A Curious Entertainment

Review of Pride & Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse

Ken Ludwig's revisiting of Jane Austen's Pemberley—where her Elizabeth Bennett (Delphi Borich) now resides, somewhat bored, as the wife of her beloved Fitzwilliam Darcy (Tony Roach)—offers not only a sense of what life might be like for Austen couples in the "happy-ever-after" that succeeds her novels but also a more surprising element: what if an actual, famous historical contemporary joined them?

Delphi Borich as Elizabeth Darcy, Tony Roach as Fitzwilliam Darcy in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Pride and Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, now playing as an entertaining drawing-room comedy at Westport Country Playhouse, directed by Emily Mann, gets most of its humor from Austenian sources, such as the fatuous Mr. Collins, played with unctuous pomposity by Carson Elrod, and the preening Lady Catherine de Bourgh played with vivacious hauteur by Kristine Nielson. Other Austen creations—such as Lady Catherine's daughter Anne (Allison Wick) and Elizabeth's sister Lydia (Lucy Austin)—seem to have more depth than they do in Kate Hamill's oft-produced comic reworking of Pride and Prejudice. Consequently, we steer clear of outright farce and closer to period drama.

Delphi Borich as Elizabeth Darcy, Carson Elrod as Mr. Collins in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley; Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

The fly in the ointment of tranquil life at Pemberley comes in the form of the abdicated emperor of France about to go into exile on Elbe. The setup turns on the fact that there are troops in the area in Pride and Prejudice, which is set in the 1790s, because Britain had declared war on France. In the play, it's 1814 or so, which is when Napoleon went to Elbe (P & P was originally published in 1813). Ludwig's conceit is that the ever-ambitious and generally cultured French general, statesman, emperor and bon vivant has to pass a little time in Britain first. At a personal request from Their Majesty's government, the Darcys, not without considerable trepidation on Fitzwilliam's part, put up the great man.

Reg Rogers as Napoleon Buonaparte in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Fortunately, the great man is played by Reg Rogers, and he wears Napoleon's world-weariness and inveterate charm quite well. Accompanied by the American Lieutenant Melville (Mathias Goldstein), the former Emperor-General, assuming the role of a fencing-master, treats his new surroundings with curiosity as if anything might be turned to his purpose. To prevent that, Carson Elrod's nervy Major Hudson Lowe is on-hand to nip any escape plans in the bud. Meanwhile Melville, without shirking his duties, finds the time to spark with Anne. Lydia, as in Austen, is apt to throw herself at any available man in uniform.

Lucy Austin as Lydia Wickham, Allison Wick as Anne de Bourgh, Mathias Goldstein as Lt. Melville in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

In this incarnation, Napoleon has impeccable manners but is also down to earth. He takes an interest in his hostess, which causes Elizabeth to take stock of herself to a degree that transforms her from an Austen heroine to someone more politically formidable. As Elizabeth, Delphi Borich has the requisite sense of a woman whose capacities have not yet been tested. Easily the best moment in the play is when, while still wearing her gown, Elizabeth dons riding boots, a military coat and hat and a sword. The hybrid nature of the venture—Austen heroine to action hero!—is dramatically displayed.

Kristine Nielson as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Reg Rogers as Napoleon Buonaparte in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Kristine Nielson, noted for her role as the sympathetic cook in the van Rhijn/Brook home in The Gilded Age TV series, might wish that, now fully "upstairs," she'd been provided some of the sparkle Julian Fellowes, the series' author, gave Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. It's not that Ludwig's not equal to the requisite Regency-speak, it's just that Fellowes has made this sort of thing his forté. Here, there's no clash of wits, no serious contretemps (though there is some nice swordplay), and, in the age of literate television or streaming serials, the dialogue, by contrast, is more patter than pointed.

Reg Rogers as Napoleon Buonaparte, Mathias Goldstein as Lt. Melville, Carson Elrod as Major Hudson Lowe in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley; photo by Carol Rosegg

Napoleon, as force of history, isn't up to all that much. He's in favor of a ball, if only as a diversion. He’s concerned about the fortunes of his former wife, Josephine. And he teaches Lydia how to waltz. He’s like a distant uncle paying a visit and arguing for how much the world needs to be changed. He also quotes Byron approvingly and likes talking books with Elizabeth.

As usual at Westport, the visuals are quite sumptuous. Beowulf Boritt's set makes one long to find a way to time-travel to such an estate, while Napoleon's greatcoat, via Jennifer von Mayrhauser’s pleasant costume design, is stylish with a very lived-in look.

The cast of Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

In the end, one can't help wondering about Ludwig's intention. To show that one of the best Austen heroines can be improved upon, if only she takes an interest in matters in the world around her of more moment than who marries whom? To show that, once upon a time, a self-crowning emperor who came up through the ranks and waged war and conquered other countries, could also do some good in the world while also taking an interest in humble lives? As a playful fiction Pride and Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley merely asks our indulgence in entertaining a curious entertainment.

Reg Rogers as Napoleon Buonaparte, Lucy Austin as Lydia Wickham in Ken Ludwig’s Pride and Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Pride & Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley
By Ken Ludwig
Directed by Emily Mann

Set Designer: Beowulf Boritt; Costume Designer: Jennifer von Mayrhauser; Co-Lighting Designers: Jeff Croiter, Katy Atwell; Sound Designer & Additional Arrangements: Mark Bennett; Wig/Hair Designer: Carissa Thorlakson; Choreographer: JoAnn M. Hunter; Fight Director/Intimacy Coordinator: Michael Rossmy; Voice and Dialect Coach: Deborah A. Hecht; Creative Associate: Ashley D. Polasek; Production Stage Manager: Christopher Kee Anaya-Gorman; Props Supervisor: Robert Lavagno; Casting: Stephanie Klapper, CSA

Cast: Lucy Austin, Delphi Borich, Carson Elrod, Mathias Goldstein, Kristine Nielsen, Tony Roach, Reg Rogers, Allison Wick

Westport Country Playhouse
October 20-November 7, 2026

Reign of Terror

Review of Dracula, Hartford Stage

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's adaptation of Dracula, Bram Stoker's venerable horror story, receives its American premiere, directed by Jackson Gay, at Hartford Stage through November 1st (the day after Halloween). Riw Rakkulchon's fascinating set provides Gothic atmosphere aplenty, centered by arched windows with missing panes, everything grayish and generally sepulchral. Fabian Fidel Aguilar's imaginatively rendered costumes, assisted by Tommy Kurzman's Wig, Hair & Make-up Design, with Paul Whitaker's expert lighting and Caroline Eng's involving sound all serve to render what should be a suitably macabre experience, as fans of the Transylvanian count's enumerable appearances in theater, film, TV, comics (you name it), have come to expect. Credit as well, in this very physical spectacle, to Movement Coordinator Shura Baryshnikov and Fight Director Rod Kinter.

Where this Dracula goes wrong is in the telling, far too expository, and in its polemical but mostly rhetorical politics. The dramatization works against the story we've gathered to enjoy. Horror buffs beware.

Sara Gutierrez as Mina Harker in Dracula, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

In a seeming preface, Mina Harker (Sara Gutierrez) informs us she's the only survivor of the events she will recount with the aid of four ensemble actors (Scout Backus, Caitlin Elizabeth Cloutier, Anney Giobbe, Pauli). A fifth (Lucas Dixon) plays only Mina's husband Jonathan, source of the first account of Dracula as he journeys to the Count's castle to meet him and facilitate his acquisition of land in England. To be fair, Mina does warn us to question the teller, while trying to mine the idea that essentially we only fear what we're taught to fear. Still, given where this is going, we've much cause to question what we're told and how it's told. It's an interesting point, since Stoker's narrative consists of multiple tellers—in journals and letters—so nothing is directly "authorial."

That opening presentation evolves into swiftly changing scenes which more or less use the novel's language to help us imagine what's happening before us. It's a bit like watching pantomime with very long title cards. If you've read the novel, you may have noted that no enacted version of the Count quite captures Stoker's rendering, yet we're generally given some kind of physical rendition. Not so here.

Lucas Dixon as Jonathan Harker, Pauli as the Coachman in Dracula, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

In his long career (the novel was first published in 1897), Dracula has been depicted as exotically regal, as hypnotic and unfeeling, as romantic and handsome, as creepy and animalistic, but here we have only Jonathan's words for him: he is old, hairy, sinister, with noisome breath. Later, of course, the image of the Count changes, becoming younger once he has human victims to prey upon. This production uses effectively a few visual renderings of the more threatening aspects of Dracula (the mirror breaking is imaginative and gives a shred of hope), but the lack of consistency becomes a distraction, including a rather comical-looking wolf-beast.

We soon become aware that the distractions are not faults of the production but deliberate. Malcolm and Gay, via Mina, want to exploit a Brechtian sense of how best to keep the audience from settling into a shared fantasy. That approach effectively disrupts the horror story elements, but to what end?

Sara Gutierrez as Mina Harker, with phonograph, in Dracula, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

If the aim were merely burlesque (and campy lampoons of Dracula are common), then we'd accept such things as Dr. Seward represented by a phonograph recording and the nonbinary comical threesome who try to hunt down Dracula's coffin (it should be said Malcolm's version follows the book's plot fairly accurately). The trio of suitors for the hand of Mina's friend Lucy (Scout Backus) are easily played for laughs (stock characters all), and here Van Helsing (Pauli), the vampire-expert, gets the same treatment (though not nearly as campy as Anthony Hopkins' hilariously over-the-top depiction in Coppola's 1992 film version).

Scout Backus as Lucy Westenra in Dracula, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

All of which might be a way of saying that this is Dracula as pastiche, pulling in anything deemed suitable—including Monty Pythonesque renderings of Grand Guignol effects. It's carnival, it's funhouse, it's a lecture, and three performances emerge from the farrago: first, Scout Backus delivers a truly riveting turn as Lucy transformed from bubbly would-be bride to heaving demon; Sara Gutierrez, saddled with delivering way too many explanatory speeches and hints on what we should think about what we're seeing, holds the proceedings together with a spirited delivery; to Lucas Dixon falls the task of playing a bewildered actor playing a stuffed shirt who also whimpers and cringes and eventually breaks the fourth wall so as to make us either feel sorry for him or for ourselves for being party to this.

Lucas Dixon as Jonathan Harker, Sara Gutierrez as Mina Harker in Dracula, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Agitprop in favor of feminist solidarity and against the deprivations of male dominance certainly has a purpose. But why yoke it to Dracula? The notion that Lucy and Mina were would-be lovers demonized by male expectations and repressive scientism was part of feminist revision of the novel when taught in literature classes over twenty years ago (it's likely feminist reinterpretations brought the novel back into the canon in the first place). Even so, trying to heroicize those converted to the Count's form of "love" goes wildly awry, if one entertains any notion of what Dracula was conceived to mean.

In Stoker's version, the vampire is quite simply a figure for the utter perversion of the natural order—not as sexual analogy or gender identity, but as the will to live forever, no matter what monsters that would make of us, preying upon all other forms of life to keep "us" going. That goal is still vigorously sought after by certain elites and always will be. The further element—why all the crosses and holy water eschewed by this version—is that "everlasting life," according to Christian dogma, was something granted only in the hereafter, so to aim for it in "this world" is unholy and evil.

Sara Gutierrez as Mina Harker in Dracula, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Mina, in the end, becomes a new Robespierre, advocating a reign of terror in the name of all who have suffered at masculine hands. What drives the stake through the heart of this conceit is that the forces of good must align with the ghoulish undead. Though it pains me to say it, this Dracula is more dead than alive.

Dracula
By Bram Stoker
Adapted by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
Directed by Jackson Gay

Scenic Design: Riw Rakkulchon; Costume Design: Fabian Fidel Aguilar; Lighting Design: Paul Whitaker; Sound Design: Caroline Eng; Wig, Hair & Make-up Design: Tommy Kurzman; Fight Director: Rod Kinter; Movement Coordinator: Shura Baryshnikov; Dialect & Voice Coach: Julie Foh; Casting: Alaine Alldaffer, CSA and Lisa Donadio; Production Stage Manager: Avery Trunko; Assistant Stage Manager: Theresa Stark; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Scout Backus, Caitlin Elizabeth Clouthier, Lucas Dixon, Anny Giobbe, Sara Gutierrez, Pauli

Hartford Stage
October 9-November 1, 2026

A Wonder to Behold

Review of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Yale Repertory Theatre

August Wilson plays are not easy-going entertainments, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, one of his earliest, now playing in a stirring revival at Yale Repertory Theatre through October 24, is one of the hardest-hitting.

The play's first professional production in 1984 took place at Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Lloyd Richards, then Artistic Director of the theater and Dean of the Yale Drama School. Not only a return to where the play originated, the current production is directed by Timothy Douglas who, as a student at the Drama School at the time, was an understudy for the role of Sylvester. With this production, Douglas, a premiere interpreter of Wilson's plays, completes his staging of all ten plays in Wilson's Century Cycle, a remarkable achievement. The milestone of directing the play that marked the real start of Wilson's career, at the very same theater where the play's first professional production and Douglas' own introduction to Wilson's work took place, has the ring of an epic circle completed.

Terence Archie as Cutler, Ray Anthony Thomas as Slow Drag, Jimmie J.J. Jeter as Levee Green, Dion Graham as Toledo in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas; photo by Joan Marcus

Set in Chicago in 1927, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom unfolds more or less in real time in a recording studio. Three musicians—Cutler (Terence Archie), trombone, Slow Drag (Ray Anthony Thomas), bass, Toledo (Dion Graham), piano—joined by a fourth, Levee Green (Jimmie J.J. Jeter), trumpet, are there to record as accompanists for Ma Rainey (Maiesha McQueen), an actual recording star of the period, known as "the mother of the Blues," whose trademark song gives the play its title. Ma is late, and we get to know the musicians as their desultory conversation lets us observe faultlines in their approaches to their profession, to the world, and in their attitudes toward each other. We also observe tensions between the two white men on hand: Mr. Sturdyvant (Neal Lerner), who runs the studio, and Mr. Irvin (Jeff Parker), who manages Ma, ostensibly.

Brittany Antoinette Davis as Dussie Mae, Maiesha McQueen as Ma Rainey, Mark Yarde as Sylvester in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas; photo by Joan Marcus

Designed by Richard Lee, and set on the University Theater's wide and high stage, Douglas' Ma Rainey has open spaces and a leisurely air. Up above the studio and the band room, a control booth looms, reached by a long flight of stairs. The main action centers on the band in the rehearsal room, surrounded by a higher area where other action takes place. Though not visually separated, we understand that the two areas are distinct, their difference signaled by raising or lowering the lighting (Amanda Burtness, Lighting Design). The studio area—which includes a couch and other furniture—is mainly presided over by the white characters and, when she finally arrives like a minor cyclone, along with her nephew Sylvester (Mark Yarde) and her companion Dussie Mae (Brittany Antoinette Davis), Ma. In the studio area, we see a policeman (Peter Bisgaier) accept bribes to smooth over an altercation that took place between a motorist and Ma and her entourage en route to the studio, and we watch Ma bicker with Irvin and Sturdyvant over song choices and arrangements. It's also the space where Levee delivers an emotionally charged speech at the end of Act 1, telling a tragic story about what his parents suffered at the hands of white men, followed by Slow Drag, in the band room, singing, "if I had my way I would tear this old building down."

