Diane Snyder

In a midtown rehearsal studio, Georgia Engel and James McMenamin are going over (and over) a scene from Middletown, Will Eno's first full-length play to hit New York since the existential monodrama Thom Pain (based on nothing) became an Off Broadway sensation nearly six years ago. Typical of Eno, the scene is packed with language that can tickle or caress one moment and punch sharply at the gut the next, and it's challenging to perform. Director Ken Rus Schmoll offers feedback, then turns to the 45-year-old playwright, who's been leaning his wiry body back in his chair, squeezing a tennis ball. Eno explains the impulses behind one of a character's numerous pauses, and subtle changes are apparent when they go through the scene again. Eno intimately knows the people who populate Middletown, starting previews Wednesday 13 at the Vineyard Theatre. He's been working on the piece since 2002, when it was a very different beast with a dysfunctional Greek chorus. "You couldn't really hear what they were saying and they didn't say the same thing," explains Eno, whose voice tends to trail off into a whisper in conversation. He put down the play and picked it up again five years ago, but still had problems. "I had a very simple idea," he reflects, "and I think, through cowardice, I kept not seeing that through. I wanted a birth and a death and some allusion to the middle." Schmoll remembers feeling "emotionally devastated by it on the first read. It's both mysterious and accessible, and

While carving out a career as one of New York’s most accomplished and versatile stage actors—in shows including Follies, The Royal Family and Lend Me a Tenor—Jan Maxwell has continued to work with the tiny PTP/NYC theater, which specializes in the dark political plays of British scribe Howard Barker. In Scenes from an Execution, Maxwell stars as 16th-century Venetian painter Galactia, who angers the government with her depiction of war. It is the five-time Tony nominee’s sixth collaboration with the company and, she reveals, her farewell to theater acting. RECOMMENDED: The 20 best plays and Broadway musicals this summer How are you enjoying rehearsing in Vermont right now?I love it because, obviously, it’s so beautiful, and also we’re working with students from Middlebury College and they’re wonderful. It’s a production that Middlebury produces with PTP/NYC so we get the dorm rooms, the theater, the sets and the costumes from the college and that’s how we can do it. We’re not making any money here; we’re losing money, taking home maybe $250 a week. But it’s what I feel is a worthwhile project. You did Scenes from an Execution with PTP/NYC in 2008. Why did you want to tackle it again?Howard Barker is my favorite playwright. He’s a prolific genius; it’s almost like modern-day Shakespeare. The language is so dense and beautiful and forward-moving; it really propels you. He writes strong, unsentimental, unlikable characters, and I like that. [Laughs] The play is about an artist w

Theater review by Diane Snyder For nearly a decade, Richard Nelson has been chronicling, with subtle insight, the impact of American politics on the residents of Rhinebeck, New York, the liberal-leaning upstate community where he lives. The last time he transported us there for an intimate family dinner—a regular feature of the plays—was in 2016’s Women of a Certain Age, set on Election Day. Yet Nelson’s previous Rhinebeck plays, presented in two cycles about the fictional Apple and Gabriel clans, have been only lightly sprinkled with overt political talk. That dusting is even milder in The Michaels, a tenderly moving stand-alone drama about Rose Michael (Brenda Wehle), a modern dance choreographer facing mortality, and the effect of this brilliant, challenging woman on the people around her. These include Rose’s new partner, Kate (Maryann Plunkett), who is taking on caregiver duties; Rose’s ex-husband, David (Jay O. Sanders); and her former dancers Irenie (Haviland Morris) and Sally (Rita Wolf), who is now married to David. For the first time in this group of plays, Nelson includes a pair of millennials: Rose’s daughter, Lucy (Charlotte Bydwell), and niece, May (Matilda Sakamoto), both dancers who re-create the elder woman’s work within the confines of her kitchen. (The choreography is based on the work of Dan Wagoner.) Since these characters have a looser bond than his previous family units, it takes time for them, and the play, to congeal. Slowly, themes emerge about our

