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

"What a Drag It Is to See You"

Review of Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, Yale Repertory Theatre

Do boards just generally have a bad name? To be “on the board”—doesn’t it suggest a level of integration into The System that may be met with envy, anger, maybe even revenge fantasies among underlings? Is there a relation between board-dom and boredom? Did you ever want to get up-close and personal with a “member of the board”? Or line ‘em up and shoot ‘em?

In Mara Vélez Meléndez’s Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, now playing at Yale Repertory Theatre through May 17, Lolita (Christine Carmela), a trans Boricua woman packing her father’s gun, has come to NYC to off an entire board. Consisting of seven unelected climbers put in charge of “oversight, management and economic stability” for Puerto Rico, the board’s snazzy acronym spells P-R-O-M-E-S-A, or “promise.” As with other government entities we might think of, PROMESA seems primarily designed to promote the interests of those in power while shafting the general population. The board has managed Puerto Rico into economic chaos. Lolita thinks enough is enough.

Samora la Perdida, Christine Carmela in Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

She takes the name of an actual woman, Lolita Lebron, who, with other Puerto Rican nationalists, opened fire on the US House of Representatives back in 1954, an act of retaliation, as they saw it, against the recent conversion of Puerto Rico into a US commonwealth. The play’s Lolita arrives at the Wall Street office of PROMESA fueled more by frustration than murderous intent, but her early mic drop moment puts the case clearly: “Do we hesitate to kill our leaders because we’re tired? Or . . . are we tired because we keep hesitating to kill our leaders?”

In the reception area of PROMESA, Lolita passes out from anxiety and comes to while the Receptionist (Samora la Perdida), hoping to help, realizes she’s armed. What follows is absurdist, dreamlike, and very, very much campy drag. Receptionist suggests a trial run at assassinating the board members—they are in possession of a binder with headshots and resumés for each of the seven—and before you can say “seven extravagant costume changes will be involved” Receptionist has taken on the task of enacting each board member as a fantasy drag alter ego.

It makes sense the way loose analogies sometimes do: political and economic self-determination—as for instance as an independent country with its own elected officials—is “like” self-determination in terms of non-binary gender constructions, see? At least both have to do with liberty, the kind that repressive regimes are apt to police or undermine or repress. And so, the fantasy board members that Receptionist conjures enact a sequence of problematic figures for whatever future Lolita is trying to imagine or implement.

I can’t say I quite “got” all seven as types or archetypes or even just as the fractious performers they are. And I have to admit that from time to time I found myself counting how many we’d met and how many more we still had to see—making the show feel a bit like having to get through a series of appointments. Next?

Samora la Perdida, Christine Carmela in Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The fabulous costumes by Arthur Wilson manage to keep one-upping the outrageousness (the last is truly mind-bending), and the songs and routines will land differently for different viewers (I probably laughed most outright at the initial reception that Artritis—a Reagan-era geriatric—met with, to the tune of “9 to 5”). My favorite board-member, though, for sheer entertainment, was Karlos Grace, the playboy, because he seemed to break most with the general technique on view. Samora la Perdida has a way with all these roles but their lip-synching was always theatrical in a very repetitive way (just giving “notes”). The board-persons that stood out most have some obvious cultural cachet—a judge, and, especially, a bishop.

Samora La Perdida, Christine Carmela (seated), in Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

If you’re an enthusiast for drag shows—and I’ve seen more than a few in the precincts of theater—you will likely find much here to amuse. For me, though, there is an awkward disconnect between the fun of drag—even in the more subversive or openly political numbers I’ve seen—and the situation Lolita is supposedly in. In Javier Antonio González’s direction, the caricatures that Receptionist enacts are always courting audience response, the way a drag number does, while the interplay of board-member with Lolita (who gets to indulge in a variety of time-killing devices while waiting for the next costumed creature) sometimes becomes a whirlwind of half-begun statements, implied arguments and dissing—of each other, of each board-member’s failings, of the revolutionary pose in general. There’s very real friction between what Lolita wants and what the board-members may be said to stand for, but the best dialogue occurs between Lolita and Receptionist, who identifies as Nuyorican, as, for instance, when they try to hash out, as “colonized siblings,” what exactly Puerto Rican-ness could or should be. Receptionist’s viewpoints often seem about as mercurial as they come, while Lolita’s are very much thoughts in progress.

Christine Carmela, Samora la Perdida in Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Doaa Ouf’s projections and collage of surveillance screens do much to add visual interest, and pretty much any time the scenic designer at the Rep—here Patti Panyakaew—uses the space under the stage as part of the set we’re in for a visually stunning event. As Receptionist quips at one point “it’s an elaborate show” and it certainly is, an extravaganza of bits and routines and, yes, killings that are always diverting, as theater.

At one point Lolita offers notes to Receptionist about performance: “Be sublime, not performative.” Easier said than done. Later, Lolita tells Bishop Avid Silk, “I need reasonable conversation about statehood, liberation, what’s next.”  Ummm…

Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members
By Mara Vélez Meléndez
Directed by Javier Antonio González

 Scenic Designer: Patti Panyakaew; Costume Designer: Arthur Wilson; Lighting Designer: Yung-Hung Sung; Sound Designer: Joyce Ciesil; Projection Designer: Doaa Ouf; Hair Designer: Matthew Armentrout; Make Designer: Sarah Cimino; Choreographer: Javier Antonio González; Production Dramaturgs: Daria Kerschenbaum, Abraham E.S. Rebollo-Trujillo; Fight and Intimacy Directors: Kelsey Rainwater, Michael Rossmy; Vocal and Dialect Coach: Cynthia Santos DeCure; Stage Manager: Aura Michelle

Cast: Christine Carmela, Samora la Perdida, with Yan-Carlos Diaz, Flower Estefana Rios

Yale Repertory Theatre
April 25-May 17, 2025

Strangers in a Station

Review of Heisenberg, New Haven Theater Company

The latest New Haven Theater Company production Heisenberg, directed by Steve Scarpa with a cast consisting of George Kulp and Melissa Andersen, opened this weekend and plays tonight and next Thursday through Saturday, May 8, 9, 10, only.

The play, by Simon Stephens (perhaps best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time), is engaging, surprising, and ultimately genial and optimistic. It’s not that there’s not a dark side to it all, but Melissa Andersen’s Georgie Burns, as the life force of the play, keeps us, like her stodgy foil Alex Priest (George Kulp), uncertain, fascinated, and vaguely unsettled, never knowing what will come out of her mouth next.

Alex Priest (George Kulp), Georgie Burns (Melissa Andersen) in Heisenberg at New Haven Theater Company, directed by Steve Scarpa

So let’s deal with the “uncertainty principle” right up front. The play is named for Werner Heisenberg, a German physicist who noted that you can’t measure accurately both position and speed of electrons at the same time. As translated into more day-to-day contexts, the Principle has come to be synonymous with the idea that the position/motion of the observer affects the observation. You can’t know what the world actually is until you factor out the distortion your own observations bring to the matter.

Why is this relevant to the play? It seems to me that Stephens wants us to see that someone like Georgie, who is constantly creating fictions about herself—we could also call them lies—is a “particle” we cannot observe properly without some understanding of what it is we think we see from our limited position and our own relative motion. As our stand-in for that process, Kulp’s Priest, an Irishman living in London since his adolescence and a single man with a butcher shop for most of his life (he’s now 75 and thinking of retiring), is laconic, stolid, somewhat distrustful, and, ultimately, more and more receptive.