That powerful moment before intermission might make us think the band members are now coalescing, able to please both Ma's dictatorial ways as well as the studio's requirements, while also bonding in their grasp of the Blues as an expression of their collective condition. But things won't be that simple. Largely because of the overweening ego, drive, and bitterness of Levee, a live-wire, loose cannon, and the centerpiece of the play, who strives to dominate in the band-room.

Neal Lerner as Sturdyvant, Ray Anthony Thomas as Slow Drag, Jimmie J.J. Jeters as Levee Green, Dion Graham as Toledo in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas; photo by Joan Marcus

Levee is a man with a mission: he believes the Blues should be modernized with jazz elements rather than retain its folksy qualities, which he calls "jugband." With his expensive Florsheim shoes, his urban patter, and a voice that's in the others' faces even when he's just killing time, Levee sets himself apart, belittling the other musicians, constantly interrupting or contending with their versions of things—whether how a song should be played, or what stops a particular train actually makes. He also tries to make time with Ma's gal, Dussie Mae, and dares to challenge Ma's musical taste and judgment. He's an upstart, but he can write music, and he may have the future on his side. Jimmie J.J. Jeter's performance as Levee is nothing short of astounding; when you think he's given all Levee has to offer, there's more. It's a flawless characterization of a driven man facing one too many setbacks.

The three other musicians are older than Levee and, for the most part, mellow and laidback. They are professionals who are there to perform a task, not remake the world through music. Each has a deep background to draw on, and their musical style is companionable and charged with fellow feeling.

Terence Archie gives Cutler, who is the bandleader, a no-nonsense style as he pitches himself to his white employers as dependable and capable, and to Ma as fully in her corner. When Ma insists Sylvester, despite his recurring stutter, record the spoken introduction to the "Black Bottom" song, Cutler thinks it hopeless, but won't tell Ma that.

Slow Drag seems the eldest and, while most concerned to record and be on his way, he's also given a genial, indulgent quality by Ray Anthony Thomas, making him a willing entertainer: rehearsing the vocal on one of Ma's songs, doing card-tricks, and memorably displaying why they call him "Slow Drag."

Toledo is perhaps the least accomplished musically, or at least he takes the brunt of Levee's digs, but Dion Thomas gives Toledo a meditative sagacity based on the pianist's interest in their African forebears. Toledo, unlike the others, can read, and so presumes knowledge, and that's just the kind of thing to set Levee off—whom Toledo calls "ignorant without a premise."

Together, the trio, while not united against Levee, tend to view him as a pebble in the shoe, an irritation but not a big deal. His effort is to prove them wrong.

Maiesha McQueen as Ma Rainey, backed by the company of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas; photo by Joan Marcus

As Ma Rainey, Maiesha McQueen delivers the irritable majesty of a grand dame, while showing how hard-won Ma's victories are, and how well she knows the levels of exploitation that define her career. In her delivery of the title song, McQueen looks to be having so much fun, dallying with Brittany Antoinette Davis's slinky Dussie Mae, we might almost think the long day will end well. We're encouraged in that view when Sylvester, played with agreeable passivity by Mark Yarde, rises to the challenge Ma has given him.

No one writes banter like August Wilson. The way these characters talk to each other establishes not only their individual natures, but also lets us understand them as distinct types who contribute to a fraught community. Ultimately, Wilson is after bigger game than simply the differences of opinion about authenticity in the Blues or the frictions between Black artists and White producers. The violence that erupts more than once and is threatened at other times suggests deep anger and desperation below the surface events. When Levee calls out "Cutler's God," the importance of their disagreement and discontent reaches new levels of agon.

Terence Archie as Cutler, Ray Anthony Thomas as Slow Drag, Jimmie J.J. Jeters as Levee Green, Dion Graham as Toledo in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas; photo by Joan Marcus

As the only one of Wilson's ten Century Cycle plays not set in Pittsburgh, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom gives a glimpse of the stakes for Black artists in the world at large. It also shows Wilson, early in his career, working with the style and content that would come to mark his significant contribution to American arts and letters. These are characters Chekhovian in their many-sided particularity. At times amusing and amused, at times angry and confrontational, at times reflective or manipulative. Due no doubt to Timothy Douglas' enduring familiarity with Wilson's canon, the current Rep production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom feels lived in and bedrock solid. It's a wonder to behold.

August Wilson's
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Directed by Timothy Douglas

Scenic Designer: Richard Lee; Costume Designer: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting Designer: Amanda Burtness; Sound Designer: Robert Salerno; Hair Designer: Matthew Armentrout; Music Director: John Bronston; Production Dramaturgs: Eric M. Glover, Layla Williams; Technical Director: Cat Slanski; Fight and Intimacy Director: Kelsey Rainwater; Vocal Coach: Julie Foh; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: Payton Gunner

Cast: Terence Archie, Peter Bisgaier, Brittany Antoinette Davis, Dion Graham, Jimmie J. J. Jeter, Neal Lerner, Maiesha McQueen, Jeff Parker, Ray Anthony Thomas, Mark Yarde

Yale Repertory Theatre
October 2-24, 2026

Everybody's Got Something to Hide

Review of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Westport Country Playhouse

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie's much respected murder mystery, has been adapted for the stage by Mark Shanahan and, lovingly directed by him, is playing at Westport Country Playhouse through August 1st. It's an entertaining and involving drama about concealment and revealing.

The Company of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Fernly Park is a grand mansion looming over a quaint English village called King's Abbot. It is owned by rich Roger Ackroyd whose midlife love, Mrs. Ferrars, a recent widow, has been found dead just before the story opens. Our informant on these goings on is the town's only doctor, the affable James Sheppard. Together with his gossipy sister, Caroline, James brings us up to speed on Ackroyd's difficulties with his stepson, Ralph Paton, believed to be engaged to Flora Ackroyd, Roger's niece, but absent from the area.

Surprisingly included at a dinner at Fernly Park, Dr. Sheppard is made a confidant by Ackroyd, giving him information about blackmail and possible foul play in the deaths of Mrs. Ferrars' husband and herself. The plot thickens considerably when Ackroyd himself is found dead later that night after receiving a mysterious letter.

John Rapson as Dr. James Sheppard, Anthony Cochrane as Hercule Poirot, Erin Noel Grennan as Caroline Sheppard, and Katy Tang as Ursula Bourne in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

As it happens, a newcomer to the village lives next-door to the Sheppards. Agatha Christie's sleuth Hercule Poirot (famed both in reality and in the play's fiction) has retired to this out-of-the-way hamlet only to be beseeched by Flora to investigate her uncle's death. Poirot cautions her that, once he begins to investigate he will continue to the end, when the truth will be known, no matter whom it compromises. As we come to learn: everyone here has something to hide, and this complex mystery gets juicier as it goes, once we begin to see the levels of duplicity involved.

Mark Shanahan's adaptation is a wonder of economy, keeping the wheels of the plot turning and giving everyone in his stellar cast of twelve at least a scene or two of dramatic crux. The skillful cast is able to be both comic and anxious, mystified and aggravated, playing well "the mask" that Poirot claims each hides behind. It's a superlative mystery delivered with Westport Country Playhouse's characteristic panache.

John Rapson as Dr. James Sheppard, Karen Ziemba as Gertrude Ackroyd, and Anthony Cochrane as Hercule Poirot in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Westport Country Playhouse; photo T. Charles Erickson

Shereen Ahmed's Flora is a graceful ingenue apt to get upset, but her effort to enact an experimental recreation lets Ahmed display fun comic touches; Joe Delafield, as Ralph Paton, unfortunately gets little stage time as he spends much of the play in hiding, but his fraught phone-call to Sheppard is early gold; Allen Gilmore as earnest Inspector Raglan is mostly a comic foil to Poirot, generally a few steps behind but believing himself ahead; Erin Noel Grennan as Dr. Sheppard's discerning sister gets the best of her every scene as the play's most sympathetic character; as Major Hector Blunt, Richard R. Henry gets to bluster and, at a key moment, explode into unexpected violence; Tom Hewitt plays Parker, Ackroyd's longsuffering butler, with the air of someone who deserves so much better than his "betters"; Nicole Shalhoub plays Helen Russell, Ackroyd's secretary and a patient of Sheppard's, as someone who seems to know much more than she tells; Katy Tang is a discontented maid who becomes a key informant, with her own secret to reveal; Karen Ziemba's Gertrude Ackroyd is a memorable evocation of the once grande-dame fallen on hard times—grasping, scheming and entirely intolerant of her social inferiors; as Dr. Sheppard, John Rapson is likeable and forthcoming—particularly about his confusion and his lack of penetration when it comes to human subterfuge; Mark Silence, as Ackroyd, is suitably jangled and unsettled, a man whose worries urge him to find a confidant; finally, Anthony Cochrane's Hercule Poirot is a triumph, giving us both the Belgian sleuth's unctuousness, but also showing surprising passion and, at times, a dark turn of mind that suits well this deft play's delve into hidden depths.

Anthony Cochrane as Hercule Poirot in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

More than is the case with many murder mysteries, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is about revelation, showing that the truths of motive, opportunity and means expose how fallible any of us could be. Poirot's relentless search for the truth keeps us fully engaged through all the twists and turns and red herrings.

Most of the play takes place in the handsomely accoutered Fernly Park, a wonderful set by Charlie Corcoran that exudes both grand taste and a stately settled quality that plays well against the querulous emotions of its inhabitants and guests. Other locations—the Sheppards' home, the garden that joins the Sheppards and Poirot, the boathouse where some significant clues are discovered—are suggested by minor props, and so the whole drama keeps returning to the spacious drawing room at Fernly. Costumes by Jeni Schafer are a feast for the eyes as well, that, together with Julie Duro's Lighting Design and John Gromada's Sound Design, give the whole a cinematic grandeur that makes the play seem truly another world.

John Rapson as Dr. James Sheppard and Anthony Cochrane as Hercule Poirot in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Take the time to inhabit Fernly Hall, you won't be sorry—but please, turn off your cellphone if you do! If you don’t, we may be forgiven our murderous thoughts.

Agatha Christie's
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Adapted for the stage and directed by Mark Shanahan

Scenic Design: Charlie Corcoran; Costume & Wig Design: Jeni Schaefer; Lighting Design: Julie Duro; Sound Design & Original Music: John Gromada; Fight Choreography: Seth Andrew Bridges; Assistant Director: Bruce Warren; Props Supervisor: Chloe Cobb; Production Stage Manager: Kevin Jinghong Zhu; Assistant Stage Manager: Matthew Rohan; Production Assistant: Sarah Rachel Katz

Cast: Shereen Ahmed, Anthony Cochrane, Joe Delafield, Allen Gilmore, Erin Noel Grennan, Richard R. Henry, Tom Hewitt, John Rapson, Nicole Shalhoub, Mark Silence, Katy Tang, Karen Ziemba

Westport Country Playhouse
July 14-August 1, 2026

Just a Short One

Review of The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

George Kulp, a founding member of the New Haven Theater Company, has a way with sets. Together with Rich Burkham, Kulp has devised a cozy pub that looks lived-in and worn, with a stone fireplace, a wood-burning stove, an ancient cash register, and photos on the wall that ostensibly capture the local history of the setting of NHTC's latest offering, Conor McPherson's The Weir. Set in Sligo, an out-of-the-way town in West Ireland, the play features four locals and a newcomer. All gathered in the pub on a windy night, they begin to regale one another with unnerving tales. Directed by Kulp, The Weir plays for the next two weekends, May 7-9 and May 14-16.

Steve Scarpa, George Kulp, J. Kevin Smith, Melissa Anderson, Gavin Whelan, John Bachelder on the set of The Weir

Kulp said he's been thinking about The Weir since NHTC staged McPherson's The Seafarer back in 2014. In that play, Kulp played the newcomer to a friendly group of Irish cardplayers, a figure with an occult significance. The two plays are linked by the fact that the Irish characters like to sling what they call "the cod," which is anything from exaggeration to hearsay to outright fiction, fed by the sense that, as Hamlet says, "there are more things between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Jim (Steve Scarpa), Jack J. Kevin Smith), Brendan (Gavin Whelan) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

There are weird things in The Weir, which takes its name from the one technological innovation in the area: a weir, or hydraulic dam, that regulates water flow. If metaphorical, we might assume McPherson has in mind a weir as analogous to how the flow of dialogue in the bar moves toward greater and greater personal revelation.

Brendan (Gavin Whelan), Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Valerie (Melissa Anderson), Finbar (John Bachelder), Jim (Steve Scarpa) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

The New Haven Theater Company has a way with plays featuring strong dialogue, and The Weir, which thrives on banter, is a bit like getting the band back together. Founding member Steve Scarpa returns to the stage, not having been in an NHTC show since 2017, when he appeared in Middletown and A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney, though he directed Kulp last season in Heisenberg. The latter play, a two-hander, also featured a memorable role for Melissa Anderson who returns as Valerie, the newcomer to Sligo from Dublin. Scarpa had a key role in The Seafarer and here he plays Jim, a somewhat taciturn figure who tells the most harrowing story. That is until Valerie decides to share a story from her past.

Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Finbar (John Bachelder) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

Two of the locals are rather antagonistic toward each other, sometimes in a good-natured way, other times with more manifest bitterness and hostility. Jack is played by J. Kevin Smith, president of the NHTC board, and a regular actor in NHTC shows, notably as Walt Disney in A Public Reading..., in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story in 2020 and Annapurna in 2022, both two-handers. Here, Jack is a small business owner and bettor on horses who resents the way Finbar asserts himself thanks to his increased fortunes via lucrative real estate deals. The play is set in the 1990s and Finbar is benefiting from the era of the "Celtic Tiger," when land in Ireland suddenly became a commercial investment. Finbar is played by John Bachelder who participated in the staged reading of Incident at Vichy at NHTC in 2016; he has also played in The Seafarer, though not with NHTC.

Brendan (Gavin Whelan) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

The final cast member is the barkeep Brendan, who established the premises on his farm, primarily to give the regulars a place to congregate, though in the summer the exasperating German tourists have a way of taking over. Brendan is played by Gavin Whelan who was notable as the dissenting disciple in last spring's The Christians.

Conor McPherson has a way with storytelling. The plot of The Weir is minimal; what matters is what these born raconteurs talk about to pass the time. The main question is whether or not Valerie will fit in, and why Finbar, the only married man amongst them, has taken it  upon himself to show Valerie around town. The three single men may have a shot, maybe not, but it's Finbar who gets the ball rolling, telling about a house said to be built on a "faery road." The house just happens to be the one Valerie is now living in.

Finbar (John Bachelder) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

Each character but Brendan gets a chance to hold the floor, holding our attention with a story that features a touch of the supernatural, but which also reveals something about the attitude and general outlook of the speaker. Brendan, while not as apt to spin yarns, is given an important sense of presence by Whelan; he's not only the group's host, he seems to have his own unspoken thoughts about the way the others orchestrate their verbal arias. Jim's story, for instance, has the feel of a fever dream, a hallucination, or a dark look at Jim's inner self. As played by Scarpa, Jim, who lives with his ailing mother, is the most retiring or shy, and his comment on Valerie's story clearly aggravates Brendan.

Jim (Steve Scarpa), Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Valerie (Melissa Anderson) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

Bachelder's Finbar, in his fancy suit and general air of knowing more than the others, is the least likeable, but he's also clearly the one who has taken the measure of the company. He condescends to the others. Jack resents such attitudes and has donned a suit to maintain his own dignity. As presented by Smith, Jack is garrulous and discontented, but he's also a steady performer, using the bar as his prized space to hold court. He's the most charismatic, though grown a bit seedy. His final story—the only one without a touch of the supernatural—presents a "one that got away" tale that, in the telling, perhaps is an opening for Valerie's consideration.