Theater review by Diane Snyder  As potent as a shot of whiskey, Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol forces a man nearly ruined by alcohol to face his ghosts on Christmas Eve. Fiftysomething Irish undertaker John Plunkett (Jeffrey Bean) gets a visit from Mary (Sarah Street)—the adult daughter he hasn’t seen in a decade—because his long-abandoned wife is dying and wants to see him. For many years, John’s method of survival has been to avoid his painful past and the damage he’s caused, but that’s no longer an option.  On this day of reckoning, John drinks, makes excuses, revisits his past and wrestles with his guilt. Bean’s exquisite portrayal of this bruised and haunted man delves deeply into his restless psyche. Self-loathing but also self-indulgent, John struggles to hold himself together, and he has an easier time relating to a young colleague (Cillian Hegarty), whose uncle saved him from destitution, than to his own daughter. When Mary expresses his love for him, he replies, “Why do you love me?” First staged Off Broadway in 2003, Dublin Carol maintains its quietly powerful impact. Director Ciarán O’Reilly and his expert cast bring out the sadness, regret and hope that define these characters, as well as the simple eloquence of McPherson’s words. The playwright, whose Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country will be on Broadway later this season, isn’t one for earth-shattering revelations. Can John finally take responsibility for his failings and, like Scrooge, emerge a bet

Theater review by Diane Snyder Ghosts from the past invade the lives of Disciple and Abasiama Ufot in Mfoniso Udofia’s ruminative runboyrun and In Old Age, the latest installments of her ambitious nine-part play cycle about multiple generations of a Nigerian-American family. Both plays dive deeply into the internal torments of their characters, whose painful journeys toward redemption are compelling if sometimes ponderous. In runboyrun, directed by Loretta Greco and set in 2012, community-college professor Disciple (Chiké Johnson) is haunted by a devastating loss he endured in 1968, before he fled a war-torn Nigeria. That history comes to life on stage in the forms of his younger self (Karl Green), his sister (Adrianna Mitchell), his brother (Adesola Osakalumi) and his mother (Zenzi Williams). When Disciple opens up about the past to his wife, Abasiama (Patrice Johnson Chevannes)—who is ready to divorce him—he finally releases his pent-up guilt. Abasiama has all but given up on life in In Old Age, which takes place after Disciple’s death. She’s cantankerous to the core when a handyman (Ron Canada) hired by her children shows up to redo the wood floors. Director Awoye Timpo brings out the humor in Abasiama’s initial resistance to change, which evolves into a realization that she can be reborn if she can escape the hold her late husband has on her (as represented by a persistent pounding sound from the basement). The two plays are paired in a three-hour-plus production at New Y

Theater review by Diane Snyder  Few playwrights depict domestic tension with the subtlety and insight of Donald Margulies. In Long Lost, two very different middle-aged brothers reunite for the first time in 10 years, still feeling the aftershocks of a devastating loss. In a quietly explosive 90 minutes, the play explores the difficulty of letting go of the past, and how seemingly small cracks in relationships can lead to foundation-shattering destruction. Shortly before Christmas, recovering addict and ex-convict Billy (Lee Tergesen), in need of a place to stay, drops in on his brother, David (Kelly AuCoin), who left the family farm years earlier and found success as a financial consultant in New York City. When nostalgia isn’t enough to secure an invitation for the holidays, Billy announces that he’s dying of cancer. David’s no-nonsense wife, Molly (Annie Parisse), suspects that he’s lying, and Billy’s behavior—passing out drunk, smoking pot with the couple’s 19-year-old son, Jeremy (Alex Wolff)—doesn’t do much to win her over. But Billy, whom David describes as “a chaos machine,” seems determined to destroy what’s left of his family when he doesn’t get his way. Daniel Sullivan, who also helmed Margulies’s Sight Unseen and Dinner with Friends, has assembled a superb cast. Parisse excels as the tightly wound Molly, Tergesen shifts from charming rascal to cruel ne’er-do-well with ease, and Wolff is endearing as a young man deeply affected by the secrets of his elders. But the

