has written the book for the staged musical with music and lyrics by A GREAT BIG WORLD (Ian Axel and Chad King) who wrote that heartbreaking Christina Aguilera hit “Say Something.” The story about a 10-year old boy named Auggie with a rare genetic anomaly which causes him to appear facially different, is about his first foray into the public school system where he must face all the slings and arrows middle schoolers’ flesh is heir to: bullying, making friends, fitting in…
The lead Garrett McNally (who shares the role with Max Voehl at certain performances), is facially different (unlike the young actor in the movie who was made up to appear so) thereby giving the performance dimension. He is funny and winning in the role as are most of the kids. There are wonderful voices, and the score boasts some beautiful songs, notably, “You Are Beautiful” sung by the sweet-voiced Alison Luff as Auggie’s mom Isabel. Video here!
This musical maintains the humor and heart of the tale. Sets, costumes, lighting–fine. But the production isn’t quite there. At least one of the young performances was too broad, some of the songs were nondescript, and a character was added– Moon Boy– which felt superfluous. Instead, I wished the book had developed and interwoven much sooner the ways in which many of the other characters’ (old and young) less visible struggles mirrored Auggie’s. That resonant message is key and tumbles out too quickly near the end.
All of this said, I never saw so many kids with their families at the theater–marvelous and crucial. The play’s message about othering, vulnerability, and kindness is almost RADICAL now, in an era where the bully-in-chief is seen and heard actively oppressing others on American streets in full view of the world. I say see this and urge this production on its way! At the A.R.T. EXTENDED through FEB 15!