Valerie (Melissa Anderson) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

Valerie's story is delivered by Anderson in a nicely modulated rise from a kind of get-acquainted background story to a heartbreaking realization of mortal helplessness and mystery. Up until then, she has seemed at most the perennial "good sport," listening to liquored men vie for her attention while pretending to sip an undrinkable white. But after Anderson's tour de force presentation of Valerie's state, we may well wonder if we've become like the wedding guest in Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," made to hear a story retold when there is no way it can have a different ending.

The Weir leaves you feeling glad for human company and that inestimable ability to put things into words.

Jack (J. Kevin Smith), Brendan (Gavin Whelan), Valerie (Melissa Anderson) in The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

The Weir
By Conor McPherson
Directed by George Kulp

Co-Producers: Ralph Buonocore and Gavin Whelan; Production Stage Manager: Stacy Lupo; Set Design: Rich Burkham and George Kulp; Lighting Design: Adam Lobelson; Dialect Coach: Moira Malone

Cast: Melissa Anderson, John Bachelder, Steve Scarpa, J. Kevin Smith, Gavin Whelan

New Haven Theater Company
April 30-May 2; May 7-9; May 14-16, 2026 

Utopia Dreamin'

Review of Furlough's Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre

A dramatic consideration of the fraught relations between two cousins, a. k. payne's Furlough's Paradise gives us access to the conversations between Mina and Sade (or De) as well as to the deeper, wordless fears and anxieties that prey on them. As directed by abigail jean-baptiste, at Yale Repertory Theatre through May 16, much of the show's theatrical power comes from choreographed enactments of emotional states it would be hard to put into words or describe accurately. The two actors in the show—Tiffany McLarty (Mina) and Lauren F. Walker (Sade)—provide a tour de force of the psychic states of these loving but somewhat estranged kin, as they try to find a footing for their continued kinship.

Sade (Lauren F. Walker), Mina (Tiffany McLarty) in Furlough’s Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The play throws a lot at us. Not only trying to suss the backgrounds of the two cousins—what they had in common, where they diverged—but also what their issues with one another are, in the present. When we meet them, after a striking mute sequence with the tone of a horror film, they have just returned from a funeral for Sade's mother, Mina's aunt. The immediate contention is the cremation that Mina ordered without consulting Sade, who was not available. Eventually, we learn that's because she is currently incarcerated upstate and what we're watching is the weekend furlough she was given in order to attend the funeral.

Mina (Tiffany McLarty) in Furlough’s Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

There's a lot more, including: Sade giving birth at eighteen, before going to prison for an unspecified crime which, to Sade's mind, was a case of "an eye for an eye"; Mina getting an Ivy League degree and taking a job at google in LA and now having a girlfriend living in San Francisco; interspersed with details of the cousins bringing each other up to date are a flowing stream of  judgmental comments, free associative recollections of childhood—often in the context of the TV shows they watched and Halloween costumes—with a constant undercurrent of how disappointing their lives seem, and how much injustice they’ve experienced as simply the way things are.

Which brings us to the main thematic concerns of Furlough's Paradise. Both Mina and Sade have hopes for the future and the way they share them and discuss them is the heart of the play. For Sade, a supportive group in prison has begun to fantasize a future utopia, conceived as place free from social stigmas, from being forced into racial or gendered roles. Lauren F. Walker conveys Sade's idealism with a nearly rapturous assertion of positive over negative forces. While, to bring her plan to fruition, it would help if she could walk on water, we almost believe she could, so powerful is her inner conviction. Mina, by contrast, is ostensibly more "realistic," but her situation with Gina, or g, seems, the more we learn, to thrive on a certain disjunct between how she imagines their relationship and how it actually works. There are good laughs in how Sade reacts to each new detail. The upshot is that Sade, while idealistic and often petulant, can be a soulful sounding-board.

Sade (Lauren F. Walker) in Furlough’s Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

That it seems, finally, is what these two uneasy spirits offer each other. Not simply a shared background that includes Uncle Edward blasting Louis Armstrong and reading his paper on his porch, like "y'all think you white," but a way of seeing each other as only kin can, as a different outcome that originated in similar circumstances, and as a work in progress that requires some idea of where it's been to understand where it's going. At one point the cousins remark on TV show plots that sent characters "back to nineteen fifty" so that "these black kids know themselves." What they know—what it means to be considered Black, the product of a certain history, with particular origins—is what they most want to question as they become mature adults.

As sometimes happens with Yale Repertory shows, the resources of the staging can almost overwhelm the play. There are busy projections, a sprawling set that never feels like an intimate space for the cousins, with a supposedly rickety bathroom that looks like an isolation chamber, and auditory clips—TV, music—that add specificity but inhibit the flow somewhat. At such moments we feel the pressure to believe in a particular, historical reality, as we would with characters naturalistically considered. But the more evocative aspects of the staging transport us into what feels like the inner imaginative worlds of Mina and Sade.

Mina (Tiffany McLarty), Sade (Lauren F. Walker) in Furlough’s Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The script works-in topical particularities—like Fresh Prince, or Sade's "Smooth Operator," or The Cheetah Girls, or google—that ground the cousins in a certain reality, but at times aims for something more like Ntozake Shange's for colored girls…, which gets mentioned a few times, rendering speech as a way of speaking poetry. This gives phrasing as much importance as any action we see taking place, and lets the set become a surrounding space rather than a lived-in interior.

Mina (Tiffany McLarty), Sade (Lauren F. Walker) in Furlough’s Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The play is at its best when it pursues how these two persons make sense of their lives and work through their material memories with one another. Lauren F. Walker's performance is particularly sensitive to Sade's eloquent mood swings. Tiffany McLarty gives Mina a grounded sensibleness that works well against Sade's flights. Together, the imperative to find common ground becomes more emotionally involving as we grasp the stakes of what these two demand from life and expect from each other. Furlough's Paradise invites us to imagine a world very different from ours, even as it gives us entrance into the very real world Mina and Sade share.

Furlough's Paradise
By a. k. payne
Directed by abigail jean-baptiste

Scenic Designer: Anthony Robles; Costume Designer: Rea J. Brown; Lighting Designer: Alan C. Edwards; Original Music and Sound Design: Constant Dzah; Projection Designer: Wiktor Freifeld; Hair and Wig Designer: Nikiya Mathis; Choreographer: Ogemdi Ude; Production Dramaturg: Ashley M. Thomas; Technical Director: Shannon Dodson; Fight and Intimacy Director: Kelsey Rainwater; Vocal and Dialect Coach: Julie Foh; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: ty ruwe

Cast: Tiffany McLarty, Lauren F. Walker

Yale Repertory Theatre
April 24-May 16, 2026

Fencing with Disaster

Review of Native Gardens, Hartford Stage

"Good fences make good neighbors," the old saying goes, indicating that a clear demarcation between properties keeps things pleasant. In Karen Zacarías' Native Gardens, now playing at Hartford Stage through May 10, directed by Nicole A. Watson, a bad fence, wrongly placed, nearly brings good neighbors to all out warfare in an upscale community in Washington DC. As in the best situation comedies, the situation invites laughs at absurd exaggeration while pushing buttons that trigger a range of reactions.

Pablo (Bradley Tejeda), Tania (Alina Collins Maldonado), Frank (Greg Wood) in Native Gardens, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

On either side of an ugly chain-link fence adorned with ivy sit two backyards, not equal in dignity. On the left, no landscaping, a back deck, a house with siding, and at the side a large tree crammed uncomfortably close to that fence. On the right, a brick house with a sliding-glass door to a patio, and a roomier yard with a table and chairs at the center and, all around the periphery, large crates acting as planters for a cornucopia of colorful plants. The house on the right belongs to Frank and Virginia Butley, an older couple, white, Republican; each year, Frank's labors on his garden fail to earn more than Honorable Mention in the neighborhood competition. The house on the left belongs to Pablo and Tania del Valle, younger, Latinx, Democrats; Pablo, from a well-to-do family in Chile, works at a top law-firm and hopes to make partner; Tania is pregnant, expecting to deliver soon, and is working on her doctorate. Her ideal garden differs greatly from Frank's.

Tania del Valle (Alina Collins Maldonado), Frank Butley (Greg Wood) in Native Gardens, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

In the early going, we're simply entertained by how the couples try to entertain each other. The Butleys are gracious, giving out red wine and dark chocolate as though sacramental. The younger couple are impressed by their neighbors' style of life, but faultlines get established early. Tania claims "passionate rationality" about such things as: how to create a garden that promotes the indigenous ecosystem rather than "colonizing" the area with imported plants that spoil what nature intended. To Frank, Tania's plans amount to growing weeds deliberately to invite more insects rather than remove them as threats to his delicate blooms. Zacarías' script initially seems a gentle sendup of the kind of generational clashes inevitable when Boomers, once deemed progressive and aware, find themselves confronted by the idealistic and didactic younger generation.

Frank (Greg Wood), Tania (Alina Collins Maldonado), Virginia (Judith Lightfoot Clarke), Pablo (Bradley Tejeda) in Native Gardens, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Both couples can agree on one thing right away: that fence has got to go! The del Valles want to replace it with a fence of natural wood. And they want to do it right away, in time for a barbeque Pablo feels he needs to host to establish himself socially at the firm. Then comes the surveyor, and then the real fun starts.

Tania (Alina Collins Maldonado), Pablo (Bradley Tejeda), Frank (Greg Wood) in Native Gardens, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The comedy almost at times becomes slapstick, and the cast are game. As Virginia, Judith Lightfoot Clarke tends to be wry and dry, until she goes so far as to chain herself to a planter in fierce defiance of her neighbors' garden plot. Alina Collins Maldonado plays Tania as highly reactive from the start, willing to take issue with her husband's assertiveness or her neighbors' casual racism, assuming Tania is from Mexico when she's from New Mexico. Maldonado plays Tania as a live wire crackling with energy. She's well matched by Bradley Tejeda's Pablo who likes to do dance steps and lets his wife's "passionate rationality" sway him, even though he finds Frank's gardening pretty and tasteful. The late night scene when Pablo and Frank get into a frank exchange of views is particularly strong, where escalation of hostilities becomes a point of pride. Greg Wood's Frank is the most nuanced portrayal, capturing well how easy it is to be nice within a bubble of privilege and how uneasy Frank becomes when confronted with a challenge from an unexpected quarter. He's by turns paternal, patronizing, petulant, and eventually pissed off.

Pablo (Bradley Tejeda), Frank (Greg Wood) in Native Gardens, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The amphitheater stage at Hartford Stage suits this play remarkably well. Situated above the backyards, the audience can take in the full spectacle of Lawrence E. Moten III's set, which undergoes its own form of character development, aided by a trio of workers. Carla Astudillo-Fisher, Mia Lozada, and Aidan Ramirez enact landscapers tasked with removing the fence, and conduct actual scenic labor while also keeping up a party-time atmosphere that insinuates a Latinx element we sense is new to the neighborhood. When Tania, provoked, curses at Virginia in Spanish, the workers' reactions show how far we are beyond the limits of polite difference of opinion.

Tania (Alina Collins Maldonado), Virginia (Judith Lightfoot Clarke), Frank (Greg Wood) in Native Gardens, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

All in all, Native Gardens is a comic, domestic border dispute that lets us see how easy it is to find evil intentions in anyone we don't agree with. In the end, the couples see reason without recourse to court or therapy or counselling or violence. If only such sensible negotiation could flourish on more soils.

Native Gardens
By Karen Zacarías
Directed by Nicole A. Watson

Scenic Design: Lawrence E. Moten III; Costume Design: Ivania Stack; Lighting Design: Carolina Ortiz Herrera; Sound Design: Joyce Ciesil; Wig & Makeup Design: Jodi Stone; Fight Coordinator: Michael Rossmy; Vocal Coach: Cynthia Santos DeCure; Casting: Alldaffer & Donadio Casting; Production Stage Manager: Gracie Carleton; Assistant Stage Manager: Elise Joyner; Associate Artistic Director: Zoë Golub-Sass; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Judith Lightfoot Clarke, Alina Collins Maldonado, Bradley Tejeda, Greg Wood; with Carla Astudillo-Fisher, Mia Lozada, Aidan Ramirez

Hartford Stage
April 17-May 10, 2026

Earning Our Trust

Review of Primary Trust, Westport Country Playhouse

Playing through May 2 at Westport Country Playhouse, Eboni Booth's Pulitzer-winning play Primary Trust skillfully blends humor and heartbreak, hope and trauma to tell the story of a young Black man in a town near Rochester, NY, in the early 2000s. It's a touching story that stresses the importance of humane interaction, highlighting the value of empathy in building trust and friendship.

Kenneth (Alphonso Walker Jr.), Bert (Lance Coadie Williams), Wally’s Waiter (Jasminn Johnson) in Primary Trust, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Kenneth (Alphonso Walker Jr.) works in a bookstore and spends almost every evening downing two-for-one Mai Tais at Wally's Tiki Hut with his middle-aged friend Bert (Lance Coadie Wiliams). The running gag is the quick changeover of Wally's waitstaff all enacted by Jasmin Johnson with a range of personalities, from surliness to over-the-top enthusiasm, or, in the case of Corinna, an attitude genuinely friendly. The modular set by Jack Magaw, with lighting by Jonah Bobilin, projections by Michael Salvatore Commendatore, and sound/music by Andrea Allmond creates a welcoming home-away-from-home for Kenneth, that can morph at will into the bookstore, a bank, or even a much fancier, French restaurant for a more intimate evening later in the play.

Corrina (Jasminn Johnson), Kenneth (Alphonso Walker Jr.) in Primary Trust, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Kenneth partly tells and partly enacts his story, punctuated by a frequent cash register sound that stops and starts scenes, sometimes in mid-sentence. The device creates an odd disconnect that, as the story progresses, might evince mental issues, like ADD or other problems Kenneth faces. Fairly quickly, he lets us know that Bert, for all his companionable cheer and easygoing ways, is in fact imaginary. Or rather: Bert, we learn, is real, just not really present at Wally's with Kenneth, or in the town.

From that fact, much follows. Kenneth is likeable and very direct in how he presents the situations—some extremely harrowing—he has faced. Booth's play is a study in resilience and the small triumphs and setbacks in Kenneth's day-to-day life. People Kenneth counted on—his mother, his employer, the original Bert—don't remain; other people—Clay, his new employer, Corinna—arrive and add to his life. Walker, so engagingly forthright from the start, gradually makes us aware of Kenneth's simplicity and sadness. There's a quiet depth to the performance that becomes more moving as the play progresses. When Kenneth reveals the part Bert initially played in his life, Walker has us in the palm of his hand, sharing a moment that has become defining for him, and letting us feel it the way young Kenneth did.

Kenneth (Alphonso Walker Jr.) in Primary Trust, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

As Bert, Lance Coadie Williams is a great asset. He's avuncular but—as fleshed out by Kenneth's imagination—he's also amusingly direct, a sort of embodied second thought. Theirs is a fascinating relationship. Greg Stuhr plays Sam and Clay, Kenneth's two decidedly different employers, with a shared sense of how much they care about Kenneth, though Sam, ailing and older, has to deal with his own problems; Clay, a former athlete, shares Kenneth's avidity for Happy Hours and is surprisingly supportive. Jasmin Johnson gives the Wally's waitstaff and the bank's customers broad comic touches, but her Corinna remains somewhat oblique as a character, not fully realized.