But what is he becoming receptive to? The notion that a much younger woman—hitting her forties—who spontaneously kisses him on the back of the neck in a train station might actually be a good thing for him. A woman who claims any number of things: she’s an assassin, a waitress, a receptionist at a school; she kissed his neck in memory of a lost husband; she never had children; she never married, but she wants to find out where her grown son is living.

Melissa Andersen’s Georgie is lively, lovely, but also clearly more than a bit damaged. The fact that she’s so verbal is both a come-on and a dodge, a way of keeping as many possibilities in play at once, even in the same sentence. George Kulp’s Alex is an even tougher read: he has the tone of a man not easily impressed nor easily convinced; he’s mostly satisfied with his solitary pursuits—like long walks listening to an infinite variety of musical styles (which he enumerates at one point) on his Walkman. He tells Georgie that the difference between hearing music and listening to it is a matter of thinking about where it’s going, how it’s developing its themes. Which is a nice instruction for following a play as well.

The play is perfect for NHTC, requiring little in the way of set and props, and keeping us focused throughout on the perfectly paced dialogue achieved by this well-meshed cast and director Steve Scarpa (who directed the first show NHTC presented in the theater-space they’ve been in for over a decade). The play works because the oil and water mix of these two characters keeps alive the notion that they may have a special significance for one another—which is easy enough to maintain as there are no other persons in the play for comparison or contrast. Early on, Georgie ascertains that Alex has no one—no living siblings, no close friends, no younger relatives, nor any online life (he’s put off by the fact that he and his butcher shop are Google-able). In other words, he’s the perfect mark for a certain kind of romance-based hustle.

The most relevant uncertainty concerns where these two are headed and how fast: is Georgie simply hustling Alex? Is she genuinely trying to find acceptance or fun or something deeper from this cautious but quite genuine older man? Does she even know? For the issue isn’t only Alex’s uncertainty and ours, there’s a very real uncertainty at the heart of Georgie, who knows all kinds of ways to play with people but seems never quite certain what she’s playing at.

What you make of it all may have a lot to do with where you are in the electron stream of your own limited lifetime, and, for instance, whether 75 years is unthinkably far ahead or around the bend, and 40something an orbital position or receding almost out of sight. The play’s optimism comes from its convincing sense that we often don’t know who we really are or can be. And that’s a good thing.

Heisenberg
By Simon Stephens
Directed by Steve Scarpa

Producer: J. Kevin Smith; Production Stage Manager: Stacy Lupo; Lighting Design: Adam Lobelson

Cast: Melissa Andersen, George Kulp

New Haven Theater Company
May 1-3 & May 8-10, 2025

In Their Triumph Die

Review of Romeo & Juliet, Hartford Stage

The highest praise you can give to a production of Shakespeare’s oft-produced Romeo & Juliet is that it’s so good it makes you forget what’s going to happen, and the current Hartford Stage production is that good. Maybe there are some who don’t know the play’s outcome, but most do know, even if they’ve never seen the play performed (and I’ve seen three professional productions in CT previously). And yet the Hartford Stage production, directed by Artistic Director Melia Bensussen, and playing through May 18, almost makes us forget, so that we can be caught up again in the brilliance of the play.

The cast of Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The way to grab audiences is to give us an incredibly well-paced first half that reminds us that Romeo & Juliet is funny and fun. It’s been said that the play was originally intended as a comedy in which everything works out well in the end, and you can almost believe it up until the point at which Mercutio and Tybalt are killed. After that it’s a different play and, though our “star-cross’d lovers” remain hopeful, even they have a feeling that this can’t end well.

Juliet (Carmen Berkeley), Romeo (Niall Cunningham) in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

This production’s success owes much to its two leads. Niall Cunnigham is a likeable, youthful Romeo. Capable of playing both comedy and romance, Cunningham can crank up the windy rhetoric and also entertain us with Romeo’s awkward uncertainty. The second half, when he’s mostly offstage in exile, yearns for his return. Carmen Berkeley’s Juliet is boisterously charming and candid and full of irresistible spirit throughout the play. She’s a winner all the way. The garden scene with its famed balcony is lively and lovely, and Berkeley makes us feel the wonder of it all through Juliet’s eyes.

Juliet (Carmen Berkeley) in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Bensussen’s incredibly energetic production makes the most of the play’s action and comedy, abetted by Annmarie Kelly’s Nurse, a garrulous, well-meaning soul who dotes on Juliet—their chemistry does much to establish how lovable Juliet is; and by Carman Lacivita who gives Friar Lawrence both humor and thoughtfulness and the requisite panic when he gets in over his head; and by Juan Arturo’s very dashing Benvolio; and by Alejandra Escalante’s well-spoken and rakish Mercutio (for a woman to play a male role is not surprising, but to make Mercutio—Mercutia?—a woman is a bit of a stretch); Escalante, a Shakespeare veteran, is suitably charismatic in this plum role.

Mercutio (Alejandra Escalante), Tybalt (Brandon Burditt) and cast in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The first half, then, with all the swordplay and the first meeting of the lovers and the exchange of vows and the dynamics of the household chez Capulet is quite diverting. And it’s not a fault of the production that Shakespeare’s plays tend to drag a bit in Act IV before having a quick end in Act V. Here it’s because Romeo and Juliet don’t have any more scenes together until the end and even then, not really.

Lady Capulet (Eva Kaminsky), Capulet (Gerardo Rodriguez) in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Juliet’s best scene after the break is when she tries to delay marriage to Paris; the scene is well-played though the gender switch of giving lines written for Capulet to his wife is curious; certainly Eva Kaminsky delivers them exceedingly well, but the iron will shown in the lines doesn’t sit well with other aspects of the character of Lady Capulet as written. Elsewhere, as in his upbraiding of Tybalt, Gerardo Rodriguez perhaps shows his Capulet is not quite equal to the requisite bluster. Meanwhile, the news that Lady Montague died of grief flits by barely acknowledged since she never appears onstage in this production.

Friar Lawrence (Carman Lacivita), Romeo (Niall Cunningham), Juliet (Carmen Berkeley) in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Did I mention the costumes? Fabian Fidel Aguilar’s designs need to be seen. Not only colorful, rich and dazzling, the costumes incorporate motifs and a palette of Mexican provenance, lending this production a provocative aura. This is nowhere more striking than in the dance sequences, such as the ball where actors wear masks for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), making death a kind of honored guest in this play. Yes, it’s sad things don’t work out for everyone, but the play—and Bensussen’s vision of the play accentuates this—lets us know that death always has a part to play, in every life, and that here it comes freighted with themes like doomed love, and mortal enmity, and the kinds of risks, chances, and bad luck that put the fatalism in fatalities (there are six, counting Lady Montague).

Tybalt’s ghost (Brandon Burditt) in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The Set Design by Christopher & Justin Swader is open and eye-catching and graciously devoid of the gravel that graced it in Hartford Stage’s most recent previous production of R & J. The many points of entry and exit are used very effectively, and Dale A. Merrill’s Choreography and Ted Hewlett’s Fight Direction add much flair to the proceedings. Dan Kotlowitz’s Lighting Design subtly takes its cues from changes in the colors of Juliet’s gowns. Which is to say this is a visually splendid production with an impressive grasp of the play’s strengths and a bracing commitment to its spectacular theatricality and vitality.

So fresh and welcome is this Romeo & Juliet, shall I compare it to a summer’s day?

