BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: The Body of Mary: A Play in Three Acts (of God); a triptych of plays set in different times and places but each, starting with the mother of Jesus, focusing on a woman named Mary struggling with religious authorities over who should control what happens to female bodies Written and Directed by: Katie Cappiello         One good thing: There’s no question that Cappiello is a talented writer, with a wry sense of humor, a vivid imagination—she takes on a different theatrical genre in each act—and a flair for sharp dialog   One not-so-great thing:  Her fierce determination to put the spotlight on how men in general, and the church hierarchy in particular, can harm women almost overwhelms the storytelling      

The Play: Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, an encore run of this fictionalized account of the political philosopher Hannah Arendt’s arrest by the Nazis in 1933 and her surprising relationship with the officer guarding her Written by: Jenny Lyn Bader        Directed by: Ari Laura Kreith One good thing: The set-up is intriguing, especially since it focuses on something about Arendt other than her famous comment about “the banality of evil”   One not-so-great thing:  Unfortunately, the banal storytelling fails to show what motivated either of its main characters    

The Play: America, Who Hurt You?; a solo show in which the writer-performer Sarah Jones uses her award-winning talent for embodying characters of different races, genders and ages to figure out why the country has become so divided  Written by: Sarah Jones        Directed by: Eric Ting One good thing: Favorite characters from Jones’ previous works—including the feisty Jewish grandma Lorraine and the no-nonsense black street philosopher Rashid—show up but the most effective moments are when Jones sensitively portrays people who have been shortchanged by the American dream, among them an enslaved woman, an Irish immigrant at the turn of the last century and the gay son of a Japanese woman interned during WWII   One not-so-great thing: Even with the finely-crafted impersonations, this is basically a TED Talk and unfortunately it doesn’t say much that hasn't already been said many times before     

The Play: The Holes; a shaggy satire about gentrification, masculinity and the need to believe in something set in a rundown upstate bar with a mysterious backroom Written by: Max Wolf Friedlich        Directed by: Michael Herwitz One good thing: The four-member cast is firing on all cylinders with Tina Benko giving a wonderfully gonzo performance as a busy-body barfly, Grantham Coleman hamming it up to just the right degree as a know-it-all tech bro up from the city, Jack Mulhern quietly stealing every scene he’s in as a clueless townie and Bubba Weiler, providing nuanced ballast for all the surrounding wackines as the reluctant barkeep One not-so-great thing: So many balls are thrown up in the air that too many storylines get dropped, too many situations are left unresolved and nearly all the themes are under-explored    

  The Play: The Pass; a revival of a 2012 British drama set in a series of hotel rooms over a decade as two would-be soccer stars grapple with their dreams of success, their sexuality and the pressures of toxic masculinity  Written by: John Donnelly        Directed by: Max Hunter One good thing: Matisse Ratron-Neal is particularly charismatic as an alpha-male willing to sacrifice everything and anything to make it; and the scenic design is particularly clever, making subtle changes that differentiate the rooms, mark the passage of time and aid the storytelling, despite the play being staged runway-style with audiences members seated on both sides of the stage area One not-so-great thing: Some of the dynamics between the men feel dated but then, there are still very, very few out professional athletes     

The Play: An American Daughter, a revival of the political satire that depicts the unfair standards women in public life have to negotiate when a nominee for the job of U.S. Surgeon General finds both her career and her family thrown into turmoil by the revelations that she skipped jury duty and made condescending remarks about stay-at-home moms  Written by: Wendy Wasserstein        Directed by: Sarna Lapine One good thing: The supporting cast is stacked with such stage pros as Dakin Matthews, Robert Sean Leonard, and the invaluable Mary Beth Piel, who delivers the most incisive performance despite having the least lines; plus the Georgetown living room set that Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams has created is so HGTV-perfect that I was ready to move in One not-so-great thing: Wasserstein wrote this play while she was dying and she tried to pack too much into it, which is exacerbated by the fact that the production roughly stitches together various drafts of her script b...

The Play: Shifters; it's basically just a when-will-they-get-together romcom about a working-class Nigerian British man named Dre; and an upper-middle class Congolese-British woman named Des (short for Destiny) but it's so sweet and engaging that it's easy to see why this two-hander was nominated for the Oliviers’ Best New Play alongside such heavyweights as Kyoto, Fear of 13 and Giant   Written by: Benedict Lombe        Directed by: Lynette Linton One good thing:  Part of what makes this one so special is how it portrays its black characters as people with the kind of everyday problems everyone shares instead of treating them as avatars for various social issues and although the Olivier-nominated Heather Agyepong was out at my performance, Daniel Ezra is so totally charming as Dre that it’s impossible not to route for him One not-so-great thing:  The constant jumping back and forth over the couple’s nearly two-decade-long relationship can make ...