Sam (Greg Stuhr), Kenneth (Alphonso Walker Jr.), Bert (Lance Coadie Williams) in Primary Trust, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

With much of the play presented through Kenneth's viewpoint, there's almost grounds for an interpretation that sees his success as perhaps imaginary, like Bert. But as presented, Kenneth is too clear-headed to be delusional. He knows why he relies on his fantasy of Bert and discovers he is able to be a capable worker and a capable friend—in real life. The stages by which his own strengths become clear to him provide the main drama, because there is always the possibility that Kenneth will come unglued—as he does in one intense scene at the bank. Booth's sensitive script and Logan Vaughn’s fluid direction combine to give an enduring sense of how just getting by can be a significant achievement. The primary requirement is trust, which Kenneth earns from others, from himself, and from us.

Primary Trust
By Eboni Booth
Directed by Logan Vaughn

Scenic Design: Jack Magaw; Costume Design: Ari Fulton; Lighting Design: Jonah Bobilin; Sound Design and Original Music: Andrea Allmond; Projection Design: Michael Salvatore Commendatore; Props Supervisor: Hannah F. Tarr; Stage Manager: Erin Giola Albrecht; Assistant Stage Manager: Savanha Moore; Production Assistant: Julia Cai; Assistant Director: Anissa Felix; Associate Set Design: Lindsay Mummer; Assistant Lighting Design: Niya John

Cast: Jasminn Johnson; Greg Stuhr; Alphonso Walker Jr.; Lance Coadie Williams

Westport Country Playhouse
April 14-May 2, 2026

A Fierce Rhinoceros

Review of Rhinoceros, Yale Repertory Theatre

What do you do when everyone in your immediate vicinity (which, in the age of the internet is extensive) jumps on a bandwagon? Do you gleefully jump on too? Or do you respond skeptically, keeping the new idea, implement, technique, leader, faith at arm's length? Or do you turn vehemently against what "everyone else" has accepted?

No matter how you answer that question—or even if you find it too vague to be answerable—Eugene Ionesco's absurdist play Rhinoceros has something to say to you.

Berenger (Reg Rogers), townsperson (Ameya Narkar), Dudard (Will Dagger), Botard (Richard Ruiz Henry), worker (Jeremy A. Fuentes), Daisy (Elizabeth Stahlmann), Colette (Kimberly Vilbrun-François) in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond; Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

Directed by Liz Diamond from a translation by Derek Prouse adapted by Frank Galati, with choreography by Emily Coates, the Yale Rep's Rhinoceros (playing through March 28), is fluid and fast, funny and frightening, with quick-change scenery in Jennifer Yuqing Cao's Scenic Design, complemented by many subtle effects in Donald Holder's Lighting Design and very effective and evocative Projection Design by Ke Xu. Then there's the Sound Design by Xi Lin, capable of giving a reality to those rhinos that become so overwhelming. Costumes, by Tricie Bergman, are visually splendid (there's a "funny papers" look to the whole) and, with shadowy lighting, suggest just enough of what the previously-human pachyderms might look like.

So, right from the start, this is a finely achieved theatrical world, which even namedrops its author when Gene (Philip Taratula) suggests his friend Berenger (Reg Rogers) should see an Ionesco play. We should see that play, we may assume, because we already are, but even more to the point, because we're living in it. For a few early scenes, we may not be sure what we're witnessing—any more than is Berenger or the unwitting others who believe they've just seen a rhinoceros run past an outdoor café in a smalltown. With that opening, we're off—but to where?

As the play goes on, with people turning into rhinos right and left, the rhinos are taking over, but Ionesco's attention is on the lone schlemiel or non-conformist or hapless Everyman for whom almost any situation—even getting and holding a job or telling a female coworker he likes her—is an existential crisis. Berenger is played by Reg Rogers, and he's phenomenal, with a voice that shakes and quakes and mutters and explodes and seems to veer about on a scale from ironically quizzical to borderline bonkers. It's a tour de force performance that sweeps us up into what could almost be considered one man's mania.

Dudard (Will Dagger), M. Papillon (Tony Manna), Berenger (Reg Rogers), townperson (Ameya Narkar), Mrs. Boeuf (Nicole Michelle Haskins) in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

The most inventive scene is set in Berenger's workplace where the collected intellects try to grapple with what the newspaper says about rhinoceros sightings. Botard (Richard Ruiz Henry) takes the "don't believe everything you read, it's all propaganda" line, with which others may well be sympathetic, but the audience "saw" Berenger and other townsfolk "see" the rhino, and so did Berenger's co-worker Daisy (Elizabeth Stahlmann), a kind of "can-do Gal Friday," far too committed to the literal to be easily accused, as Berenger could be, of whimsy, hallucination or devil's advocacy. The kicking-about of the question goes on just long enough before a rhinoceros begins to encroach on the office from below. When Mrs. Boeuf (Nicole Michelle Haskins, a comic delight) recognizes the bellowing rhino as her own husband (who didn't go to work today as he was feeling strange), we might think we're venturing into campy sci-fi. But when Mrs. Boeuf does a wonderful slow-motion balletic run and jump onto the waiting back of her currently-quadruped spouse, we know we're in absurd allegory. What can the cast do but wave goodbye to Mrs. Boef and the world-as-they-knew-it.

Becoming a rhinoceros is the "new normal."

The cast of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

I was hoping Ionesco would do another scene with multiple characters, but scenes with two or three characters—one of them always Berenger—dominate. There's a tradition of the absurd, coming from Beckett, that tries to see how interminable, offhand, and revealing a two-person colloquy can be. Berenger has two major scenes with Gene, played with a mixture of contempt and indulgence by Philip Taratula that, in some ways, are the entire play in miniature. In the first, at the café, we grasp how shaky a hero Berenger is; in the second, in Gene's bedroom, we watch Berenger become astounded by what he sees happening to Gene; in both, Gene stays reliably dismissive and self-involved, even as he becomes rhinocerosian before our eyes, advocating "primeval integrity" over "moral standards." The scene, in all its absurd horror, remains conversational and almost normal until Berenger must reluctantly admit that his best friend has become One of Them: a rhinoceros.

Berenger (Reg Rogers), Gene (Philip Taratula) in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

(We might pause here and ask: why a rhinoceros? For theatrical purposes, a creature with fur or feathers would be easier to portray. And that might be reason enough not to choose one. Of course, Ionesco (I feel certain) would not allow that the animal was a matter of choice. People were turning into rhinoceroses, so what can you do but portray it? Still, as a mammal with a unique hide, and horns, and a belligerent quality, to say nothing of a herd instinct, the rhinoceros is well-chosen. In the post-World War II world (the play dates from 1959), after so much exposure to armed battalions in helmets and tanks, the rhino seems made to order as our best analog in the animal kingdom.)

Dudard (Will Dagger), Berenger (Reg Rogers) in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

Other scenes, later in the play, let Berenger interact with two characters that offer more subtle possibilities as his foils. Dudard, a canny pragmatist, played with comic intensity by Will Dagger, simply sees "rhinoceritis" as a disease, as something to get used to (shades of a pandemic), but which also may simply be "a question of personal preferences." Dudard slyly opens the door for our two great explanatory narratives: turning into a rhinoceros is natural, and so can't be helped; or social, and so then a matter of personal choice. In any case, just get on with what you must do, and maybe give it a try, out of curiosity. Or, if all your friends and coworkers and neighbors have transformed, it may become "a duty" to join them.

Dudard's choice becomes definite after Daisy arrives and he decides to quit the field, leaving Daisy to Berenger. The object of both men's affections, Daisy has a preference for Berenger and that touches him and gives him hope. Their dialogue, from a kiss to a slap—as Berenger says—"in the space of a few minutes" goes "through twenty-five years of married life." Likewise, Daisy—whom Stahlmann gives an earnest unselfconsciousness every step of the way—goes from sympathetic to supportive to stalwart to vacillating, disillusioned, and self-doubting, feeling that only "they"—the rhinoceroses—know what's best.

Berenger (Reg Rogers), Daisy (Elizabeth Stahlmann) in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

Everyone knows the saying, "if you can't beat them, join them," which also applies, perhaps, to "if you can't escape them." Whatever hope Berenger holds onto as "human," refusing to capitulate, though individuality generally comes to "a bad end," must lie in his belief that he can decide for himself.

Ionesco's rhinos are what is often called "the wave of the future," and the play leaves to you what wave we may all be riding, to our ultimate consternation or certain doom or enslavement, or to the utter bankruptcy of purpose or of objective standards. If nothing else, becoming a rhinoceros would give us each a very thick hide.

Berenger (Reg Rogers) in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, adapted by Frank Galati, directed by Liz Diamond, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Carol Rosegg

Rhinoceros
By Eugene Ionesco
Translated by Derek Prouse
Adapted by Frank Galati
Choreography by Emily Coates
Directed by Liz Diamond

Scenic Designer: Jennifer Yuqing Cao; Costume Designer: Tricie Bergmann; Lighting Designer: Donald Holder; Original Music and Sound Designer: Xi (Zoey) Lin; Projection Designer: Ke Xu; Hair, Wig, and Makeup Designers: The Wig Associates; Production Dramaturgs: Daria Kerschenbaum and Mia Van Deloo; Technical Director: Lilliana Gonzalez; Fight and Intimacy Director: Michael Rossmy; Vocal and Dialect Coach: Grace Zandarski; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: Caileigh Potter

Cast: Will Dagger, Jeremy A. Fuentes, Nicole Michelle Haskins, Richard Ruiz Henry, Dorottya Ilosvai, Tony Manna, Ameya Narkar, Reg Rogers, Elizabeth Stahlmann, Philip Taratula, Kimberly Vilbrun-François

Yale Repertory Theatre
March 6-28, 2026

Waging Little Wars

Review of Little Wars, New Haven Theater Company

Steven Carl McCasland's Little Wars, New Haven Theater Company's latest offering, the first of their 2026 season, brings together seven women in a drawing room in the French Alps in 1940. Four of them are famous writers—Gertrude Stein (Deena Nicol-Blifford), Lillian Hellman (Sandra Rodriguez), Dorothy Parker (Jodi Williams), Agatha Christie (Margaret Mann)—another is Alice B. Toklas (Ash Lago), Stein's famous partner, another is Bernadette (Lynette Victoria), a younger woman Stein and Toklas have taken in and who now waits upon them, and the last is a rather taciturn woman (Abby Klein) who calls herself Mary, but that's an alias.

Early on, before the drinking party gets underway, we learn that Mary is accepting money from Gertrude and Alice in an effort to get Jews out of Nazi Germany using fake passports. Mary wasn't supposed to arrive until after the guests had gone, but she arrives before anyone else. The tensions surrounding Mary's activities create an obvious discord with the social occasion. Further tension, mostly comic, is created by Stein's hectoring attitude toward her guests, treating Parker with indifference and Hellman with various registers of disdain. Hellman tends to give as good as she gets with a certain weary charm. Christie, whose presence seems the biggest stretch (the play is called "speculative fiction," which means McCasland is free to imagine this gathering on his terms), seems merely quizzical. There is plenty of badinage amongst the women, taking shots at one another and at the state of the world, which tends to include some sense of how, fighting “little wars,” they each became the unique individuals they are.

All are inquisitive, and so each will have to account for herself in some fashion, which leads to personal exposure—such as Dorothy Parker's abortion early in life, revealed with musing sorrow by Williams, and Agatha Christie's famous disappearance when she "just drove" then hid-out in a hotel, incognito, after learning of her husband's infidelity, a story handled with graceful self-deprecation by Mann, and Alice Toklas' concerns about Stein's ulcer and general health issues, which Lago makes a touching moment of emotional confession. Hanging over the evening is the fragility of the world order as Nazi Germany steps up its efforts to conquer Europe. Stein, who brooks no opinion but her own, is convinced France could never fall (it's to Nicol-Blifford's credit that her Stein, opinionated and imperious, is tempered by charm and never simply obnoxious—or almost never). In the second half of the play, the gathering must face the fact that France has surrendered to German occupation. This creates new tensions since Bernadette is a German Jew and thus at risk. The others can claim U.S. or (for Christie) British citizenship, and so the roving concern of the conversation finally settles on Bernadette's story and on who, exactly, Mary is.

New Haven Theater Company has a knack for finding dialogue-driven plays in fairly static settings, and that's very much a strength of this play. The set has a very lived-in feel, but also elements of style provided by knock-offs of the kind of art Stein and Toklas collected—a Gris, a Cézanne, and Picasso's celebrated portrait of Stein (altered to bear a resemblance to Nicol-Blifford). Though not overtly literary, the repartee bristles, anchored by Nicol-Blifford's somewhat drunken Stein, apt to say whatever she likes, veering from solid self-confidence to bathetic insecurity. She seems to use speech as weapon and shield and, of the others, Hellman is the least indulgent. Rodriguez's Hellman is brittle and cautious and never seems quite comfortable. This is clearly not her scene. Her gradual acceptance of the stakes of the situation is the main dramatic movement in the second half, centering on Bernadette and the group's fears for her future, given her horrific past experience, told by Victoria with a cold detachment that escalates into stricken empathy.

Under the effective direction of company member John Strano, Little Wars commands well the rhythms of, at times, seven-persons conversing. There are little contretemps, such as a deliberately spilled drink, someone locking herself in the bathroom, and Gertrude offstage long enough for Lago's Alice to hold court. McCasland has no need to make any of the women a villain, and so each get their moment to play upon our sympathies. Hellman holds out as a skeptic longest, and, as Bernadette—who brackets the play with a little narration—informs us, it is from Hellman's writings (Pentimento) that we learn more about the valiant and deliberately mysterious Mary/Muriel. A psychiatrist, she is played by Abby Klein with much self-possession and sangfroid, while her always attentive gaze may be in part her author's, looking on at each complex personality as an interesting case study.

The ultimate concerns of the play have a strong thematic undercurrent that—alas—will always be relevant. The plight of refugees often entails brutal conditions in a homeland that must be abandoned, where safety is a matter of trusting others whose commitment to dangerous aid may be sentimental, political, personal. Here, the story of Bernadette stirs all the women present to action and McCasland clearly intends it should similarly stir the audience. The little wars tend to be overshadowed by major wars and the carnage they cause.

Little Wars
By Steven Carl McCasland
Directed by John Strano

Producer and Production Stage Manager: J. Kevin Smith; Production Design: John Strano, J. Kevin Smith; Set Construction: Rich Burkham, Tony Adinolfi; Scenic Artist: Donna E. Glen; Lighting Design: Adam Lobelson; Costume Design: Liz Saylor

Cast: Abby Klein, Ash Lago, Margaret Mann, Deena Nicol-Blifford, Sandra Rodriguez, Lynnette Victoria, Jodi Williams

New Haven Theater Company
March 5-7, March 12-14, March 19-21, 2026

A Gem on the Water

Review of Gem of the Ocean, Long Wharf Theatre

In order of creation, Gem of the Ocean is the penultimate play in August Wilson's American Century Cycle, which sets a play in each decade of the twentieth century, but it's the first in chronological sequence. As such it's the first and almost the last, and much of what Wilson concerned himself with in the twenty-plus years he wrote the ten plays is concentrated here. It's a stunning tour de force, unpredictable and fascinating, and in the end wrenching, and hopeful.