Theater review by Diane Snyder You expect things to fall apart at the end of a Sam Shepard play. In the Signature Theatre’s ambitious revival of Curse of the Starving Class, it happens at the very beginning. Julian Crouch’s set, the kitchen of a dilapidated farmhouse, splits open at the middle; windows and cabinets hang suspended for the rest of the performance, foreshadowing the destruction that is about to befall the Tates, a destitute rural California clan riven by ennui. Temperamental alcoholic father Weston (David Warshofsky) has broken down the front door, which sullen son Wesley (Gilles Geary) sets out to repair. Distraught wife and mother Ella (Maggie Siff) longs to sell the house and go to Europe, while exasperated daughter Emma (Lizzy DeClement) is full of wild ideas about how she’s going to break free from her family.  Director Terry Kinney and his cast find memorable moments in Shepard’s darkly satirical 1977 play. Food is tossed about, and Wesley eats like an animal off the floor; characters repeatedly open and close the refrigerator, as though expecting its contents to magically change. A well-behaved lamb gets penned in the kitchen and becomes a sounding board for Weston. Some aspects of the play (the destruction of the kitchen, two male relatives swapping identities) prefigure elements that the playwright would explore more successfully in his 1980 drama True West. Time has diminished some of Curse of the Starving Class’s shock value—nudity and onstage urinati

Theater review by Diane Snyder They were the subjects of a medical experiment and had no control over what happened to their bodies. But the pain endured by the enslaved women operated on by J. Marion Sims—the 19th-century American doctor who became known as the “Father of Modern Gynecology”—led to a breakthrough in obstetric surgery, and it’s the inspiration for Charly Evon Simpson’s harrowing new play, Behind the Sheet. Mixing fictional characters with facts from Sims’s life and work, Simpson delivers an evenhanded portrait of George Barry (Joel Ripka), a white doctor and plantation owner in 1840s Alabama as ignorant about the feelings of African-Americans as he is about the inner lives of women. Although married, he has impregnated one of his slaves, Philomena (Naomi Lorrain), who helps him with his work until a lengthy labor leaves her with a fistula that causes incontinence.  Philomena joins other stricken slaves whom the doctor has subjected to surgeries without anesthesia—Mary (Amber Reauchean Williams), Sally (Cristina Pitter) and Dinah (Jehan O. Young)—while another woman, Betty (Nia Calloway), takes her place in the household. It’s at this point that the play reaches its pinnacle. Directed with subtle force by Colette Robert, Behind the Sheet shows these women trying to heal by sharing their suffering. Their pain is not just physical, despite the multiple procedures they have endured; they’re also mourning the loss of children, who either died in childbirth or had t

Theater review by Diane Snyder  The last 20 minutes of Renascence give themselves over completely to Edna St. Vincent Millay’s titular masterpiece, as the six-person cast sings and dances to her lyric poem about nature, humanity and suffering. It’s the high point of this evocative but overly ambitious new musical.  Millay was just 20 years old in when the poem Renascence made her name in 1912. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 11 years later, but the musical focuses on her early adulthood and rise to fame: growing up with her mother and two younger sisters in Maine after her parents’ divorce, losing out on an award with a much-needed cash prize, forging a love affair with a female college classmate. This Transport Group production, directed by Jack Cummings III and Dick Scanlan, is no typical musical biodrama; it’s more of a jukebox poetry slam. An authors’ note in the script describes the play as “a theatrical exploration…of what it means to be an artist and a person” that uses Millay’s life as inspiration. That’s a challenging proposition, and one that’s hard for book writer Scanlan and composer Carmel Dean to sustain over two and a half hours. Millay’s poems supply the lyrics, and although Dean’s score and a top-notch orchestra of eight accentuate the power of her words, the piece has trouble fashioning a dramatic arc around her preexisting body of work. Hannah Corneau plays Millay engagingly, and is complemented by the stirring vocals and performances of Mikaela Benne