Nurse (Annmarie Kelly), Juliet (Carmen Berkeley) in Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage, directed by Melia Bensussen; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Romeo & Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Melia Bensussen

Choreography: Dale A. Merrill; Scenic Design: Christopher & Justin Swader; Costume Design: Fabian Fidel Aguilar; Lighting Design: Dan Kotlowitz; Sound Design: Darron L. West; Wig, Hair & Makeup Design: Tommy Kurzman; Fight Director: Ted Hewlett; Voice & Text Coach: Julie Foh; Casting: Alaine Alldaffer and Lisa Donadio; Production Stage Manager: Nicole Wiegert; Assistant Stage Managers: Julius Cruz and Maia Tivony

Cast: Opa Adeyemo, Juan Arturo, Carmen Berkeley, Emily Bosco, Brandon Burditt, Niall Cunningham, Alejandra Escalante, Eva Kaminsky, Michael Samuel Kaplan, Annmarie Kelly, Carman Lacivita, Gerardo Rodriguez, Liliana Alva, Jeremy Parrott, Jason Pietroluongo, Madelyn Rothstein

Hartford Stage
April 17-May 18, 2025

Who Can You Trust?

Review of Primary Trust, TheaterWorks, Hartford

Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust, winner of the Pulitzer in Drama for 2024, gives us a story of contemporary trauma that is more Frank Capra than Franz Kafka. And that in itself is refreshing. Directed by Jennifer Chang at TheaterWorks Hartford with a commanding sense of how to use the playing space for maximum effect, Primary Trust is an energetic feel-good play in which “the little guy” manages to navigate the minefield of everyday life without losing his dignity, much. How often does that happen?

As a note on the setting in the playbill reads: “Cranberry, New York: A medium-sized suburb of Rochester. Before smartphones.” It’s the last line that is so telling, as it not only puts the action back there before 2007, but before the reach of media via the phone became ubiquitous and incessant. As the singer Greg Brown puts it, “People used to spend quite a bit of time alone.” Remember?

Kenneth (Justin Weaks) in Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Mike Marques

The plot point, though, is that even when our hero, a young Black man named Kenneth (Justin Weaks), is alone he’s not really alone. As we learn early, he has an almost constant companion: an imaginary middle-aged friend called Bert (Samuel Stricklen). The interplay between the two is the main focus in the early going and when we learn of Bert’s phantasmal status we have to recalibrate a little. Because without Bert, with whom Kenneth haunts a tiki bar called Wally’s, downing mai tais during the two-for-one happy hour, Kenneth has only his job at a bookstore. And when the store’s genial owner, Sam (a quick study in type by Ricardo Chavira), has to sell out to afford a necessary operation, which also requires moving to the dry atmosphere of Arizona—Kenneth’s got nothing. But Bert.

Corinna (Hilary Ward), Kenneth (Justin Weaks) in Primary Trust by Eboni Booth at TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Mike Marques

As the story develops—pushed along by Kenneth sharing his story in direct address to the audience—we see Kenneth learn to navigate life on his own. And that means talking to people who, unlike Bert and the audience, are actually in scenes with him. Chiefly, that’s a string of waitresses/waiters at Wally’s, all played by Hilary Ward with a zestful rendering of different attitudes, dialects, and levels of professionalism. Eventually, the friendly and interested Corrina emerges from the pack and makes a chance suggestion about job prospects at a local bank (Kenneth’s deceased mother had been an employee at a different bank). Kenneth, who previously had a social worker who found him a job, takes the initiative and, with Bert’s backing, goes to a job interview where he meets the generally sympathetic Clay (Ricardo Chavira as an enthusiastic former high school football star), gets hired, and soon begins to succeed on the job.

Clay (Ricardo Chavira), Bert (Samuel Stricklen), Kenneth (Justin Weaks) in Primary Trust by Eboni Booth at TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Mike Marques

Interestingly, Kenneth’s traumatic backstory, which features the original for Bert, is not told to the audience, but rather to Corrina on an impromptu night out at a French restaurant. As we might expect, further trauma will surface when Kenneth comes to understand that having real people in his life makes having an imaginary companion more difficult. While the more dramatic touches in the play can feel a bit manipulative, the likeability of all the characters we meet—including a slew of eager to-be-pleased bank customers (Ward again)—keeps the play bouncing along in a mostly cheerful groove.

Corrina (Hilary Ward), Kenneth (Justin Weaks) in Primary Trust by Eboni Booth at TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Mike Marques

The fact of personal trauma is treated seriously, and the play’s main strength is the way Booth and Chang make theater of the sharing of stories and telling truths as a mainstay of fellowship. We see how relations between employer and employee, or between customer and worker, can be cordial rather than adversarial. Primary Trust takes its title from the name of the bank where Kenneth works, but it also alludes to the idea that trust is primary to any friendship. We may decide for ourselves whether the virtual world has helped to foster or undermine such trust. To say nothing of the political climate the internet aggravates.

The entire cast is engaging and makes each character—no matter how briefly glimpsed—come alive vividly. The more extended roles—Corrina, Clay, Bert—let us learn more about Kenneth by reflection, as we come to know him better by the kinds of interactions he inspires. As Kenneth, Justin Weaks’s thoughtful and touching performance works through a gripping emotional range—at times, reserved and closed off, at other times effusive and emotional. Kenneth is the heart and soul of the play, a young man already sorely tried by life who helps us realize that just getting by can be a great triumph. As we watch, his joy in life becomes ours.

Kenneth (Justin Weaks), Bert (Samuel Stricklen) in Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, at TheaterWorks Hartford; photo by Mike Marques

The staging here is very fast and effective, as in most TheaterWorks shows, with serviceable props and backdrops that quickly shift the scenes, letting us feel we’re becoming at-home in Kenneth’s mind, finding out that empathy can be a magic door into another world.

Primary Trust
By Eboni Booth
Directed by Jennifer Chang

Set Design: Nicholas Ponting; Costume Design: Danielle Preston; Lighting Design: Bryan Ealey; Sound Design: Frederick Kennedy; Wig Design: Earon Chew Healey; Associate Director: Moira O’Sullivan; Dialect Coach: Jennifer Scapetis-Tycer; Stage Manager: Tom Kosis

Cast: Ricardo Chavira, Samuel Stricklen, Hilary Ward, Justin Weaks

TheaterWorks, Hartford
April 10-May 11, 2025

The Play That Keeps Playing

Review of Theatre People, Westport Country Playhouse

What is the chief characteristic of “theatre people”? Paul Slade Smith’s play of that name, playing at Westport Country Playhouse through April 12, suggests that “theatre people” may often feel they’re in a play, so that life tends to be a matter of plots and subplots and complications that may lead to a happy ending (comedy) or an unhappy ending (tragedy). Cleverly playing on an awareness of life’s theatricality and of comic theater’s familiar tropes, Smith’s play, ably directed by Mark Shanahan, enacts the kind of fast-paced comedy that Westport Country Playhouse has a tradition of bringing off extremely well.

Margot (Mia PInero), Victor (Michael McCorry Rose), Olga (Erin Noel Grennan), Oliver (Rodolfo Soto), Arthur (Michael McCormick), Charlotte (Isabel Keating) in Theatre People, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Visiting at a Rhode Island mansion to hear Broadway star Margot Bell (Mia Pinero) perform, Charlotte Sanders (Isabel Keating) and Arthur Sanders (Michael McCormick) are playwrights who hope to facilitate Margot’s participation in the play they plan to make of a new novel, The Angel in the Next Room (which, unbeknownst to Margot, has been written in dedication to her by Oliver Adams (Rodolfo Soto), a young writer in love with her). To help what the Sanderses assume to be a definite couple work together, Charlotte has arranged for Oliver to stay in a bedroom adjacent to Margot’s. Complications arise when Margot is overheard being not so angelic in the next room, much to Oliver’s dismay.