The play centers on 1837 Wylie, the location oft-cited in Wilson's plays as the home of the mysterious and possibly occult Aunt Ester. It's 1904 and a young man pounds upon her door, eager to have his soul cleansed, a service, folks told him, Aunt Ester (Denise Burse) can provide. The man is named Citizen Barlow (Matthew Elam), but lately come to Pittsburgh from Alabama and now has a heavy burden of guilt he must assuage. In Ester's home, there is a woman called Black Mary (Grace Porter) who waits upon Ester and handles laundry and cooking, and Eli (Thomas Silcott), a handyman. A few other local figures are frequent visitors: Caesar (Bjorn DuPaty), a landlord, sheriff, and Black Mary's brother; Rutherford Selig (Mike Boland), a white peddler; and Solly Two Kings (Terrence Riggins), a merchant, sweet on Ester, who specializes in vending dog shit for its use in tanning and planting. As with every Wilson play, who a person "is" is barely scratched by stating occupation or role; they all need to learn more about themselves, and that will be the purpose of the play.

The current Long Wharf Theatre production, playing through March 15, is located at the Canal Dock Boathouse on Sargent Drive in New Haven. It's an usual setting as the view through the windows onto Long Island Sound creates a spaciousness around the stage that undermines the concentrated locus of the play, which, like most of Wilson's plays, takes place in one particularized space. Yet the openness of the staging, directed by Cheyenne Barboza, adds considerable energy to the production, with the boat sequence especially powerful.

The ensemble cast enacts the always exacting rhythmic dialogue flawlessly. All fully inhabit their roles, making Wilson's characters come alive as personalities with depth and complexity. As Selig, Mike Boland shows appealing humility and respect to Ester and genial humor toward the others; as Eli, a former member of the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves reach freedom, Thomas Silcott has an easygoing demeanor that alters significantly as he becomes fully engaged by the drama taking place; as Black Mary, Grace Porter shows great strength and purpose, and plays her reactive scenes—meeting Citizen's attempt to seduce her and tabling Ester's domestic criticisms and having it out with her brother—with wonderful self-possession; as Caesar, Bjorn DuPaty is almost a villain you love to hate, but his long speech about how he made something of himself impresses as it's meant to, giving Caesar if not soul, exactly, than at least a particular claim on his proper dignity; as newcomer Citizen, Matthew Elam is likeable, energetic, and full of a will to better himself that is necessary to the plot—he, of all the characters, is going into the future, but first must know the past; as Solly Two Kings, Terrence Riggins exudes strength and meaningful self-awareness; the more we learn about him the deeper and more enduring does his character become; as Ester, Denise Burse seems born to play the role, her presence penetrating and her voice a magic wand, conjuring the collective spirit this community needs in order to survive.

Gem of the Ocean is unique in Wilson's oeuvre because it is set at a time when its key elder figures—Ester, Solly, Eli—were born into slavery, while the younger generation have been born after Emancipation in 1865. Citizen was given his name to commemorate the fact that he was born as free citizen of the U.S. However, as Solly points out, that's a status that must be earned, is "heavy" to carry, and, as he probes further, questions what freedom is. The play, we might say, asks us to ruminate on that issue, while keeping in play questions about the rule of law, sanctuary spaces, the value of family, as kin, or as persons joined together for common purpose, the weight of the past, the spirit of ancestors, and what Ester calls "adventure," or the meaningful events and stories that accrue around persons as they live their lives.

As with all Wilson plays, there is much humor and entertainment in how the characters interact, their individual voices and mannerisms creating a social texture that is the hallmark of his theater. And in Gem there are moments of collective realization and of individual resilience and sacrifice. As Eli says, "It's a war and you always on the battlefield." Gem of the Ocean brings the struggle close to home and presents theater as a symbolic space in which to find new directions and ultimate identities.

 Gem of the Ocean
By August Wilson
Directed by Cheyenne Barboza

Scenic Design: Omid Akbari; Costume Design: Travis Chinick, Toni-Leslie James; Lighting Design: Joseph X. Fonseca; Composer and Sound Design: Chris Felix; Hair & Wig Design: Matthew Armentrout; Movement Artist, Fight & Intimacy Director: Hanan Hameen; Production Stage Manager: Andrew Petrick-Knoll; Assistant Director: Steve Driffin; Casting Director: Erica A. Hart

Cast: Mike Boland; Denise Burse; Bjorn DuPaty; Matthew Elam; Grace Porter; Terrence Riggins; Thomas Silcott

Long Wharf Theatre
February 27-March 15, 2026

Attention Paid

Review of Death of a Salesman, Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage has outdone itself this time! While the 60+ year-old playhouse is well known for reviving classic American plays, there are classics and then there are classics. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, which dates from 1949, has the kind of cred and rep that are pretty much unshakeable. While certain elements to any play that old may seem dated, at this point the datedness is part of its power: we've always been aware that Miller was documenting a vanishing breed as well as looking askance at the predatory laws of the business jungle. His Willy Loman is a testament to a belief in "the little guy," while insisting that how the average working person fares, so fares the country. The loneliness of the long-distance salesman could never be so lonely now, in our world of interconnectedness via mobile phone and computer, so that revisiting that world—a past almost as mythic as the Greek tragedies Miller deliberately evokes—makes the two to three hour business of our stage feel grander and more archetypal than ever.

Biff (Samuel H. Levin), Willy (Peter Jacobson), Uncle Ben (Michael Cullen) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

It's to the credit of Melia Bensussen, director of this production, and Artistic Director of Hartford Stage, that the pacing of the production is so incredibly deft. The casting is superb, and the tech—as we've come to assume at Hartford Stage—top notch. Miller, as the playbill reminds us, imagined his play as taking place in Willy Loman's mind, so the playing space has to shift and change with the action. Sara Brown's versatile set, paired down to essential furniture and scaffolding, with amazingly evocative lighting by Matthew Richards, allows for movement in the foreground and the background as well as providing a completely surrounded feeling. The space can be open and distancing and at times surprisingly claustrophobic, so intensely do the actors manifest the differences in setting (greatly assisted by Darron L. West's sensitive and evocative sound design and music). Each scene runs flawlessly into the next, creating a compelling cumulative feel that attests to why it's so important to see an actor live out such a role fully, relentlessly.

Biff (Samuel H. Levine), Willy (Peter Jacobson), Happy (Max Katz) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Peter Jacobson's Willy Loman looks and sounds exactly right, which occurred to my mind as "a Jewish Spencer Tracy." The "Tracy aspect" means there is an essential trustworthy, right-minded, homey comfortableness in Willy, and also the kind of affability that makes us believe he once was a major earner as a salesman (though his glory days were the 1920s). Some of that engaging manner still comes through, layered over by hard denials and over-the-top delusions that fuel at times a kind of mania. I came away with so many little "clips" of Jacobson—the way he goes up on his toes (almost everyone is a little taller than he is, or even considerably taller), the donning and removing his jacket as if completely absentminded, the veering so quickly from pleading to demanding or from boundless joy to defeated pathos, and always the hands in movement, speaking a language of their own. It's a genuinely great performance, nuanced and perceptive, and Jacobson's final exit stands out in its use of the Hartford Stage space that impresses as a last glimpse of Willy's lonely, self-absorbed dignity.

Willy Loman (Peter Jacobson) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

As Linda Loman, Adriene Krstansky gets the last word, and her speech is a powerful flow of grief, regret, love coupled with and almost crippled by disbelief and confusion. Krstansky, like Jacobson's Willy, lets us see many sides to Linda, at times the doting wife, at times the tough-love mother, at times the bedrock reality in contrast to Willy's shaky constructions. She delivers the famous demand "attention must be paid" as the back-against-the-wall moment it is. She is the one who all along has paid attention to the rise and fall of her striving husband, seeing his pride flair up again and again no matter how beaten and, as she says, "tired." Not so much a victim of Willy, as his sons are, but rather a damaged witness.

Linda Loman (Adrienne Krstansky) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

There is much excellent support here as well, in the kinds of rich character-actor roles that Miller had a definite knack for creating. Loman's sons, Biff (Samuel H. Levine) and Happy (Max Katz) run us through the paces from children adoring their father and delighted whenever he's home from the road, to containers of all his hopes who will likely never satisfy his need for their unparalleled success. Levine gives us Biff's charisma while showing the nagging uncertainty that undermines his best efforts.

Willy (Peter Jacobson), Biff (Samuell H. Levine) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The big reveal scene—where we learn the rift between father and son is a shameful secret never addressed—shows us how little the two are prepared for the realities of life. They have to pretend to be what they're not and pretend that things they know aren't so. The situation itself could almost be comic, but its implications go deep to the heart of what causes so much sorrow for this family.

The Woman (Nora Eschenheimer), Willy (Peter Jacobson) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Katz's Happy, who exudes the shrugging nonchalance of a Brooklyn skirt-chaser, is damaged in his own way, as feckless and obtuse as Biff is troubled and morose. The scene when the planned celebratory dinner between Loman and sons goes awry demonstrates how keeping such disparate types under one roof—as family—is an epic struggle doomed to fail.

Happy (Max Katz), Biff (Samuel H. Levine) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Smaller parts, no less notably realized: Michael Cullen as the steely ghost of Willy's brother Ben who steals into Willy's thoughts whenever he needs to praise a hero who "walked into the jungle at 17 and walked out at 21, rich." He's a figure who becomes more baleful as the play goes on; Stephan Cefalu, Jr., as a classmate of Biff's who, in Willy's memory, is a nerdy nobody and then, as an adult, the kind of self-effacing success that Willy can't quite credit, much as his pride won't let him acknowledge he truly needs the help of his neighbor Charley (Paul Michael Valley), who goes from a joshing to a pitying foil. The one-upmanship that Willy thrives on could have been benign once upon a time, now it's all wormwood. Likewise, his attempts to maintain an avuncular tone with his boss, Howard (Patrick Zeller), creates a telling scene that shows the minefield in Willy's mind, where any wrong step, wrong word will precipitate him into unspeakable loss—not only of livelihood but of every dream he still needs to believe. It's all very gripping and sharply ironized.

Uncle Ben (Michael Cullen), Willy (Peter Jacobson) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

As the "other woman," Nora Eschenheimer gives presence and personality to The Woman, a role so underwritten as to border on fantasy, so that it's important to believe in her as a real person; as Miss Forsythe, a woman Happy meets casually in a restaurant, Rebecca Strimaitis portrays a cautious willingness to be charmed. Both scenes are marked by how little the women matter to the men, except as prizes won or as audience to skill or wit or to the spending of money. There are two kinds of women in the world of this play: the stay-at-home support, and the ones who try to make their way in the "man's world" of the times.

Biff (Samuel H. Levine), Letta (Nora Eschenheimer), Happy (Max Katz), Miss Forsythe (Rebecca Strimaitis) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Death of a Salesman's rich central character has been portrayed by many great actors, among them Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Wendell Pierce. A Broadway revival of the play will be opening soon, with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf. It may indeed be superlative, but if you care about this play, do yourself a favor and get to Hartford for this one. When I think of Death of a Salesman from now on, it's going to be Peter Jacobson's Willy Loman I will remember.

Willy Loman (Peter Jacobson) in Death of a Salesman, directed by Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Death of a Salesman
By Arthur Miller
Directed by Melia Bensussen

Scenic Design: Sara Brown; Costume Design: Harry Nadal; Lighting Design: Matthew Richards; Sound Design: Darron L. West; Wig, Hair & Make-up Design: J. Jared Janas; Fight Director: Ted Hewlett; Dialect & Voice Coach: Julie Foh; Casting: Alldaffer & Donadio Casting; Production Stage Manager: Nicole Wiegert; Assistant Stage Manager: Julius Cruz; Associate Artistic Director: Zoë Golub-Sass; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Stephan Cefalu, Jr.; Michael Cullen; Nora Eschenheimer; Mike Houston; Peter Jacobson; Max Katz; Adrianne Krstansky; Samuel H. Levine; Rebecca Strimaitis; Paul Michael Valley; Patrick Zeller

Hartford Stage
February 27-March 29, 2026

Counter Offers

Review of The Counter, TheaterWorks, Hartford

TheaterWorks, Hartford, has a knack for finding and producing plays that provide intimate looks at everyday lives. Meghan Kennedy's The Counter, directed by Rob Ruggiero, joins a roster of plays that includes Primary Trust, The Garbologists, and Sanctuary City. There have also been notable stagings of plays like Clyde's or Queen of Basel set entirely in workplaces, or in a classroom, such as English, this season's opener. Impressively, all these plays have transformed the TheaterWorks stage into spaces that compel a realistic sense of the kinds of lives that take place there. In each case, the cast—whether two or three or half a dozen—draws us into stories that have an honest grasp of how people live and cope and interact in a variety of situations.

That's the strong suit of The Counter, set at the counter of a diner in upstate New York, presided over by Katie (Justis Bolding), a reasonably outgoing waitress, whose first customer most days is Paul (Tim DeKay), a retired firefighter who gradually makes requests that up the drama level between them but which also open each to our scrutiny. How you read their manner, their stories, their exchanges will determine to a large extent what you get out of watching them get to know each other.

Katie (Justis Bolding), Paul (Tim DeKay) in The Counter, TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Curtis Brown

The set by Tijana Bjelajac creates the kind of trustworthy diner counter where almost anyone would feel comfortable killing time. The unpretentious setting immediately establishes the tone of the encounters at the counter. But the fact that to "counter" is to respond, possibly to contradict or oppose, might also suggest that the give-and-take of these two unassuming types will take them down unexpected paths. There's also perhaps an implied sense of "counting" on someone or something, which, as the play goes on becomes more and more relevant.

Paul (Tim DeKay) in The Counter, TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Curtis Brown

Both actors provide engrossing character studies of two people whose complexity emerges slowly, as each rises to the challenge of the other. Katie, we learn, has come to this little town and this small-scale job to get away from where she lived before and what occurred there. Bolding gives Katie appealing variety, allowing her to be both touching and amused; she's patient and cautious, but gradually makes her own neediness manifest. Paul, who has always lived in the same town, has a past that makes him a bit of a hero, both sung and unsung, and DeKay's performance keeps us guessing about Paul's deeper conflicts until we learn how unmoored he's become. The encounters at the counter come to represent a last bid for real friendship, the kind with tough truths. We may have become, as audiences, more than a little too familiar with the fact that some kind of trauma must lurk in the background of any life deemed worthy of theatrical enactment, but, if so, there's no denying that unpeeling the layers gives a playwright something to do for nearly ninety minutes.

Katie (Justis Bolding), Paul (Tim DeKay) in The Counter, TheaterWorks; photo by Curtis Brown

The dialogue between Katie and Paul moves easily from small-talk—about Netflix and diet and sleeping problems—to bits of wisdom and advice, to sharing secrets, to necessarily tough talk. A brief appearance by Peg (Erika Rolfsrud), a married doctor who had an affair with Paul, helps establish his emotional past, and also lends more credence to Paul's request to Katie that hangs over the entire play. Without giving too much away, let's say that Paul is looking for a way out of a life he's tired of leading and hopes Katie will aid him. And, of course, if the request doesn't involve love, then it must involve death.