Theater review by Diane Snyder  Cultures and eras collide—sometimes tragically, sometimes in beautiful harmony—in Prospect Theater Company’s One Thousand Nights and One Day, a haunting, soulful musical adapted by composer Marisa Michelson and librettist Jason Grote from the latter’s acclaimed 2007 play 1001. What begins as a retelling of the Arabian Nights story of King Shahryar (Ben Steinfeld) and his wife, Scheherazade (Sepideh Moafi), who strings along her husband with continual tales to stall her execution, soon morphs into the contemporary story of Alan and Dahna (Steinfeld and Moafi, again), a Jewish man and a Palestinian woman who begin a relationship in New York. The modern couple’s cultural differences become a barrier, but not in the expected way. Alan sees Dahna from a Western perspective, and even wants to take a trip with her to Gaza: “I want to draw myself onto your map,” he sings. It’s a place she’d just as soon avoid, literally and metaphorically, and she wonders whether her sister is right to try to set her up with a man from a similar background. Director Erin Ortman embraces simplicity in her staging—sheer black curtains open and close around playing areas—and brings together divergent elements with the style and substance this ambitious work deserves. As Grote plays with deconstructing stereotypes, Michelson presents a vibrant sonic landscape that ranges from Middle Eastern music to modern EDM. The band takes a bow with the seven actors at curtain call, an

Theater review by Diane Snyder  Hammaad Chaudry makes an audacious if erratic professional debut with An Ordinary Muslim. Born in Scotland but currently based in New York City, the playwright has spoken of his admiration for Arthur Miller, whose influence is reflected in the family struggles at the core of this ambitious drama. But the play comes most excitingly to life when it probes the mental torment of being Muslim in an increasingly hostile Western culture.  Sanjit De Silva exudes repressed rage as Azeem Bhatti, a London bank worker who is trying to get promoted to manager of his branch. Azeem is not unlike the angry young men of mid-20th-century British drama: He is uncompromising in his demand for respect from society, and he deals with his alienation by alienating others. That his Pakistani-immigrant father (Ranjit Chowdhry) worked multiple jobs without advancement weighs on him, as does the domestic abuse he witnessed growing up. He’s secular on the surface, and even rails against his wife, Saima (Purva Bedi), who has started wearing a hijab to work: “In this country, a good Muslim is an invisible Muslim,” he says, with a mix of sarcasm and bitterness.  “When I see a Muslim go after you fuckers…I get it,” Azeem tells a well-meaning white liberal friend (Andrew Hovelson). At such moments, An Ordinary Muslim calls to mind Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Disgraced. But whereas that play was taut and tightly focused, Chaudry and director Jo Bonney can’t sustain this

Theater review by Diane Snyder  Kate Hamill, whose humorous take on Sense and Sensibility was a hit last year, once again dramatizes a revered Jane Austen novel, mixing contemporary elements into the Regency-era setting. There is a pleasing simplicity to her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Eight actors play all the characters, swapping costumes and even genders, often to the accompaniment of modern love songs. But in Primary Stages’ frisky production, comedic bits overwhelm character. Director Amanda Dehnert lets the playful antics descend into uncontrolled theatrics as the Bennet sisters navigate the rocky road toward love and auspicious marriages.In the first act, especially, Dehnert and the company push so hard for laughs with supporting characters that the main story—about independent-minded Elizabeth (Hamill) and aloof Mr. Darcy (Jason O’Connell) swallowing their pride so they can realize their love—gets lost. The most effective moments are the ones with the most heart. O’Connell’s awkwardness as Darcy executes contemporary dance moves at a ball is endearing, and Chris Thorn delivers touching turns as both the mild Bennet patriarch and Lizzy’s practical friend Charlotte. Like Austen, they recognize the humor that can be found in restraint. Cherry Lane Theatre (Off Broadway). By Kate Hamill. Directed by Amanda Dehnert. With ensemble cast. Running time: 2hrs 25mins. One intermission. Through Jan 6. Follow Diane Snyder on Twitter: @DianeLSnyderFollow Time Out Theater on