Oliver (Rodolfo Soto), Arthur (Michael McCormick), Charlotte (Isabel Keating) in Theatre People, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The Sanders must rectify the situation, which means: dealing with Oliver’s despair (given several comical layers by Rodolfo Soto); enlightening Margot of the enormity of the situation (the Sanders desperately need a hit play), which causes Mia Pinero to move swiftly from grande dame to flustered ingenue; roping Oliver’s rival, the handsome, dashing and dim actor Victor Pratt (Michael McCorry Rose), into their plans—which means he may have to flap his arms like a showboating angel at some length; and enlisting all manner of help from Olga (Erin Noel Grennan), a scene-stealing and theater-deprecating housemaid who stands in at times for a playwright, a director, and an audience. The cast are all equal to their characters’ supposed real selves as well as the play-within-the-play characters they have to convince one another they understand (which is not easy!).

Charlotte Sanders (Isabel Keating), Margot Bell (Mia Pinero), Victor Pratt (Michael McCorry Rose) in Theatre People, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Adapted from Ferenc Molnár’s Play at the Castle (1924), which was popularized in English by P. G. Wodehouse as The Play’s the Thing (1926), Theatre People is set in the 1940s, the chief era for Hollywood screwball comedies, with the Sanderses sometimes flinging off sallies worthy of Nick and Nora—Isabel Keating, who plays Charlotte with a fizzy, can-do assertiveness, even resembles Myrna Loy a little, especially when some of the fizz falls flat and she has to consider that intricate plots may be easier to pull off on stage than in life. As her often bemused, confused partner who lives his life rising to her bait, Michael McCormick shows off great timing, a skeptical foil who knows how to make the most of any opening given.

Charlotte Sanders (Isabel Keating), Arthur Sanders (Michael McCormick) in Theatre People, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The romantic triangle that has to center the shenanigans is never as diverting as the fiction Charlotte devises so as to tie-up everyone’s loose ends, and Margot and Victor spend the whole first act on the other side of that well-appointed wall, while Oliver is the kind of unrealistically romantic naif whom one can’t imagine writing a novel much less a good one. Such devices make “theater people” seem rather silly, but the protracted “rehearsal” that, in Act 2, makes ridiculous theater of Victor’s wooing of Margot—and creates a preposterous plot that lets Arthur literally play God—is the pay-off, and even manages to make Olga a believer in the value of theater. The value certainly includes the ability to make everything—set (James J. Fenton), costumes (Annie J. Le), lighting (Alyssandra Docherty), sound (Jill BC Du Boff), props (Anya Kutner) and hair/makeup (J. Jared Janas) as top-notch and flawless as possible as they are here.

Olga (Erin Noel Grennan), Charlotte Sanders (Isabel Keating) in Theatre People, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

There’s a point fairly early in the play when Charlotte tries to explain theater’s attractions to a doubting Olga, whose common sense grasp of human foibles doesn’t see why anyone would want to waste time re-enacting such things. Charlotte describes how the audience at a play are able to forget the world and all its troubles while getting caught up in the lives being staged before them by living people. The words, we can imagine, are meant to have a resonance for our particular times, but can—we realize—be assigned to any time in human history. The power of theater to create a facsimile of life that can fascinate us, whether believable or unbelievable, laughable or lachrymose, keeps us returning to our seats. As the final entry in the venerable Westport Country Playhouse’s “Season of Laughter,” Theatre People capably reminds us that people who live only on stage need an audience to come alive. They need us, in other words, theater’s people.

Theatre People
By Paul Slade Smith
Adapted from Ferenc Molnár’s Play at the Castle
Directed by Mark Shanahan

Set Designer: James J. Fenton; Costume Designer: Annie J. Le; Lighting Designer: Alyssandra Docherty; Sound Designer: Jill BC Du Boff; Prop Supervisor: Anya Kutner; Wig, Hair, & Makeup Designer: J. Jared Janas; Production Stage Manager: Rebecca C. Monroe; Assistant Stage Manager: Christine Lemme; Production Assistant: Zach De Brino; Assistant Director: Anissa Felix

Cast: Erin Noel Grennan, Isabel Keating, Michael McCormick, Mia Pinero, Michael McCorry Rose, Rodolfo Soto

Westport Country Playhouse
March 25-April 12, 2025

The Art of Belonging

Review of Laughs in Spanish, Hartford Stage

Alexis Scheer’s Laughs in Spanish, playing at Hartford Stage through March 30, grabs us from the start: a blank wall where expensive artworks should be hanging and a loud, sustained scream of “fuuuuuck!” from art dealer Mariana (Stephanie Machado). ‘Tis the season of the famed Art Basel Miami Beach, and Mariana must needs sell art. The missing paintings, though, come to seem mostly a minor plot point, a way to start the action with a bit of bait-and-switch. Directed by Lisa Portes, the play begins with comic, on-the-job high anxiety, but gradually becomes a play about relationships, and family, and community values.

I might have preferred to watch Mariana deal with the art world.

Mariana (Stephanie Machado), Estella (Maggie Bofill) in Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

But that’s just me: the accent here is on the accents, we might say. The play treats—with ready humor and a bubbly cast of characters—the shifting roles people play in their lives—work, family, romance—and, more particularly, the tonal shifts that come from being manifestly Latine, in some situations, and more knowingly Angloese in others. The fun of watching the play comes in seeing how the role and tone shifts are instinctive, instructive, and played for effect in a variety of social situations by this able cast.

Start with our screaming art dealer (Machado a little later does a rattled scream that easily eclipses her opening bellow): Mariana, we see, is a savvy, self-sustaining success, but success can easily totter into failure; besides the upcoming reception for art now gone, she has to deal with her assistant Carolina (María Victoria Martínez) who is a Latine artist looking for a break—and who cooly suggests her works should be hung in lieu of the purloined pieces; then there’s Mariana’s mom, Estella (Maggie Bofill), who is a celebrity because of a role she plays in a telenovela, and who is back in her old Wynwood stomping grounds for reasons of her own (but which are relevant to Mariana). Coincidentally, Jenny, Estella’s assistant, an Anglo, is a former school-chum of Mariana’s at the boarding school that absentee mom Estella sent her young daughter to. Does that backstory spell friction or romance? Meanwhile, there’s also very agreeable Juan (Luis Vega), the kind of security guard who thinks it’s no sweat when highly valuable art disappears on his watch, and who is more than cozy with Carolina.

In other words, there are past, present, and future situations aplenty. In all the busyness of the various cross-purposes, the play loses some of the charm that got us interested in the first place. The two strong characters here are Mariana and Estella, both given fascinatingly varied readings by Stephanie Machado and Maggie Bofill, respectively. The mother-daughter dynamic is the most fully fleshed-out, and watching these two work through their pasts and presents is rewarding viewing. Bofill’s Estella is the more demanding and commanding, even when she tries to be humble, and her range of ways to work a room never runs dry. Late in the play she delivers a speech/monologue that left me a little uncertain of its relevance but never in doubt that it was fun to listen to and watch.

Estella (Maggie Bofill); Mariana (Stephanie Machado), foreground, in Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Machado’s Mariana can be breezy, ballsy, bitter, blithe—and believably girlish. She’s comes across as the kind of character that—if maybe not telenovela material—can be easily imagined as a sit-com heroine, cut from the Mary Tyler Moore Show mold (if that’s not too ancient a reference). This week, we see her deal with missing art, a school crush, and the fall-out from mom’s misdemeanors. Next week?