The Play: The Potluck; a meta-musical fantasia— part docudrama, part meditation on generational trauma and part political call to arms — about the aftermath of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre in which five labor organizers were gunned down by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party  Written by: César Alvarez        Directed by: Sarah Benson One good thing: Similarities between the political situation in 1979 and current events when social justice activists like Renee Good and Alex Pretti have been killed are undeniable and are most dramatically brought home in the 7-minute excerpt from a documentary that Alvarez’s mom made after the murder of her friends  One not-so-great thing: But the narrative here meanders, too often veering into the self-indulgent (random ruminations on queerness) and the cutesy (a number with dancing mops) and, with the exception of one or two ballads, the score creates more of a vague vibe than a clarifying through-li...

The Play: Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts, the National Asian American Theatre Company’s fully-gratifying production of Shakespeare’s rarely-done trio of plays about the British civil wars known as the War of the Roses which also serve as a prequel to the more popular Richard III Written by: William Shakespeare        Adapted and Directed by: Stephen Brown-Fried One good thing: There’s a lot to love here, starting with the terrifically committed performances of the cast, led by Teresa Avia Lim as a kick-butt Queen Margaret, one of the Bard’s best female roles; Julyana Soelistyo, deliciously devilish as the Duke of Gloucester who will become Richard III; and Jon Norman Schneider as the well-meaning but weak-willed king; but equally great are the kinetic staging with inventively choreographed battle scenes and even the stylish, albeit slightly wacky, costumes by threeASFOUR, the design collective whose other clients have included Yoko Ono and Lady Gaga One not-so-g...

The Play: A Walk on the Moon;  a musical based on the 1999 movie about a working-class Jewish housewife who finds herself falling for a hunky hippie-type guy during the pivotal the summer of 1969 when the nation is riveted by the first moon landing, the want-more-from-life stirrings of feminism have begun to affect average women and the Woodstock music festival is about to take place not too far away from the bungalow colony where she and her kids are vacationing while her nice-guy husband works in the city  Book & Additional Lyrics by: Pamela Gray        Music and Lyrics by: Annmarie Milazzo One good thing: The leads—particularly Talia Suskauer, Max Chernin as her cuckolded husband and Sophie Pollono as their teenaged daughter—sing well and work hard to flesh out their somewhat underwritten characters One not-so-great thing: Sorry but there are so many things; the most egregious may be that neither the writers nor director Sheryl Kaller offer a comp...

The Play: The Loved Ones; a gentle drama about a woman running an Airbnb in a rural part of Ireland who finds herself uneasily hosting a quirky American tourist, the grieving widow of the innkeeper’s son who died six months earlier and a young woman who says she was the dead man’s lover and is seven months pregnant with his child Written by: Erica Murray        Directed by: Nicola Murphy Dubey One good thing: It's really refreshing to have adult female-centered issues—infertility, infidelity, single motherhood, sisterhood and loneliness—treated with the same gravity that issues particular to men—gay or straight—regularly get; plus the top-notch cast (Maryann Plunkett, Donna Lynne Champlin, Clare O'Malley and Alana Raquel Bowers) skillfully sidesteps potential clichés as they go about their storytelling One not-so-great thing: The pacing is slow and the story might have been just effectively told in one act instead of two    

The Play: The Last Ship; a new adaptation of the 2014 musical about the closing of a shipyard in the northeast of England and its effect on the community of people whose families have worked there for generations  Music and Lyrics by: Sting       Book by: Barney Norris    Directed by: Leo Warner One good thing: This passion project was inspired by Sting's childhood and the rock star's love for the people he left behind is evident not only in his decision to lead the cast this time out but even more so in his gorgeous score filled with ballads and choral numbers, many of them set to the Celtic rhythms from his childhood and all beautifully performed by a largely British cast enhanced by a Met chorus for this very short run that ends June 14 One not-so-great thing: While the production is beautifully staged with some eye-popping visuals, the sound is off, making it difficult at times to understand what’s being said or sung     

The Play: Jerome; set in a rural part of Arizona during the early 1990s, this comedy-drama tracks what happens when a gay couple who have lived in relative isolation for nearly 30 years decide to bring a third partner into their relationship when a mysterious younger man arrives in their town Written by: John J. Caswell, Jr.        Directed by : Dustin Wills One good thing: It’s refreshing to see a love story centered around an older gay couple, especially one anchored by a deftly nuanced performance from Stephen Spinella  One not-so-great thing: The running time is only 2 hours and 20 minutes but seems far longer and the time spent having the characters asking the same questions and repeating the same points would have been better spent on developing the more intriguing storylines only hinted at; plus the production could have done without one surreal scene even though it does provides a gasp-inducing coup de théâtre      