Katie (Justis Bolding) in The Counter, TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Curtis Brown

Katie's "counter" to Paul's request is also a way to leave the past behind: in her case, 27 voice messages from a man she once had hopes for, but who seems to have treasured her in a more platonic way. The script suffers a bit in its rendering of this relationship, since we never see the man in question, unlike our view of Peg and Paul together, and only hear a few of the voice messages. The fact that this figure from Katie's past becomes pivotal at the close feels more than a little contrived—so as to end the Katie and Paul encounters with a bit of "beau ex machina."

That said, the play's ending brings this phase of things to a close and the spotlight on that coffee cup on the counter makes it hang in the balance.

The Counter
By Meghan Kennedy
Directed by Rob Ruggiero

Set Design: Tijana Bjelajac; Costume Design: Risa Ando; Lighting Design: Matthew Richards; Sound Design: Minjae Kim; Original Music: Billy Bivona; Stage Manager: Tom Kosis

Cast: Justis Bolding, Tim DeKay, Erika Rolfsrud

TheaterWorks, Hartford
February 12-March 15, 2026; extended through March 22nd

A Comedy of Lovers

Review of The Cottage, Hartford Stage

In Sandy Rustin's farcical comedy, The Cottage, playing at Hartford Stage through February 7, it's 1923 and the eponymous cottage is located "about 90 minutes outside London." The date has significance because, as dramaturg Sophie Greenberg reminds us in the playbill, in British history women had gotten the vote and, very recently, the right to divorce for a spouse's infidelity, and, we might add, the ability to inherit independently of husbands. All this is meaningful for how The Cottage plays out, ultimately, but it would be a shame to weigh down the fluff of this play with heavy social meaning. It's more a case of giving the women in the play a bit more autonomy than they might enjoy in a play actually composed in the 1920s.

Briefly: the cottage belongs to the ailing mother of two brothers, Beau (Jordan Sobel) and Clarke (Craig Wesley Divino), who like to use it for extramarital trysts. We first meet Beau's beau, Sylvia (Mary Cavett), as she preens on a couch in a negligee, awaiting her lover on the morning after their yearly sexcapade.

Sylvia (Mary Cavett), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Both are married, you see, and Sylvia's husband happens to be Clarke. When Sylvia gets around to telling Beau she's sent out a telegram to Clarke, informing him she's leaving him for Beau, we've got a situation: Beau seems not that keen. Meanwhile, Clarke and the other recipient of a telegram, Beau's pregnant wife, Marjorie (Kate MacCluggage), arrive separately. And we learn something neither of their spouses had suspected.

Marjorie (Kate MacCluggage), Beau (Jordan Sobel), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

We might think we've got enough going on right there, but no. Beau—"the best-looking man in London" we're told—has also been unfaithful to Sylvia and to Marjorie with Dierdre (Jetta Juriansz), who presently arrives, elated, with her divorce papers from Richard. But is Beau likely to be happy about that? And what about Richard who, as Dierdre explains, is apt to be homicidal in his jealousy. Meanwhile, we learn that one reason Sylvia is not altogether upset by Beau's unfaithfulness, nor Clarke's, is that she was once truly in love but lost William in the war. Can you see where this is going?

Dierdre (Jetta Juriansz), Clarke (Craig Wesley Divino), Marjorie (Kate MacCluggage), Sylvia (Mary Cavett), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Enough about the plot. How about that set? By Tim Mackabee, the cottage is quite a catch, and not only is it spacious and tasteful, it's got jokey props sitting all over and is perfect for a pratfall down the stairs, and its front-door, often pounded upon for entry, has the presence of a character, especially with Mom's portrait looking down from above. As with many a Hartford Stage production, scenery adds so much to how the show looks and how the characters move about. Here, all the busyness is always very visible. And that's important because all these actors are fully engaged in being entertaining wherever they are on stage and whatever they might be doing. There are laughs galore.

Beau (Jordan Sobel), Clarke (Craig Wesley Divino), Marjorie (Kate MacCluggage), Dierdre (Jetta Juliansz), Sylvia (Mary Cavett), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Director Zoë Golub-Sass, Hartford Stage's Associate Artistic Director, lets her able cast make the most of every weird foible of these characters. Richard, who shows up in Act 2, is made a study in amusing oddity by Matthew J. Harris's mercurial presentation, and Jetta Juriansz's Dierdre, while having to carry a bit too much backstory, is a comic delight, whether skulking in the background, or drunk and splayed, or occasionally offering comments so apropos she surprises herself.

Richard (Matthew J. Harris), Dierdre (Jetta Juriansz), Marjorie (Kate MacCluggage), Clarke (Craig Wesley Divino), Beau (Jordan Sobel), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

As Clarke, Craig Wesley Divino runs a gamut of silliness—his effort to rush to his wife's defense is total slapstick—but also manages to be almost intelligent when required. Kate MacCluggage, as Marjorie, plays self-satisfied quite well as well as sexually voracious and gets to mime a rip-roaring fart that everyone gets to react to. It's that kind of play.

Marjorie (Kate MacCluggage), Clarke (Craig Wesley Divino), Sylvia (Mary Cavett), Dierdre (Jetta Juriansz), Beau (Jordan Sobel), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

As the couple who changes most, Jordan Sobel's Beau gets a series of shocks and surprises that keep him almost wholly in reaction mode, played with remarkable energy; as Sylvia, Mary Cavett becomes more interesting the more she disengages from the various males who presume to be meaningful to her. Even if each once was, are any now?

Beau (Jordan Sobel), Sylvia (Mary Cavett), The Cottage, Hartford Stage (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

The final takeaway is that all a woman really needs is a cottage of one's own, to vary Virginia Woolf's well-known, apt observation (first delivered in 1928).

The Cottage
By Sandy Rustin
Directed by Zoë Golub-Sass

Scenic Design: Tim Mackabee; Costume Design: Hunter Kaczorowski; Lighting Design: Evan C. Anderson; Sound Design: Nathan A. Roberts and Charles Coes; Wig & Hair Design: Timmy Kurzman; Fight Coordinator: Michae Rossmy; Dialect & Voice Coach: Julie Foh; Casting: Alldaffer & Donadio Casting; Production Stage Manager: Avery Trunko; Assistant Stage Manager: Alison Fischer Greene; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Mary Cavett, Craig Wesley Divino, Matthew J. Harris, Jetta Juriansz, Kate MacCluggage, Jordan Sobel

Hartford Stage
January 16-February 8, 2026

You Have to Be There

Review of Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, Yale Repertory Theatre

"Poetry makes nothing happen," W. H. Auden once wrote, a bit sententiously. Theater such as practiced by Estonian clown Julia Masli does make things happen, and watching that happen is a fascinating experience. Playing through February 7 in a touring production from DC's innovative Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company, Masli's HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, directed by Kim Noble and performed by Masli, is theater as happening. Or we might say: by virtue of being in the theater—Yale Repertory Theatre, corner of Chapel and York—you are in theater.

Janet Masli in HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Andy Hollingworth)

Masli, wearing a fairly outlandish costume, a kind of surreal drapery, wanders about with a light on her wrist, a microphone on the end of a golden mannikin leg covering one arm, and a recording device headdress, voicing a high-pitched inquiry: "problem?" On cue, any one she asks voices a problem—which might be anything from concerns about family, job, the state of the world, or how to do gardening or juggle school and love. Hypnotic in her movements with a candid gaze and a voice that can range from sweet naivete to commanding bluster, Masli fields each statement as though personally responsible for the speaker's concerns, a guardian angel sent to make things better. To that end, she has at her disposal a wealth of props, so when a man—a father of two—claims he's been having trouble sleeping, Masli can offer him a divan to recline on for the duration of the show, complete with sleep-mask and noise-canceling headphones. Other prop-dependent interactions involve smashing a chair and building a new one—to fix "this broken world"—a cleansing shower, building a sculpture from mannikin legs, and pizza from heaven.

The participants in the show are selected by Masli from the audience, and while the process of selection may be obscure, the effects are not. As the night goes on and more and more participants are involved, the audience becomes aware of a gradual process taking place: we're not watching a show, we're in a show. This became charmingly apparent, in the opening night performance, when a phone-call to an audience member's mother—in California—meant the recipient of the call could hear the applause, laughter and comments by the audience as a feature of the call. We were all on the line with Brenda.

And that's the genius of Masli's approach to theater: the willingness to put it all on the line. Of course this is rehearsed, scripted as well as improvised, and with considerable tech support (lighting and sound and musical accompaniment are all revelatory and fittingly relational—Alessio Festuccia, Sound Designer and Composer; Sebastián Hernández, Live Sound Designer; Jennifer Fok, Co-Lighting Designer; Lily Woodford, Original Lighting Designer; Sarah Chapin, Associate Producer, Production Manager, Stage Manager, Live Lighting Designer). Yet it feels at times like watching someone else's dream take place (the music helps that effect wonderfully), where something you might not know about yourself could surface at any moment. Which means you might find yourself wondering what "problem" you might admit, or what weight you would like to "let go," or whether you're willing to proffer a sock to Masli's collection.

The absurdist elements in the show—which will tickle different fancies differently—are offset by an earnestness that, to me, comes closest to what it's like being in a classroom and having to indulge the teacher wherever she goes with whatever she's saying. (Though this may be an effect of the fact that—as mentioned twice by Masli—James Bundy, "the Dean of Theater," was present in the audience on opening night and a fair share of the audience are or were involved with the Rep or the School of Drama or both.) As in a classroom, you may have a chance to speak, but you're mostly there to learn.

And what do we learn? That we're all in this together. A platitude, granted, and learning what that really feels like—without being at too much personal risk—is the valuable effect of HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. "You had to be there," as the saying goes, but in this case, "being there" is the entire point, and experiencing that may cause you to want to return to the only entertainment that can make that happen: live theater like Masli's, where your presence matters because only you can take your place.

A Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company Touring Production
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Created and performed by Julia Masli
Directed by Kim Noble

Sound Designer and Composer: Alessio Festuccia; Live Sound Designer: Sebastián Hernández; Co-Lighting Designer: Jennifer Fok; Original Lighting Designer: Lily Woodford; Associate Producer, Production Manager, Stage Manager, Live Lighting Designer: Sarah Chapin; Costume Designers: David Curtis-Ring, Annika Thiems, Alice Wedge; Technical Director: Mara Bredovskis; Consulting Producers: Maria Manuela Goyanes, David C. Frederick, Sophia Lynn; Assistant Stage Managers: Whitney Renell Roy, Claire Young

Yale Repertory Theatre
January 20-February 7, 2026

Hedda, Get Your Gun

Review of Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre

Hedda Gabler is my favorite play by Henrik Ibsen and one of his best known. Even so, as I learned to my regret once when I casually mentioned to a student what becomes of Anna Karenina, one must be careful with spoilers. Watching Hedda Gabler on its opening night at Yale Repertory Theatre last week underscored for me the fact that you can only see it for the first time once, and that happened for me long ago. Which might be a way of saying: if you haven't ever seen or read Hedda Gabler, then you should try to get a ticket to this masterpiece, playing through December 20. And even if you do know the play, it's well worth seeing it done again, in Paul Walsh's swift and more contemporary translation, with a very able cast, and presented (with scenic design by Jessie Baldinger, costumes by Lyle Laize Quin, and lighting design by Larry Ortiz) in the style of a late 19th-century bourgeoisie almost poised for affluence.

Jorgen Tesman (Max Gordon Moore), Hedda (Gabler) Tesman (Marianna Gailus) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Directed by James Bundy as his final offering as Artistic Director of the Rep and as Dean of Yale's David Geffen School of Drama, the Rep production is faithful and solid, a classic presented in a classic manner. And that's important because, as the playbill essays by the production's dramaturg Timothy Hartel remind us, Hedda Gabler is a play very much of its day, the 1890s in Norway. Should that seem a remote destination, reflect: Ibsen wrote plays to stir things up, not least his time's staid conventions concerning the status of women. And so Ibsen's plays seem to play best in conservative periods like ours, in need of a jolt to remind us how far we have—had?—come. Here, much of the play's tension centers on the restless discontentment of Hedda, played with engaging spontaneity by Marianna Gailus. Her Hedda's malice seems more casual than premeditated, and so the plot elements artfully contrived by Ibsen to hem her in achieve full resonance.

There's a moment about midway through the play that is definitive. Hedda goes to her desk where a set of her father's pistols and a secreted manuscript are stored—both items intrinsic to the plot. She might be after one thing or the other and, as we watch, perhaps we aren't certain which she will take. The staging of the scene made me believe that just for a second maybe Hedda wasn't certain either. The briefest pause in the scene gives a lasting impression of how Hedda's comments and actions come—as she says—"out of the blue." And from her choices all else follows.

Hedda (Gabler) Tesman (Marianna Gailus), Eilert Løvborg (James Udom) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The basic plot concerns the newly married Tesmans—Jorgen (Max Gordon Moore) and Hedda, formerly Gabler, a high-spirited and well-born young woman whom no one expected to marry a plodding and unimaginative man like Tesman, a scholar who seems at best a safe bet for a woman who sees herself as past her prime and "danced out." We learn, gradually, that one of Hedda's secret passions was for the much more inspired and adventurous scholar Eilert Løvborg (James Udom), purportedly a genius who, in their youth, kept up a long friendship with Hedda that might have been and almost was consummated. In a key scene in Act II, Ibsen's dialogue very carefully delineates the extent to which the pair can manage to describe or agree upon what they once were to each other. Back before Hedda was married, and before Eilert became dissipated, only to be "reclaimed" by the patient and, in Hedda's view, "mousy" Thea Elvsted (Stephanie Machado), formerly Rysing. Thea, it's implied, was someone Tesman felt drawn to until Hedda turned his head. So we have a neat set-up of mismatched couples, the stuff of drawing-room comedy, except . . . Hedda, bored, thwarted, with still a dream of "controlling someone's destiny," plays with others for her own amusement, but isn't aiming for laughs. She wants Eilert to achieve something "beautiful," "with vine leaves in his hair," as though a Dionysian poetic figure. And yet Eilert is no more such a figure than is Tesman or Judge Brack (Austin Durant), a powerful admirer. At one point, Hedda confesses herself a coward, a feature shown by her attempts to live through men who will fail her ideal.

Judge Brack (Austin Durant), Jorgen Tesman (Max Gordon Moore) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Ibsen's characters require careful casting, if one would be faithful to the playwright's conception. Bundy's supporting cast—most graduates of the Yale acting program—step into their roles effortlessly. Max Gordon Moore plays Jorgen Tesman as the somewhat befuddled figure he often is: full of vanity and uncertainty, trying to make the best of each setback, never quite grasping where the disturbing faultline in his domestic happiness lies; Austin Durant's Brack is a self-satisfied slyboots, proud to consider himself "the only cock in the henhouse" and willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain his status. He's a charming schemer who likes to come and go through "the back way" so as not to be announced.

Berte (Mary Lou Rosato), Aunt Juliane (Felicity Jones Latta) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Other essential support comes from Felicity Jones Latta as Tesman's Aunt Juliane and from Mary Lou Rosato as Berte, the serving-maid who has moved from Juliane's home to the fancy new home purchased, on promises of an academic appointment, by Tesman. Without Aunt Juliane to coo at Hedda and fuss over Tesman, the domestic situation would lack its sharp accents. In the first scene, the musings between Jones Latta's Juliane and Rosato's Berte set the tone and mood, from a hedging acceptance of the newlyweds to financial concerns when Tesman arrives to a prickly welcome by Hedda. All of which helps to establish the comedy of manners we are in fact watching, up to a point.