Jenny (Olivia Hebert), Mariana (Stephanie Machado) in Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The supporting cast all get to have spotlight moments too: the scene of Carolina and Juan in his car with siren and lights going works as contemporary comedy-romance; Jenny’s scene with Mariana lingers maybe a bit too long in the indirection of romantic buildup but is still sweet; and anyone’s scene with Estella upgrades the play’s humor. She’s a walking, talking comic melodrama.

Estella (Maggie Bofill) in Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Brian Sidney Bembridge’s scenic design is a bright open space that also shows off Hartford Stage’s spinning stage, so that we get a welcome scene change—twice—in the midst of the action. The street-art on a wall has the requisite Miami feel, I assume, and the forest of trees is foreboding and funky at once. Harry Nadal’s costumes are colorfully varied, and there are lively dance/movement routines to the original music by Daniela Hart/UptownWorks. Throughout, Lisa Portes shows a sharp sense of how to have her cast play to an appreciative audience. Most laughs land and some even simmer.

Carolina (Maria Victoria Martínez), Juan (Luis Vega) in Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Laughs in Spanish shows us a vividly turning wheel that presents each character functioning in more than one environment and in more than one capacity. The point of it all, ultimately, turns on which self each character is most comfortable as; or we might say, which identity is the most authentic. The strength of Scheer’s play is that it shows we are each authentically, truthfully, actually more than one thing. The best we can do is make our various selves align with those we care about most.

Mariana (Stephanie Machado), Estella (Maggie Bofill) in Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Laughs in Spanish
By Alexis Scheer
Directed by Lisa Portes

Scenic Design: Brian Sidney Bembridge; Costume Design: Harry Nadal; Lighting Design: Sherrice Mojgani; Original Music & Sound Design: Daniela Hart/UptownWorks; Dialect & Voice Coach: Cynthia Santos DeCure; Production Stage Manager: Theresa Stark; Assistant Stage Manager: Christina M. Woolard; Associate Artistic Director: Zoë Golub-Sass; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Maggie Bofill, Olivia Hebert, Stephanie Machado, Maria Victoria Martínez, Luis Vega

Hartford Stage
March 6-30, 2025

Don't Blame the Mirror

Review of The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre

“Dying,” the apocryphal theater saying goes, “is easy; comedy is difficult.” Farce, we might say, is even trickier. Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector dates from 1836 and is one of the classic farces of the era, a play that skewers the pretentions of provincials and metropolitans, of liberals and conservatives alike. If it’s a given that the officials in an out-of-the-way Russian village will be hopelessly corrupt, naïve and inefficient, it’s also a given that any remedy from higher up will be just as ineffectual. In Gogol’s world, humanity is ultimately at its own mercy; witless, indulgent, perverse, false, sentimental, occasionally inspired, the best and worst of our collective species wars in each individual brain and breast.

Yura Kordonsky’s adaption, which he also directs, is now playing at Yale Repertory Theatre through March 29 and aims to be as broadly comic as possible. It’s a production not without its dark side, but the manifest effect is gleeful celebration of theater as contrived spectacle.

Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre, left to right: Whitney Andrews, Darius Sakui, Brandon E. Burton (kneeling), Annelise Lawson, Edoardo Benzoni, John Evans Reese, Malik James, Grayson Richmond; photo by Joan Marcus

The distraught Mayor (Brandon E. Burton) of a nameless village has received word that an inspector, traveling incognito, will be coming to town to spy upon the local officials, who, we see, are a dissolute pack of incorrigibles: The Director of Public Health (Whitney Andrews) runs a hospital where patients die or get well because “they would have anyway”; The Judge (Darius Sakui) proudly takes bribes as suitable to the dignity of his office; The School Superintendent (John Evans Reese) is far too timid to impose any order on his teachers and resents them for acting better educated; The Postmaster (Annelise Lawson) opens and reads all mail in hopes of finding romantic billets-doux; and The Doctor (Grayson Richmond) is German, speaks no Russian, and is therefore made an authority. Then there are the townsfolk in the form of two nearly Beckettian clowns called Bobchinsky (Edoardo Benzoni) and Dobchinsky (Malik James) who vie for the thrill of spreading gossip. Finally, the Mayor’s family: Anna (Elizabeth Stahlmann), a wife and mother who resents being left out of events and sees the maturation of her daughter, Marya (Chinna Palmer), as an affront and a revolt, whereas Marya while naïve is no longer a child.

Marya, the Mayor’s daughter (Chinna Palmer), Anna, the Mayor’s wife (Elizabeth Stahlmann) in Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Word comes that a stranger with a servant is staying at a local inn and has let drop that he’s from St. Pete’s (aka, St. Petersburg). This unsuspecting visitor, Ivan Khlestakov (Samuel Douglas), with his man Osip (Nomè SiDone), is trapped in town because his gambling losses have left him without funds. The officials’ efforts to bribe him relentlessly and favor him with all manner of obsequious attentions suits him wonderfully, leading to romantic entanglements and other potentially consequential exposures.

Ivan Khlestakov (Samuel Douglas), Osip (Nomè SiDone) in Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The cast—all graduates from or current students in the MFA acting program at the David Geffen School of Drama—attack the material with what might be called collective mania. At the heart of the show is Samuel Douglas’ Ivan, played as a whining, preening man-child wildly fluctuating between astonishing self-importance and trembling insecurity. His initial surprise at his fawning reception, signaled by a high-pitched laugh reminiscent of Tom Hulce’s Mozart in the film Amadeus (1984), eventually gives way to a smug superiority as he deigns to humor each official’s shameless courtship.

Marya, the Mayor’s daughter (Chinna Palmer), Ivan Khlestakov (Samuel Douglas) in Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

The scene where Ivan attempts to secure a mischievously animate boot demonstrates the incredible vigor of Douglas’ physical comedy. His Ivan is a whirlwind of energetic bursts and outrageous attempts to curry favor. He boasts of being friends with Pushkin (as was Gogol) and aims to let his playwright friend Nikolai know of his adventures so they can be put into a play. While one might wish for a somewhat more temperate manner in Ivan’s bewilderment during the long leadup to Intermission, the play’s second Act finds our hero a bit more knowing if not outright Machiavellian. His turn-on-a-dime seductions of both Anna and Marya make hay of the usual love-interests of romantic plays, and are enacted with great relish.

Anna, the Mayor’s wife (Elizabeth Stahlmann), Marya, the Mayor’s daughter (Chinna Palmer), Ivan Khlestakov (Samuel Douglas), The Mayor (Brandon E. Burton) in Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Other standouts are: the comic timing of the entire cast, particularly during the reading of a revelatory letter late in the play; Elizabeth Stahlmann’s grandly unhappy Anna who imperiously questions random audience members from a window, fidgets erotically before Ivan, and treats her daughter as an evil double; Annelise Lawson’s neurotic Postmaster whose literal scream for attention is one to remember and whose dimness is her greatest charm; the bluster and fawning of Brandon E. Burton’s Mayor, a figure who, through all the mannerisms of caricature, manages to be a character and the author’s deliberate spokesman at one key point; Malik James’ Dobchinsky who is so flustered by his moment in the limelight when interrogated by Anna that he spends it crawling over surprised audience members; and Edoardo Benzoni’s Bobchinsky, a peasant soul grappling for a modern sense of self, whose great claim is that he “lives here!”

