Edward Albee's "At Home At The Zoo: Homelife & The Zoo Story" at Signature is a pretty perfect evening of theatre. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, who directed the stellar "The Wolves" at The Playwright's Realm last year, and starring Robert Sean Leonard, Paul Sparks and the divine Katie Finneran, this is an evening of pure intellectual and artistic satisfaction. The scenic design by Andrew Lieberman takes the Cy Twombly squiggles that serve as a backdrop for the exploration of a marriage in "Homelife" and replicates them in the pattern of the park benches in the encounter between two strangers in "The Zoo Story." Albee always forces us to dig deeper and to think more about our preconceived beliefs of who we are. Signature is often hit or miss but they always get Albee right. Bravo!
The latest offering from The Playwright's Realm is a bit of a miss although an enjoyable one. Since their above-noted production of "The Wolves" and the equally impressive but less lauded "The Moors" their offerings have not been up to the mark. In Don Nguyen's "Hello, From The Children of Planet Earth" a lesbian couple who are having trouble in their attempts to conceive contact a male classmate and friend of one of the women, now a NASA scientist keeping track of the Voyager satellite, for help. Jade King Carroll adeptly directs the able cast but the subject matter is pretty old-hat. I feel like I've seen this play many times before. The most interesting aspect of the production is the character Farthest Explorer portrayed here by Olivia Oguma who as Voyager 2 muses about the universe from their place in space. I suppose there are parallels to be had to the situation on Earth but mainly I just enjoyed her performance.
"Hangmen" at Atlantic Theater Company is Martin McDonagh's latest, coming on the tail of his enormous success as writer/director the Academy Award nominated "Three Billboard Out of Ebbing, Missouri." I wasn't a fan of the film but his plays, most recently the "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" at BAM, are always powerful. "Hangmen," which had it's debut at The Royal Court Theatre in London, has retained it's director Matthew Dunster and much of the original cast including the mesmerizing and edgy Johnny Flynn as Mooney, a presumed rapist and murderer, and Mark Addy as Harry, one of the hangmen in question. Ultimately the play is a Wild West story of vigilante justice, superb in it's telling.
The Soho Rep is finally back in their home space on Walker Street with "Is God Is" by Aleshea Harris. The play is directed by Taibi Magar, who most recently directed the acclaimed "Underground Railroad Game" at Ars Nova. Twin sisters who were badly burned in a fire set by their father are sent by their dying mother who they barely know to find him and murder him. Dame-Jasmine Hughes and Alfie Fuller are terrifying as the sisters but then everyone in this gothic revenge play is pretty terrifying. I also couldn't stop feeling the influence of Sam Shepard throughout. Props to Soho Rep for producing a really fine play with black characters, a black playwright and a black director. That's what I call making it real. I'm back on board with Soho Rep!
I hate to end this blog post on a downer but Joshua Harmon's "Admissions" at Lincoln Center is a total fail in my book. The subject is tired and the direction and acting do nothing to raise the material. The son of the white admissions officer at an elite (but second-tier) prep school whose mantra is diversity is not accepted to the Ivy of his choice but his (half) black friend and classmate who has lower grades, test scores and fewer extra-curriculars has been. Crisis for the privilaged white family! Yawn. The biggest problem with the play though, directed by Daniel Aukin, is that there are no people of color in the cast. Or the audience at the performance I attended. I don't even know what to say about that...