Thea Elvsted (Stephanie Machado), Hedda (Gabler) Tesman (Marianna Gailus) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

As Mrs. Thea Elvsted, Stephanie Machado often can only stare open-mouthed at the sorts of things Hedda is apt to say, but her way with the role is impressive. Thea can easily be seen as somewhat air-headed, but here she is in her own quiet way a match for Hedda, so that the part she played in Eilert's reclamation and in the creation of his masterpiece feels believable and not simply a sentimental notion. As Eilert, James Udom's performance seems to me the most subtle. Eilert has a certain Byronism, both in the libertine past that fascinated Hedda and in his wish to defeat her husband Tesman "before the whole world." But Udom's Eilert, even when defeated himself, has the air of a man who has come into his own, having produced a work that proved to himself his own worth—and which stunned Tesman with its brilliance. The fact of that manuscript, and its ultimate fate, is at the center of the play—stirring envy in Tesman, hardhearted jealousy of Thea in Hedda, and ultimately producing despair in Thea and Eilert, as the "child" they can't bear losing.

Eilert Løvborg (James Udom), Thea Elvsted (Stephanie Machado), Hedda (Gabler) Tesman (Marianna Gailus) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Hovering behind that birthing metaphor—spoken a few times—is the prospect of an actual child, never mentioned outright but tellingly implied, repeatedly, for Tesman and Hedda. Much of the cold fury in Hedda—and Gailus conjures it with brittle looks, or sets it aside with pregnant sighs—stems from a situation in which she cannot control her own destiny much less anyone else's. The world seems to conspire to disappoint her, making her final actions a last grasp at exerting her own will. As she says at one point: "Thoughts—they can't be mastered." Nor finally can Hedda.

Hedda (Gabler) Tesman (Marianna Gailus) in Hedda Gabler, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Both devastating and archly ironic, there are few plays to match Hedda Gabler.

Hedda Gabler
By Henrik Ibsen
Translated from the Norwegian by Paul Walsh
Directed by James Bundy

Scenic Designer: Jessie Baldinger; Costume Designer: Lyle Laize Qin; Lighting Designer: Larry Ortiz; Sound Designer: Emilee Biles; Hair Designer: Matthew Armentrout; Production Dramaturg: Timothy Hartel; Technical Director: Steph Lo; Fight and Intimacy Director: Kelsey Rainwater; Vocal and Dialect Coach: Walton Wilson; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: Narda E. Alcorn

Cast: Austin Durant, Marianna Gailus, Felicity Jones Latta, Stephanie Machado, Max Gordon Moore, Mary Lou Rosato, James Udom

Yale Repertory Theatre
November 28-December 20, 2025

Seriously Trivial

Review of The Importance of Being Earnest, Westport Country Playhouse

Subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People," Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest has the distinction of seeming socially relevant in perpetuity. No matter how dated it becomes (it was first performed in 1895), Wilde's clever farce stands on one unshakeable foundation: polite society is by its very nature trivial. No matter how "serious" anyone may presume to be, and no matter how dire any particular historical situation may be deemed, society—when its members pay calls and eat and drink and relax and court and marry and celebrate—is bound to a code of conduct that prides itself on the bonhomie of triviality. While important matters of mating and heredity and consanguinity are resolved by the close of the play, Wilde's engagingly tongue-in-cheek rendering of how people—of a certain social standing—comport themselves, no matter what is happening, has served this delicious comedy quite well for quite some time.

John “Earnest” Worthington (Michael Raver), Algernon Moncrief (Anthony Michael Martinez) in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

The Westport Country Playhouse production, playing until November 15, is well-served by Melissa Rain Anderson's direction—which keeps the play's affable, quizzical tone throughout—and by the sumptuousness of the set, costumes, hair, lighting and sound. The story concerns two friends, Algernon and Earnest, who each maintain a fiction in their lives: Algernon Moncrief (Anthony Michael Martinez) has a fictional friend he calls Bunbury, an invalid whose condition necessitates Algernon's absence from any obligations he finds onerous; Earnest Worthington (Michael Raver), whose real name is Jack (or John), is in fact living in London as his alter ego. As Jack he lives in the country, a foundling adopted by a benefactor and charged with a ward, Cecily Cardew (Kristen Hahn). As Earnest, Jack has been courting Algernon's cousin Gwendolyn Fairfax (Katy Tang) and is winning near the goal but for two snags which surface early with a sure sense of absurdity and surprise: Gwendolyn will only marry a man if he is named Earnest, and Gwedolyn's aunt, Lady Bracknell (Christine Pedi), wants no parts of Jack or Earnest once she learns of his mysterious antecedents. Of course, Algernon, learning of Jack's real situation, takes an immediate interest in meeting his friend's ward. In the country, Cecily is attended by a governess, Miss Prism (Jan Neuberger), to whom the local curate, Rev. Canon Chasuble (Triney Sandoval), has taken a mutually agreeable shine, and who will be significant in another way that indicates a fondness for Dickensian coincidence.

Kristen Hahn, Katy Tang, Triney Sandoval, Anthony Michael Martinez, Christine Pedi, Jan Neuberger, Michael Raver in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

The show provides plenty of visual interest thanks to the concerted efforts of James J. Fenton (Set), Annie J. Lee (Costumes), Alexander Fetchko (Lighting), J. Jared Jonas (Wig, hair & Makeup), and John Gromada (Sound and Original Music—some played "expressively" by Algernon). Particularly fine is a set that has a quite impressive double staircase situated so as to be both indoors and outdoors as needed, with striking surroundings that have the look of interchangeable cut-out pieces for stages we may have played with as children. That deliberate sense of artifice adds its own comical and theatrical value. Several of the characters are apt to speak solely for our benefit and are also willing to strike poses and attitudes that belong on stage, knowingly. It's not so much that we're made aware that we're watching a replica of behavior in olden times but that we're shown how much the façade of social relations is, in Wilde's view, a put-on. Here, we're in on the joke.

Which is helpful, since some of Wilde's actual jokes don't quite land as no doubt they once did. There are brittle asides aplenty, and today's audience is perhaps more apt to expect dialogue to advance plot rather than posit bon mots—about aristocracy, revolutionaries, and the pigeon-holing of behaviors generally ascribed to one gender or the other (only two are reflected upon). The cast presents an inspired version of the necessary British air of easily punctured sangfroid. Everyone has at least one instance—more like several—to exasperate or to be exasperated. The voices and tones of the characters are sharply realized, and that's the point (or the joke) quite often.

Let's start with the two friends. As Algernon, the more foppish and disreputable of the two, Martinez plays his role with cavalier relish; Algernon is conceited, certainly, but knows how entertaining he can be when he likes. Raver's John (or Earnest or Jack) Worthington is generally put-upon in Algernon's presence, winning in Gwendolyn's, peremptory in Cecily's, and beaten down in Lady Bracknell's; it's a wonderful carousel of emotional registers, culminating in the moment, late in the play, when Worthington sees his chance fully to exasperate Lady Bracknell. As the good lady, Christine Pedi plays a high-toned grande dame who would like to be used to having her way; alas, as her every petulant aside shows, the modern world is not apt to permit such usage. She stands (or rather sits, ex cathedra-like) for a social and moral order that Wilde's play teases and pokes but doesn't really aim to contradict. All's well that ends well, much as it was for Shakespeare.

Cecily Cardew (Kristen Hahn), Lane (Mark Silence), Gwendolyn Fairfax (Katy Tang) in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

As the two young ladies who have a fondness for "Earnest" regardless of whether or not the appellation has an object, Katy Tang and Kristen Hahn rise to dizzying heights of dizziness with great aplomb. Both women may seem the epitome of triviality, and yet the standards they stand for are passionately held. The scene when the two meet, pledge friendship, discover they are in competition, abuse one another, and then join forces against the machinations of their chosen males is a delight but also a lesson in generalized social relations. We see how a young woman's only hope of making her opinion felt is by marrying well, and so what she expresses during courtship has the ring of a decree. That element is well served by Tang, whose Gwendolyn is a study in how to please herself and have others pleased by the effect. Hahn's Cecily, who has recorded an affair with Jack's brother Earnest before she ever meets him, is pitched to both disarm and divert. There's a very full moment when she seems to take in the audience as though suddenly aware of how all this must look and sound. Of all the characters, she seems to gain most in stature as the play goes on. And so we might actually believe she could subdue the wayward Algernon.

Cecily Cardew (Kristen Hahn), Algernon Moncrief (Anthony Michael Martinez), Lady Bracknell (Christine Pedi) in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

As Miss Prism and Rev. Chasuble, respectively, Jan Neuberger and Triney Sandoval help round out the plot while also bringing in additional comical tones. Sandoval's Chasuble brims with good cheer and a certain detachment, and his courtship of Miss Prism is a sweet subplot. Miss Prism, a plausible governess, has her defining moment when, accosted by Lady Bracknell, Neuberger conveys at once fear, surprise and a comical switch from authority to subservience.

There are many such touches that are worth watching for, and it's to Anderson's credit that the show doesn't rush through the play but rather lets the cast nimbly tread dear Oscar's patiently planted minefield. Thumbs up!

Miss Prism (Jan Neuberger), Rev. Chasuble (Triney Sandoval) in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde
Directed by Melissa Rain Anderson

Set Designer: James J. Fenton; Costume Designer: Annie J. Lee; Lighting Designer: Alexander Fetchko; Sound Designer & Original Music: John Gromada; Co-Sound Designer: Matt Otto; Wig, Hair & Makeup Designer: J. Jared Janas; Stage Manager: Frank Lombardi; Assistant Set Designer: Luca Plitz; Associate Wig, Hair & Makeup Designer: Lily Volle; Assistant Stage Manager: Kelley Lynne Moncrief; Production Assistant: Chloe Marie Lupini; Assistant Costume Designer: Greer Vashon; Prop Supervisor: Buffy Cardoza

Cast: Kristen Hahn, Anthony Michael Martinez, Jan Neuberger, Christine Pedi, Michael Raver, Triney Sandoval, Mark Silence, Katy Tang

Westport Country Playhouse
October 28-November 15, 2025

Give 'em Enough Rope

Review of Rope, Hartford Stage

Let us now praise amazing sets: Riw Rakkulchon, who has presented incredibly handsome and detailed sets at Hartford Stage for All My Sons and The Mousetrap, has created a playing space that suits so well the action and the style of the play Rope as to be almost a seventh character—or is that eighth, since the seventh should by all rights be the unseen young man who appears to be late to a dinner party, then has gone missing, then . . .

The Cast of Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson, set by Riw Rakkulchon

Rope, in its world premiere at Hartford Stage through November 2, is Jeffrey Hatcher's swift and superlative adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's Rope's End (1929), a play I've never read nor seen, which was adapted into a film, called Rope (1948), directed by Alfred Hitchcock (which I did see, once upon a time). All three—Rope, the play, Rope's End, and Rope, the film—bear not a little resemblance to the circumstances surrounding the so-called "crime of the century" back in the 1920s, the famed case known as Leopold and Loeb which, for my money, was best dramatized in the film Compulsion (1959), directed by Richard Fleischer, from a novel about the murder written by Meyer Levin. The latter film was not so much about the murder itself, nor the macabre dinner party hosted by the conspiring killers (the chief event in the original play and in Hitchcock's film and now in Hatcher's version), but rather about the sentencing hearing, in which Clarence Darrow, who defended the duo in real life and kept them from being condemned to death, is played memorably by Orson Welles, with the young would-be Übermenschen played by Bradford Dillman and Dean Stockwell.

Rope, in the hands of Hatcher and director Melia Bensussen, is a mightily entertaining winner. Their previous collaboration, a gripping adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that was both faithful and innovative, started off Hartford Stage's 2024-25 season. Now, they're back! The production is great to look at: in addition to Rakkulchon’s striking contribution, Risa Ando's Costume Design gives each character a particular style and it's a real pleasure to see such a lovely 1920s dress; Mary Louise Geiger's Lighting Design is impeccable, with lightning design as well, given appropriate thunder in Jane Shaw's Sound Design, and her original musical composition gives us a nicely placed piano interlude. The play's action abounds in graceful touches both verbal and physical, and is dramatic and at times comic, and so very expertly paced. In the playbill Hatcher notes that Hamilton's play, with its three act structure, is "a little creaky." If so, his and Bensussen's version makes sure we don't have time to notice any signs of structural weakness. It crackles and cranks rather than creaks.

Lewis (Ephraim Birney), Brandon (Daniel Neale) in Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

We're faced at once with the fact of the violent demise of an acquaintance of two men who are about to host a dinner party before making their grand getaway. In real life, Loeb and Leopold were college students who killed—in pursuit of the "perfect crime"—an adolescent cousin of Loeb's, to prove their superiority. Here, the duo, called Brandon (the mastermind) and Lewis (a composer), are older and, it seems, a thoroughly haute-bourgeois couple.

Brandon (Daniel Neale), Meriel (Fiona Robberson), Mr. Kentley (James Riordan) in Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The dinner guests are forced to take their refreshments off a rather ponderous trunk quite capable of concealing a corpse. Present are: Meriel (Fiona Robberson), the fiancée of the missing guest, Mr. Kentley (James Riordan), his father, and Kenneth (Nick Saxton), a friend who may have interests of his own in Meriel. The more significant guest is Rupert Cadell (Mark Benninghofen), a former teacher of Brandon and Lewis, who perhaps knows how their minds work better than they think he does.

Rupert Cadell (Mark Benninghofen), Brandon (Daniel Neale) in Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Bookish, cultured, and oh-so arch, Daniel Neale's Brandon has panache to spare, his every move a study in smooth civility, ironically charged, while Ephraim Birney's Lewis is less unflappable. And with good reason: Brandon's the type who, to prove his superior intellect, is liable to place a bit of evidence where it might easily be found. It's classic cat-and-mouse stuff, and watching Brandon and Lewis play their guests as dupes lets us in on a situation both appalling and intriguing. As with any whodunit, murder is all in good fun (until it isn't), giving the proceedings a ready morbid appeal. Here, we already know the culprits' identities, and we may be surprised to find we'd like to see them get away with it. (An effect more easily achieved as we never meet the victim.)

Lewis (Ephraim Birney), Kenneth (Nick Saxton) in Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Cadell, who walks with a cane, is a bit of a Columbo, a bit of a Porfiry (from which Columbo derived), and is mostly a former mentor, invited so that the criminal conspirators will have a last chance to outwit him. Cadell's gradual sense that there is a challenge implied in the entire setup is what keeps us engaged, and Benninghofen gives Cadell enough bristly truculence to make us uncertain whether he's onto something or not.

Rupert Cadell (Mark Benninghofen) in Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

All the actors fully inhabit the characters that Hatcher's nimble dialogue lets them be, upholding the soigné tone of the evening, letting us into the world of people who are always polite, reassuring, and maybe, at times, a bit sinister. The deftness of giving us just enough entertaining repartee while also making us watch out for any slip-ups by the killers or any stumbles-upon-something by the guests is what makes the wheels of this conniving contraption spin.

As with last year's Jekyll and Hyde, Rope is about the evil that may be lurking below the surface. In both plays, there's a central character or two who is compelled to go beyond the bounds of behavioral norms and of commonly held mores. Rope is a play well-armed with knowledge of how those who consider themselves elite may in fact have feet of clay as well as hearts of stone. And that's worth considering and is, in its way, reassuring.