Piotr Ivanovich Dobchinsky (Malik James), Piotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky (Edoardo Benzoni) in Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Also for special mention: Silin Chen’s majestically dilapidated set, with exposed brickwork, a windowed room that makes for intrigue, with a sash that serves for a balcony à la Romeo and Juliet, and a stage full of eternal snow that sticks to every costume and at different points becomes medicinal or celebratory; KT Farmer’s range of costumes from the believable to the fantastic (check out those vermin), with any article apt to become a prop when suitable; Masha Tsimring’s lighting plays with situations as though a visual “score”; Minjae Kim’s sound design gives the musical score its due and includes atmospheric sound effects; Arseniy Gusev’s musical compositions shine in the gripping dream sequence before intermission, and there’s even a Pushkin poem set to music and sung with artful artlessness by Chinna Palmer as Marya.

The cast of Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; Marya (Chinna Palmer), center; photo by Joan Marcus

The sting of Gogol’s satire might seem a bit dulled by the relentless zaniness of Kordonsky’s approach, but the exuberance of the comic hijinks becomes its own rationale. If we’re never remotely in anything like a real place with real people, then we might realize that what we’re seeing is not so much Theater of the Absurd as absurd theater. While the first asks us to question everything that could give coherence to theater as a telling representation of real life, the second lets us know that such theatrical questioning is no answer.

The dark side surfaces in those eerie vermin who seem both humanoid and alien and eager to take over; in the faceless collective that threatens Ivan as his shadowy double (as the actual inspector might be), but can also stand for bureaucratic anonymity (or DOGE dodginess?); and in that final image of the swinging chandelier—ask not for whom the candles dim.

We might shape the play’s relation to the us of the US 2025 thus: if those in power are thorough idiots not to be trusted, what of the idiots who let such idiots run things?

The cast of Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Nikolai Gogol’s
The Inspector
Newly adapted and directed by Yura Kordonsky

Scenic Designer: Silin Chen; Costume Designer: KT Farmer; Lighting Designer: Masha Tsimring; Sound Designer: Minjae Kim; Composer: Arseniy Gusev; Hair Designer: Matthew Armentrout; Production Dramaturgs: Sophia Carey, Georgia Petersen; Technical Director: Cian Jaspar Freeman; Fight and Intimacy Directors: Kelsey Rainwater, Michael Rossmy; Vocal Coach: Walton Wilson; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: Adam Taylor Foster

Cast: Whitney Andrews, Edoardo Benzoni, Brandon E. Burton, Samuel Douglas, Malik James, Annelise Lawson, Chinna Palmer, John Evans Reese, Grayson Richmond, Darius Sakui, Nomè SiDone, Elizabeth Stahlmann

Yale Repertory Theatre
March 7-29, 2025

Living Hell

Review of The Christians, New Haven Theater Company

“I have a powerful urge to communicate, but I find the distance between us insurmountable.” That may be the most resonant line in Lucas Hnath’s The Christians, playing for one more weekend at New Haven Theater Company, March 6-8. The words suggest the huge gaps that have arisen between “different sides” in our republic—right, left; Republican, Democrat; conservative, liberal—and, as in the play, between different beliefs within, nominally, the same religion.

The play is a serious, non-satiric, non-sentimental treatment of crisis in a religious community, and, directed by Deena Nicol-Blifford, is given another satisfyingly professional production in New Haven Theater Company’s long career. Well-cast, well-paced, with a telling grasp of how well this play works in front of a small audience, NHTC’s The Christians might convert you to the joys of small, local theater. As in the storefront where Pastor Paul’s church began, everyone present is fully visible.

The audience is the congregation, to a certain extent. We aren’t given cues, but we do watch as these somewhat theatrical church people go through their contortions. They generally speak into microphones as if their every thought must be broadcast (or in fact is, as the man upstairs is always listening). There’s a stultifying lack of humor in these characters, and a tendency to speak as if their beliefs determine the fate of humanity.

Such attitudes might be played with a sharp irony, but Hnath’s play takes these folks at their word, giving us glimpses of what it’s like to walk with Jesus every step of one’s life. Nicol-Blifford’s very capable cast convince us of the stakes here, even if we might think that whether Pastor Paul (Marty Tucker) or Associate Pastor Joshua (Gavin Whelan) believe in Hell or not doesn’t actually affect its existence or non-existence. To be fair, for the pastors the question isn’t simply whether they believe in Hell or not, but whether or not they should be trying to convince others to believe in it or not.

The play begins, riskily, with a sermon. As Pastor Paul, Marty Tucker is so spot-on believable it’s a bit uncanny. He exudes the measured cadence of a man who makes his living by public speaking, with the lofty tone of a man thoroughly wrapped-up in his own ethos. His story about wooing his wife Elizabeth (Susan Kulp) when she was a stranger on a plane, sending her a note with the quotation above, is made to stand for his ability to surmount the “insurmountable.”

Pastor Paul may be forgiven for being fascinated by the fact that others find him fascinating: his congregation has grown from less than fifty to the tens of thousands. (We’re meant to be seeing the leader of a megachurch, and I’m sure big theater productions with bigger budgets might try to recreate all the razzamatazz of church-going as arena spectacle, but the much smaller scale here means we can appreciate all the more the subtlety of the script.) Pastor Paul opens his sermon telling us that the church has overcome the cost incurred by building its grand meeting hall, and now is free of debt.

The relief of being financially solvent perhaps inspires Pastor Paul to attempt a radical change in the church’s dogma, which in effect says that a person’s soul could be in heaven, even if that person, in life, had never professed belief in Jesus Christ. The blowback on this alternative, and ostensibly progressive, creed is immediate. Associate Pastor Joshua, played with suitably dogged intensity by Gavin Whelan, takes exception, trying to quote the Bible to his purpose, but is nimbly rebuffed by Pastor Paul; Jenny (Margaret Mann), a seemingly meek and appreciative congregant, steps up to the mic with a testimonial that questions Pastor Paul’s good faith in changing course only after his congregation had sacrificed and scrimped to pay for his grand hall; Elder Jay (J. Kevin Smith), mostly supportive in private conversations with Paul, seemingly withdraws his backing when the church loses significantly more congregants than the initial fifty that had backed Joshua, now leading them as his followers.

Elizabeth (Susan Kulp), Paster Paul (Marty Tucker) in The Christians, New Haven Theater Company

In all this, The Christians stays within the bounds of religious practice and religious freedom. Few if any religions haven’t had schisms, heretics, and clashing doctrines even if not always spinning off into new faiths. We’re treated to a glimpse at how communities form and splinter, especially when it’s a matter of this charismatic leader or that. But Hnath’s play moves as well into more intimate realms. Late in the play we see Pastor Paul in conversation with his wife Elizabeth. The tension here comes from the pastor following only his own lead, keeping his wife uninformed of his intentions. What’s more, as Elizabeth presents her view, in Susan Kulp’s carefully modulated tones, we learn that she sides with Joshua on the question of Hell, and feels that her women’s Bible-study group might be a forum for her to express her dissatisfactions with her husband’s teachings.

In the end we see that, though the play concentrates on the problems that arise when a pastor veers from agreed-upon church doctrine into his own soul-searching agenda, The Christians isn’t only about religious belief or faith. Hnath’s text gestures toward the beliefs we profess but don’t really hold, the beliefs we change but conceal from others, the beliefs we use to denigrate those with other beliefs, and how hard it is to talk meaningfully about something that always, it seems, amounts to “a feeling.”

What’s bracing about the play is its sense that an inability to communicate is not insurmountable. Everyone in the play gets to state their views. The downside is that the firmer they are in their beliefs, the more the distance between their beliefs grows.