Theater review by Diane Snyder “I don’t mind working with her,” says a male architecture-firm executive in Theresa Rebeck’s bitterly funny workplace comedy What We’re Up Against. “But she’s a bitch.” The she in question is the fiery, impatient Eliza (Krysta Rodriguez), who is not shy about asking for projects on par with those given to Weber (Skylar Astin), a man who was hired after her. But Eliza can’t even find solidarity with her only female colleague, Janice (Marg Helgenberger), and her boss, Stu (Damian Young), refuses to give her credit even when she solves an air-duct problem that’s had Ben (Jim Parrack) hyperventilating for some time. This is prime Rebeck territory—driven characters locking horns in pursuit of a prize—and the current political climate makes this 1992 play, only now getting its New York premiere, seem frighteningly timely. As Eliza schemes to advance her career, Rebeck pushes situations to the verge of satire, and she doesn’t spare her demanding protagonist. What We’re Up Against is not as fully realized as Rebeck’s later works such as Seminar and Mauritius; the premise wears thin, and the characters can come across as mouthpieces for a message. But director Adrienne Campbell-Holt and her accomplished cast, especially Rodriguez and Young, send sparks flying as genders and generations collide. WP Theater (Off Broadway). By Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt. With ensemble cast. Through Nov 26. Follow Diane Snyder on Twitter: @DianeLSnyde

Theater review by Diane Snyder Cultures collide and coexist in Ping Chong + Company’s sumptuous anthropological collage Alaxsxa | Alaska, which harmoniously incorporates puppetry, movement and video to explore America’s largest state. The region’s history—colonization by Russia, purchase by the U.S., rich oil resources—unfolds in scenes that are alternately playful and haunting; on the back wall, projections by Katherine Freer depict snow-covered landscapes and rough coastal waters. Deeply specific, the piece also touches on tensions endemic to the United States as a whole: between native and immigrant peoples, and between human beings and nature. Alaxsxa | Alaska takes its title from an indigenous name for the region and its anglicized version. At the core of the piece are Gary Upay’aq Beaver, a Central Yup’ik dancer and drummer, and Ryan Conarro, a Caucasian theater artist who moved to the state when he was 21. In monologues, they contrast their respective cultures and evoke the roughness of life on the northern American frontier. Created collaboratively by Chong and the performers, including puppeteer Justin Perkins, this theatrical feast bursts with vitality as vast as its subject. La MaMa E.T.C. (Off-Off Broadway). By Ping Chong, Ryan Conarro, Gary Upay’aq Beaver and Justin Perkins. Directed by Chong and Conarro. With ensemble cast. Running time: 1hr 25mins. No intermission. Through Oct 29. Follow Diane Snyder on Twitter: @DianeLSnyderFollow Time Out Theater on Twitter:

It’s been a dramatic year for Rupert Grint. The man who will forever be Ron Weasley to legions of Harry Potter devotees made his professional stage debut last fall in a London revival of Jez Butterworth’s thriller Mojo. (Notices were mostly positive for his jittery portrayal of a thuggish speed freak named Sweets.) Now Grint is on Broadway, in an updated version of Terrence McNally’s 1986 showbiz comedy It’s Only a Play, set at the chaotic opening-night party of a new Broadway show. Of course, Grint isn’t the only Harry Potter alum to have tested his talent onstage. Daniel Radcliffe has starred in three Broadway shows in the past six years. Grint’s Great White Way debut, however, places him in the middle of a seasoned ensemble that includes Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Megan Mullally, Stockard Channing and F. Murray Abraham. The morning after his 26th birthday, a friendly but low-key Grint talked about his Broadway debut, a prospect he deemed “quite scary.”How did you end up in this production? Were you looking to come to Broadway?It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, ever since my first taste of theater last year in the West End, when I did Mojo. This just kind of came up. I was quite hesitant at first, but it’s such a fun play and a great cast that I had to do it.You were hesitant?Yeah, just because of the scale of it. I thought I might be a little bit out of my depth. Everyone in this cast is so experienced—people I’ve watched while I was growing up—it was quite over