The Play: A Woman Among Women; a riff on Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” set in a wellness center run by a woman named Cleo who is a pillar of her progressive community and the mother of a daughter who is in prison for having committed a shockingly violent crime  Written by: Julia Maj Jonas        Directed by: Sarah Cameron Hughes One good thing: Zoë Geltman is amusing as Cleo’s often-overlooked second child but brings a focused energy to the role that makes her character more than just a joke  One not-so-great thing: There’s too much of everything: too many characters who have too little to do and too many distracting directorial flourishes, from having the actors break into singsong at odd moments to staging some lame and strained interactions with the audience    

The Play: Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody; a surprisingly sweet, cleverly staged and very amusing send-up of the hit HBO series about the relationship between two closeted gay hockey players Book, Music and Lyrics by: Dylan Marcaurele        Directed by: Alan Kliffer One good thing: You don’t have to have seen the streaming series to enjoy the terrific performances by Jay Armstrong Johnson and Jimin Moon, who sing great, look great and have great chemistry together; and just as good are the hardworking three-member ensemble who play all the other roles in the hockey guys' lives as well as the trio of straight women superfans who serve as the musical’s narrators One not-so-great thing:  This new makeshift theater’s folding chairs and tall stools aren’t all that butt-friendly even though the show only runs about 80 minutes and the site lines can also be a challenge for some audience members (one of them being me) if they're seated in the pathwa...

The Play: Animal Wisdom; a revival of the self-proclaimed 2017 requiem that aims to simultaneously mourn and celebrate its MacArthur Genius author’s childhood in Natchez, Mississippi and the ancestors, or ghosts, who helped shape it Written by: Heather Christian        Directed by: Keenan Tyler Oliphant  One good thing: Kenita R. Miller has stepped in to play the main character and her powerhouse vocals lend layers of soul-stirring jazz and blues to the show’s eclectic but largely folk-roots score One not-so-great thing: The show is a purposeful patchwork of memory and imagination but the pieces—including a rambling narrative, an onstage band costumed as though going to a Sgt. Pepper's theme party and a final 25-minute section that takes place almost entirely in the dark—don’t fit together quite as well as intended and while they do seem to reduce some audience members to tears they can also come across as self-indulgent and pretentious to others   ...

The Play: Indian Princesses; a satire about young girls of color who attend a misguided program that’s supposed to help them bond with their white dads Written by: Eliana Theologides Rodriguez      Directed by: Miranda Cornell One good thing: Centering a play around interracial families, particularly those who are working hard to love and support one another, is more than welcomed in these fractious times One not-so-great thing:   Yet it's hard to shake the feeling of been-there-seen-that as the play succumbs to the lengthening string of angry-young-women dramas in which girls get together, start noting how society has misunderstood or mistreated them and then exorcise their frustrations by performing some kind of ritual, usually a manic dance.  

The Play: What Happened Was...; a revival of the 1992 two-hander about the awkward first date between two low-level co-workers at a law firm Written by: Tom Noonan        Directed by: Ian Rickson One good thing:   Corey Stoll  and  Cecily Strong give a master class in supportive scene work as they peel back the layers of two lonely people clinging to the belief that it’s not too late to make their dreams come true One not-so-great thing:  It’s understandable how desperate today's theatergoers are for excuses to laugh but I wish those at the performance I attended had appreciated the pathos in this poignant production as much as they did its humor    

The Play: Cable Street; a perhaps too ambitious Hamilton-wannabe (complete with some awkward raps) about the real-life clashes in 1936 between the British fascist Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt troops and a coalition of East End residents composed of communists, Jews and other freedom fighters Written by: Tim Gilvin and Alex Kanefsky        Directed by: Adam Lenson One good thing: A show about people coming together to resist fascism is obviously timely One not-so-great thing: The story isn’t as well-known here as it is in Britain and the attempt to make it relatable by knitting three demographically separate storylines together in Ragtime fashion ends up turning its archetypes into stereotypes 

The Play: Othello, a thrilling four-person production of the Bard’s tragedy of envy, love, racism and revenge when a Moorish general is tricked by his duplicitous second-in-command into believing that his Venetian wife has been unfaithful  Written by: William Shakespeare        Directed by: Eric Tucker One good thing: Each of the four actors—Tucker,  Susannah Millonzi,  Ryan Quinn  and  Susannah Hoffman —plays multiple roles and— without the aid of a set, props or costume changes — does so terrifically One not-so-great thing:  Adding a coda with an excerpt from a recorded speech by James Baldwin was really unnecessary