Insurmountable? As any good pastor might say, “let us pray.”

The Christians
By Lucas Hnath
Directed by Deena Nicol-Blifford

Co-Producers: Deena Nicol-Blifford and J. Kevin Smith; Stage Manager: Abby Klein; Set and Sound Design: Deena Nicol-Blifford; Lighting Design: Michael Abbatiello

Cast: Susan Kulp, Margaret Mann, J. Kevin Smith, Marty Tucker, Gavin Whelan

New Haven Theater Company
February 27 & 28; March 1, 6, 7, 8, 2025

Tend Your Own Garden

Review of Native Gardens, Westport Country Playhouse

At the conclusion of Voltaire’s satirical narrative Candide, the protagonist reflects that the only way to find happiness in this volatile and uncertain world is “to tend one’s own garden.” Karen Zacarías’ bright situation comedy, Native Gardens, playing at Westport Country Playhouse through March 8, directed by Joann M. Hunter, suggests—comically—that tending a garden may come with its own stress and political tensions.

Frank Butley (Adam Heller), Virginia Butley (Paula Leggett Chase), Tania Del Valle (Linedy Genao), Pablo Del Valle (Anthony Michael Martinez) in Native Gardens, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Anna Louizos’ sumptuous set confronts us with two different backyards, situated in an upscale neighborhood in Washington DC. On our right, a well-appointed brick house with a stone porch on the back and a very well-tended garden full of bright blooms; on our left, a less maintained house, with siding, overhung by the leaves and branches of a large tree, and a yard with a simple table and chairs near an ivied fence. On the right live the Butleys, Virginia (Paula Leggett Chase) and Frank (Adam Heller), gray-haired, affable, Republican; Frank tends his garden assiduously, desperate to do better than Honorable Mention in the yearly neighborhood competition. On the left, live Tania Del Valle (Linedy Genao), a pregnant doctoral student, and her husband Pablo (Anthony Michael Martinez), a Chilean immigrant eager to make partner at the law firm where he works. They are the new owners of this fixer-upper, and we learn that Tania is very committed to using only indigenous plants in her gardening as she looks askance at Frank’s fussy, imported flowers and shrubs.

Even if the clash here were only about the do’s and don’ts of horticulture, the confrontation between these two couples would likely spin through a number of push-button topics designed to demonstrate the perils of neighborliness in ideologically fraught times. Early on, the talk establishes that Tania’s “people” have been on the North American continent for ages, that she is from New Mexico, not Mexico, and that Pablo hails from a world of chauffeur-driven limos and private schools. Frank and Tania seem to bond on the importance of gardening, even if their ideal gardens are very different; Virginia attempts to find common cause with Pablo by asserting that being a woman in a male preserve such as engineering—her field—is comparable to being a non-white man trying to climb the ladder today.

Pablo Del Valle (Anthony Michael Martinez), Frank Butley (Adam Heller), Tania Del Valle (Linedy Genao) in Native Gardens, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

Zacarías’s dialogue lets each character get across an individual perspective but without drawing major fault lines. Everyone is trying to be likeable. The real disruption occurs not for reasons of taste, or background or even political affiliation. When the Del Valles decide the chain-link fence must go, to be replaced by a wooden one that the Butleys welcome, a glance at the map of their plot indicates that their property line actually extends about two feet into Frank’s garden. Now, it’s time to bring in the rhetorical big guns—about land-grabs, borders, and squatter’s rights, about time-honored stewardship, the rule of law, and old privilege vs. new ambition.

Zacarías works in just enough issues-talk to indicate how our larger cultural surround inflects even our most trivial occupations, and Joann M. Hunter’s direction keeps everything on an even keel, so that we are intrigued more than confronted by the situation. Mention should be made too of how well the silent “workers” are played by Horacio “Joe” Cardozo and Brianna Parkin, whose very presence shows how necessary an underclass is to any upper-class assertions.

Pablo Del Valle (Anthony Michael Martinez), Frank Butley (Adam Heller) in Native Gardens, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

All the drama plays out with notable give-and-take—as for instance, the escalating late-night fracas between Frank and Pablo that is not without a certain self-consciousness, or the “women make nice better than men” assumptions that goad Virginia and Tania into a talk that goes delightfully off the rails. Throughout, there is a fairly nuanced sense of how these two contemporary households differ, and, most usefully, how the perspective of being near retirement vs. up-and-coming plays into the situation.

The problem, which gets uglier and less resolvable as it goes on, receives a dramatic turn that could be called “bambina ex machina.” The epilogue might seem corny in its “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” cheer, but Zacarías seems to assume that, if we can suffer being ribbed for our eagerness to assert our distinct identities and preferences and assumptions, we can also be ribbed for our hope for happy endings. The script is resolutely fun, but rarely really funny.

Tania Del Valle (Linedy Genao), Frank Butley (Adam Heller), Virginia Butley (Paula Leggett Chase) in Native Gardens, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

The cast acquit themselves well, all very believable in their roles, bringing enough particularity to seem individuals rather than types. As Pablo, Anthony Michael Martinez doesn’t seem yet the slick lawyer we might expect him to become, and his effort at domestic tranquility requires much input from his wife. He seems to spend most of his time flustered. Linedy Genao’s Tania has a freshness and youth that might make us think she’ll be docile and meek, but guess again; when she cusses out Virginia in Spanish we have a glimpse of how risky it is to cross her. As Frank, Adam Heller seems a truly likeable guy’s guy, the type that inhabited many a sitcom where a family is presided over by a sometimes wise, sometimes silly successful white male (early on, Tania quips that the Del Salles are “living next-door to the Dick Van Dyke Show”); he does go on a bit too much about his damn garden contest, but that just shows he’s used to getting his way. The star of the show is Paula Leggett Chase’s Virginia, full of arch mannerisms and meaningful silences and comic timing; we see how much having an argument with these newcomers gets her juices flowing and we imagine Virginia hasn’t been this turned-on in years.

Frank Butley (Adam Heller), Virginia Butley (Paula Leggett Chase) in Native Gardens, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by Carol Rosegg

The set, costumes, lighting, incidental music between scenes are all superb—and all serve well the expectation that theater show us a reasonable facsimile of our lives and times. Playing in Westport, we might find we do indeed recognize these characters and, with the world as dictated by Washington DC becoming daily a more alarming concern, we might find a trip back to the relative stabilities of the late twenty-teens reassuring. As Tania allows at one point, their neighbors, though Republicans, “are people too.”

Native Gardens
By Karen Zacarías
Directed by Joann M. Hunter

Set Designer: Anna Louizos; Costume Designer: David C. Woolard; Lighting Designer: Charlie Morrison; Sound Designer: John Gromada; Prop Supervisor: Anna Dorodnykh; Production Stage Manager: Abigail Zaccari; Assistant Stage Manager: Willy Kinch; Production Assistant: Mariana Jennings

Cast: Paula Leggett Chase, Linedy Genao, Adam Heller, Anthony Michael Martinez

Westport Country Playhouse
February 18-March 8, 2025

Indelible Dialogue in a Diner

Review of Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage

A diner in a failing section of Pittsburgh in 1969. The Hill District was a Black neighborhood where a local community once self-sufficient and set apart has undergone a series of hard changes due to unemployment and the “redevelopment” which destroyed the neighborhood and the storied roots of many people, not least the playwright August Wilson. Wilson’s Two Trains Running, of all his plays set in his birthplace, is particularly aware of its moment. 1969 is a point at which, for some of his characters, what once was is still real while the notable changes for the worse have become irrevocable.