Brandon (Daniel Neale), Meriel (Fiona Robberson) in Rope, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Rope
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
Based on the play Rope's End by Patrick Hamilton
Directed by Melia Bensussen

Scenic Design: Riw Rakkulchon; Costume Design: Risa Ando; Lighting Design: Mary Louise Geiger; Sound Design & Original Composition: Jane Shaw; Wig & Makeup Design: Jodi Stone; Fight Director: Ted Hewlett; Voice & Dialect Coach: Jennifer Scapetis-Tycer; Casting: Alldaffer & Donadio Casting; Production Stage Manager: Nicole Wiegert; Assistant Stage Manager: Julius Cruz; Associate Artistic Director: Zoë Golub-Sass; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Mark Benninghofen, Ephraim Birney, Daniel Neale, James Riordan, Fiona Robberson, Nick Saxton

 Hartford Stage
October 10-November 2, 2025

Show Some Spunk

Review of Spunk, Yale Repertory Theatre

A newly discovered literary classic is always an exciting find, but when it can be brought to such vibrant life as the current Yale Repertory Theatre production of Zora Neale Hurston's Spunk, it becomes a cause for rejoicing. Hurston, best known for her landmark novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, was an ethnologist who wrote plays and musical theater as well. Her intent was to incorporate the authentic songs of African Americans into a story of community and confrontation, and of love triumphant. But the play, adapted from an early Hurston story in the 1930s, languished among her unpublished papers. Then, early this century, it came to the attention of Catherine Sheehy, professor of Dramaturgy at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, who undertook a long-term project to give Spunk its day in the sun. That day is now, through October 25, directed by Tamilla Woodward, with additional songs, new arrangements and music supervision by Nehemiah Luckett and choreography by nicHi douglas.

Foreground: J. Quinton Johnson (Spunk) and Kimber Elayne Sprawl (Evalina) with Isiah Reynolds, Alaman Diadhiou, Mikey Corey Hassel in Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The story concerns Spunk, the eponymous hero, talented and charismatic, who drifts by a work-crew and is directed to a job at a sawmill. Soon he's a ladies' favorite, able to court whomever he chooses. His selection of Evalina, who is willing but already married, sets up the play's main dramatic tension. Jim, her husband, confronts them, and his father Hodge is said to be a conjuror, skilled in the ways of hoodoo. Spunk, who believes Evalina is his fated mate, may find that his actions will bring down a baleful curse.

Hurston deliberately chooses characters who seem archetypal. More than simply realistic individuals, they become types necessary to the play's orchestration of how a community reacts to change, threat, and, importantly, love stronger than the usual run-of-the-mill romances they've seen until now. The central fact of the show is song, song as an expression of collective spirit, of joking, of romance, of danger, of work and play and testimony to the Lord's favor. There are many standout numbers—the duet on "Weeping Willow" is particularly graceful—and many of the songs have distinctive folk coloration—"Corn Bread and Molasses," "I Rode Some"—or evocative spiritual meanings—"Sing Ye Sinners," "Gethsemane." The range of songs is remarkable and their roles in the action always significant. Nehemiah Luckett gives new arrangements to many of the songs—"Weeping Willow," "Sing Ye Sinners," "Evalina," "Halimuhfack"—that do much to establish the lyrical tone of the show.

Jeannette Bayardelle (Mrs. Watson), center, with cast members of Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

There are rollicking numbers and songs of inspiration and everything in between. The plot may seem at times to be subordinate to music, but there is a steady forward movement with recurring motifs—as for instance beginning both Acts with work songs. In the first case, Spunk is an interloper; in the second, his presence is intrinsic to the song and the action. Hurston's ear for speech mannerisms is fine indeed, and often it’s a minor comment or aside that carries the most weight, as when Spunk says, in Act I, "I done got a letter from love and so help me I’ll go to hell but what I answer it," then, in Act II, receives a literal letter that he must risk everything to answer. Banter is a major feature of the dialogue, and the cast is excellent at making the crosstalk feel both real and meaningful, and amusing. A story of one couple's fate, Spunk is even more a story of how social customs create the context in which any life comes to understand itself. We see a town waiting to discover its hero and, in Spunk and Evalina, two people looking for someone who will make the world make sense.

J. Quinton Johnson (Spunk), left, with Shawn Bowers, Correy West, Alaman Diadhiou, Matthew Elijah Webb in Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

With a cast of fifteen, scenes play out across the entire stage, full of complex action—whether work gangs moving in tandem, a croquet match with plenty of bickering and sassing, a dating game called "a toe party," group dances and card games and, in Act II, a mysterious hoodoo ritual that makes use of dramatic staging, striking projections (Ke Xu, Projection Designer), masks (Kristen Taylor, Costume Designer) and a powerhouse performance by Alaman Diadhiou on djembe. Throughout, John Bronston's music direction is superlative, as is nicHi douglas' choreography, imaginatively weaving together textures of movement, speech and song that define and display the wonderfully affirmative spirit of Hurston's vivacious characters.

Jeannette Bayardelle (Mrs. Watson), Alaman Diadhiou (Blue Trout) in Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The cast is the very definition of ensemble acting, and, with everyone playing at least one instrument as well, the making of music is a major contribution to the inspiring effect of live theater fully present. A few key roles/performances should be mentioned by name: J. Quinton Johnson has swagger aplenty as Spunk, but there's a soulful earnestness in his demeanor that keeps him from being confused with an arrogant trifler; as his one-and-only, Kimber Elayne Sprawl is easily his match, weighing her every move in terms of what others will think and how she feels; their early duet, "Halimuhfack," establishes their immediate rapport; Jeannette Bayardelle, besides giving "Sing Ye Sinners" a rousing rendition, plays Mrs. Watson with a deadpan charm; as boisterous clown Willie Joe, Shawn Bowers leads the supporting cast, ably abetted by Alaman Diadhiou's show-boating Blue Trout; Kimberley Marable's disappointed Ruby makes the most of her every chance with Spunk, and Charlie Hudson III's Hodge Bishop closes the first Act with a showstopping rendering of humiliation, hatred, and heartbreak.

Charlie Hudson III (Hodge Bishop), Jeannette Bayardelle (Mrs. Watson), foreground, with Kimberly Marable, Shawn Bowers, Correy West in Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Staged with great ingenuity, zestful choreography and lively, busy and varied scenes, full of rhythmic movement in both speech and song, Spunk is clearly a labor of love for all involved and should not be missed. Like the song says, "Drop everything."

Zora Neale Hurston's
Spunk
New songs, arrangements, and music supervision by Nehemiah Luckett
Choreography by nicHi douglas
Directed by Tamilla Woodard

Music Director: John Bronston; Scenic Designer: Karen Loewy Movilla; Costume Designer: Kristen Taylor; Lighting Designer: Gib Gibney; Sound Designer: Justin Ellington; Projection Designer: Ke Xu; Hair Designer: Matthew Armentrout; Production Dramaturgs: Eric M. Glover and Catherine Sheehy; Technical Director: Tom Minucci; Fight and Intimacy Directors: Kelsey Rainwater and Michael Rossmy; Vocal Coach: Julie Foh; Associate Director: Stephanie Rolland; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: James Mountcastle

Cast: Jeannette Baryardelle; Shawn Bowers; Tyler Clarke; Alaman Diadhiou; Amahri Edwards-Jones; Janiah-Camile François; Charlie Hudson III; J. Quinton Johnson; Naiqui Macabroad; Kimberly Marable; Christian Pedersen; Isaiah Reynolds; Kimber Elayne Sprawl; Matthew Elijah Webb; Correy West

Yale Repertory Theatre
October 3-25, 2025

Ragtime Revisited

Review of Ragtime, the Musical, Goodspeed Musical Theater

Based on a novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime is a sprawling story of life in the U.S. just past the turn of the century (1900, that is). The story is as uplifting, infuriating, and mercurial as the country itself, and it is brought to gripping life on the stage at Goodspeed. Directed with admirable pacing by the very versatile Christopher D. Betts, Ragtime features a gut-wrenching performance by Michael Wordly as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., a Black ragtime musician forced to confront the political system, soaring sonic beauty from Brennyn Lark as Sarah, his love, and a powerfully determined and indelible portrait of Mother by Mamie Parris.

Michael Wordly as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., in Ragtime, the Musical at Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewski

What makes the book by Terrance McNally so brilliant is the way it keeps in play so many of the subplots and timely references that Doctorow weaves into his story. With its major characters separated by class, race, and place of origin, Ragtime shows us the social mores of a society that nominally accepts the concept of “equality before the law,” but has trouble putting it into practice.

We meet a comfortable white family in New Rochelle, NY: Father (Edward Watts, perfectly cast), who has a yearning to go exploring with Admiral Peary; Mother (Mamie Parris, outstanding), who takes in a non-white foundling as a matter of conscience; their Little Boy (Sawyer Delaney, very impressive), who has a way of letting others know what he knows, and Mother’s Younger Brother (Behr Marshall, who seems to have a local fan-club), who goes from starstruck enthusiast of the captivating performer Evelyn Nesbit (Mia Gerachis, quite comical) to a radicalized youth, via the spell cast by eloquent and passionate Emma Goldman (Blair Goldberg, also perfectly cast), and Grandfather (Stephen Tewksbury), played for laughs.

Mother’s Younger Brother (Behr Marshall), Father (Edward Watts), Mother (Mamie Parris), Little Boy (Sawyer Delaney), Grandfather (Stephen Tewksbury) in Ragtime, the Musical at Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewksi

We also meet newcomers to these shores: Tateh (David R. Gordon, excellent) and his daughter, immigrants who are struggling in the streets of New York. Eventually, Tateh’s artistry and quick sense of what sells will lead to the kind of show-biz transformation made possible by the burgeoning film industry, a change fully fleshed out in Gordon’s soulful and gifted Tateh.

Little Girl (Sofie Nesanelis), Tateh (David R. Gordon) and ensemble in Ragtime, the Musical at Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewski

Throughout, swift scene changes provide wonderfully varied glimpses of life and times in the early twentieth century: we see Henry Ford (Matt Wall) churning out his landmark Model T automobiles; get glimpses of Harry Houdini (Jonathan Cobrda, working it for all its worth), a famous escape artist and impresario; get to see crowds thrilling to Emma Goldman’s challenges to the capitalist system of worker exploitation, and linger with Mother and Tateh during one of those fortuitous encounters that the city somehow makes happen. In Act II we even get a manly outing to a ball game, and follow the adventures of Evelyn Nesbit who could easily command an entire musical devoted to her career.

Henry Ford (Matt Wall), Coalhouse Walker, Jr. (Michael Wordly) and ensemble in Ragtime, the Musical, Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewski

The heart and soul of the story and this show are Michael Wordly as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and Brennyn Lark as Sarah. Their duet in Scene 9, “Wheels of a Dream” is a show-stopping wonder. The mother of the foundling (eventually called Coalhouse Walker III), Sarah is found and also taken into the New Rochelle residence—while Father is off in the arctic wastes. The boy’s father, Coalhouse, Jr., finds her there and begins a long courtship to prove to her he’s reliable and devoted to mother and child. His proud purchase of a Model T sets up a main plot-point (adapted by Doctorow from Heinrich von Kleist’s novel Michael Kolhaas) that puts into play racism, materialism and the workings of the justice system as forces always ready to provoke and incite. The violence that ends Act 1 has a grim inevitability, but is also a reminder that the outrages that inspired the slogan “Black Lives Matter” are an ongoing aspect of life in the U.S.

Sarah (Brennyn Lark) in Ragtime, the Musical, Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewski

The challenge for Lynn Ahrens, Lyrics, and Stephen Flaherty, Music, was to find a way to express all this in song, and one is constantly surprised and delighted by how they manage it, using the always catchy musical phrasings of ragtime to flesh out the score. Considerable pressure is established by the success of Act I at bringing us into these lives and creating lively tableaux of movement and music—with effective ensemble work from choreographer Sara Edwards. What can Act II bring to light?

Jeremiah Valentino Porter, Rory Shirley, Jalyn Crosby, Jordan Alexander and ensemble in Ragtime, the Musical, Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewski

The stand-off between Coalhouse, Jr., and the powers-that-be furthers the darker themes of the novel, but before that crisis, we’re favored with two important numbers: “Sarah Brown Eyes” lets Coalhouse reanimate his love for Sarah, and allows Sarah to join him in a rendering of their enduring bond; and “Back to Before” is Mother’s grand statement, a passionate song that accepts the challenges to the status quo seething in the words of Emma Goldman, in Coalhouse’s challenge to racial hatred, and in her own realization that life without Father can be a truly liberating prospect. Finally, I caught a personal note in how Betts isolates the figure of Coalhouse Walker III during the Finale, “Ragtime/Wheels of a Dream,” with the boy perhaps a stand-in for the gifted director himself.

Mother (Mamie Parris) with Father (Edward Watts) in Ragtime, the Musical, Goodspeed; photo by Diane Sobolewski

Making use of every bit of Goodspeed’s just-big-enough stage, Ragtime is a musical that provokes, inspires and delights, an entertainment with complex themes and a fully engaging presentation. The design elements by its talented team—Emmie Finckel, Scenic Design; Stephanie Bahniuk, Costume Design; Charlie Morrison, Lighting Design; Jay Hilton, Sound Design—deserve mention as much of the pleasure of the show is in how it looks and sounds.

A revival of this always timely musical will go up at the Lincoln Center in NYC beginning in September. Get the jump on it, and go to Goodspeed to see Ragtime ignite its audience.

Ragtime, the Musical
Book by Terrence McNally
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Based on the novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
Directed by Christopher D. Betts
Music directed by Adam Souza
Choreographed by Sara Edwards

Scenic Design: Emmie Finckel; Costume Design: Stephanie Bahniuk; Lighting Design: Charlie Morrison; Sound Design: Jay Hilton; Original Orchestrations: William David Brohn; Additional Orchestrations: Kim Scharnberg; Wig, Hair & Makeup Design: Tenel Dorsey; Intimacy Consulting & Fight Direction: Kelsey Rainwater; Dialect Coach: Jennifer Scapetis-Tycer; Casting: Hardt Casting; Production Stage Manager: Chris Zaccardi; Director of Production: Endla Burrows; Production Manager/Technical Director: Dominick J. Pinto; Associate Artistic Director: Michale Fling; General Manager: Gretchen Wright

Cast: Jordan Alexander, Shaunice Maudlyn Alexander, Mia Bergstrom, Tommy Betz, Jodi Bluestein, Yophi Adia Bost, Jonathan Cobrda, Jalyn Crosby, Sawyer Delaney, Joseph Fierberg, Mia Gerachis, Blair Goldberg, David R. Gordon, Nathan Haltiwanger, Brennyn Lark, Behr Marshall, Henry H. Miller, Robin Louise Miller, Sofie Nesanelis, Mamie Parris, Jeremiah Valentino Porter, Rory Shirley, Denver Andre Taylor, Stephen Tewksbury, Xavier Turner, Matt Wall, Greyson Wallace, Edward Watts, Michael Wordly

Musicians: Keyboard 1/Conductor: Adam Souza; Keyboard 2: William Thomas; Violin: Lu Friedman; Trumpet: Renee McGee; Trombone: Matthew Russo; Bass/Tuba: Stuart Gann, Adam Hammer; Reeds: Liz Baker Smith; Guitar: Nick DiFabbio; Percussion: Elliot Wallace

Goodspeed Musicals
April 25-June 15, 2025; Press Opening: May 7, 2025