Wilson not only trusts his characters to have sufficient depth to touch on the themes that matter to him, he’s also able to let action become a background to how these characters talk out their reactions, their hopes, their fears, and their grudges. While there is a strong literary command here, one would be hard-pressed to turn any character into a symbol or a stand-in for a particular ideology. Wilson’s characters always speak their individual truths, eventually, and being present while that happens is a major incentive to attend his plays.

Two Trains Running is one of the most rewarding and deeply observed plays in the canon of works by this towering American playwright. Hartford Stage’s production, playing through February 16, is not to be missed.

Memphis (Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr.) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

At the center of the story is Memphis (Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr.), a diner owner who originated in Alabama and plans to return to property there, someday. He’s still got the deed, he insists. Key to his current situation is whether to sell out, now that the neighborhood barely sustains his business and, if so, for how much. His pride in his past accomplishments and in his once central place in the local community sustains him as hard times come on. His diner is still a gathering place, but the regulars are not exactly boon costumers.

Foreground: Holloway (Jerome Preston Bates); background: Memphis (Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr.), Sterling (Rafael Jordan) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Chief among them is Holloway (Jerome Preston Bates), the main source of local history and the one best able to articulate the grievances of the area; Wolf (Postell Pringle) is younger, a hip numbers runner who flits in and out to drum up business and to take messages on Memphis’s pay phone, much to the proprietor’s annoyance; a newcomer is Sterling (Rafael Jordan), recently released from the penitentiary and desperate for work and for any kind of welcome to give him a sense of belonging. They are joined at random moments by: Hambone (David Jennings), a character afflicted by mental troubles who carries a long-standing grievance against a white employer for the unsettled payment of a ham for work done; and West (Jeorge Bennett Watson), the only well-to-do local Black businessman because, as an undertaker, he is never without work. Finally, there’s Holloway’s only worker, the harried and patient Risa (Taji Senior) whose presence strategically offsets the men’s club ambience at the diner. She bears self-inflicted scars on her legs that suggest a backstory the others aren’t quite willing to face.

The excellent cast renders these characters in all their verbal glory. The Hartford Stage playing space in Lawrence E. Moten III’s realistic design gives ample area for director Gilbert MacCauley’s subtle choreography of action that lets us follow interplay that happens both before our eyes and in our ability to follow a speaker’s manner and particular logic. The way these characters talk to each other is the marrow of this play, and it’s a memorable experience to hear Wilson’s dialogue given its full dimensions. Lighting (Xavier Pierce) and Costumes (Devario D. Simmons) provide visual cues that give extra weight to the personalities on display.

Memphis (Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr.), Wolf (Postell Pringle) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

As Memphis, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., has the necessary presence, showing us a man both genial and anxious, able to muse aloud and to denounce the failings he sees in others, while demanding his due. Whether or not his grasp of reality is as unflinching as he thinks it is becomes a plot point when it comes to his evaluation of the diner. His crony, Halloway, a fixture at the diner, is a captivatingly mercurial figure in Jerome Preston Bates’ rendering; his intonations are like a jazz player, riffing on repetitions like Halloway’s recurring praise of Aunt Ester, a legendary figure of the neighborhood known for her wisdom and clairvoyant insight. Postell Pringle’s Wolf is pitch perfect in his facial reactions—like his ability to stare daggers—his vocal sallies, and his general demeanor: the way he looks through the glass door, up and down, before he puts a foot out tells us a lot about the kind of hustle he’s on.

Sterling (Rafael Jordan) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

As the two younger characters who might form a couple, Sterling and Risa seem perhaps the more formulaic aspects of the play, and yet Wilson has a way of making them both very individual and surprising. As Sterling, Rafael Jordan is earnest and dogged, getting on others’ nerves at times, and yet trying to find some way to please; he’s also a loose cannon because the others don’t know exactly what all he might get up to doing. His preening insistence that Risa will marry him once his number comes in provides the play with some romantic comedy elements, and the interplay between Risa and Sterling finds touching use of Gregory Robinson’s original music. Taji Senior gives Risa a mixture of skepticism and sympathy toward the others that makes her at times a stand-in for the audience, trying to assess which of these very voluble men, all assertive and bossy with at least a pretense of charm, is most worth our trouble.

Risa (Taji Senior) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The main figure of sympathy is Hambone, who seems to live on handouts and disability payments while reciting his credo: “He gonna give me my ham.” David Jennings quite simply owns this role, his performance is forceful, funny, dramatic and fully engaged. As West, the least sympathetic if only because the most well-off, Jeorge Bennett Watson has the dignity of a professional and a long-tested patience that could make him our stand-in as well. His gentle hat-roll late in the play shows that even an undertaker can be playful.

Memphis (Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr.), Hambone (David Jennings) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

August Wilson, who was born in 1945 and died in 2005, wrote a play for each decade of the twentieth century, each of them packed with characters who have compelling realism and archetypal power. This play has long seemed to me one of the more enduring, if only because the 1960s have played such an major part in influencing American culture through the end of the twentieth century. Two Trains Running manages to dramatize cultural forces of the time while avoiding some of the more obvious clichés of the period. It is a treasure of a play, full of history, grievance and hope, and brought to indelible life at Hartford Stage.

Foreground: Risa (Taji Senior), West (Jeorge Bennett Watson); background: Sterling (Rafael Jordan) in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Hartford Stage; photo by T. Charles Erickson

August Wilson’s
Two Trains Running
Directed by Gilbert McCauley

Scenic Design: Lawrence E. Moten III; Costume Design: Devario D. Simmons; Lighting Design: Xavier Pierce; Original Music & Sound Design: Gregory Robinson; Wig, Hair & Makeup Design: J. Jared Jonas; Intimacy Coordinator: Kelsey Rainwater; Vocal Coach: Cynthia Santos DeCure; Casting: Alaine Alldaffer & Lisa Donadio; Production Stage Manager: lark hackshaw; Assistant Stage Manager : Adalhia Ivette Hart; Associate Artistic Director: Zoë Golub-Sass; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scoy

Cast: Jerome Preston Bates, David Jennings, Rafael Jordan, Postell Pringle, Taji Senior, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Jeorge Bennett Watson

Hartford Stage
January 23-February 16, 2025

Trouble in Paradise

Review of Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre

Set in the area of New York City called San Juan Hill in 1927, Steve Carter’s Eden draws us into the tensions between two neighboring families, tensions that stem from class and racial distinctions in the Black community. The main thematic concern of Carter’s play is how divisive cultural conceptions can undermine racial solidarity. It's a worthwhile historical lesson since, for those who didn’t spend much or any time in the twentieth century, the lack of specific ethnic or national identifications in blanket terms like “white” and “black” and “POC” lends itself to an unnuanced view of such identities. Carter’s lively, incisive, well written and engaging play, directed with superlative pacing by Brandon J. Dirden at the Yale Repertory Theatre through February 8, takes us back into U.S. history with the kind of command of period and personality that we find in peers like Arthur Miller and August Wilson.

Nimrod (Juice Mackins), Solomon (Prentiss Patrick-Carter), Agnes (Alicia Pilgrim), Annetta (Lauren F. Walker) in Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

As Miller and Wilson often do, Carter sets his play in a very specific time and place and focuses on a particular family. The Bartons consist of a father, Joseph (Russell G. Jones), and a mother Florie (Christina Acosta Robinson), who are West Indian, with two daughters, Agnes (Alicia Pilgrim) and Annetta (Lauren F. Walker), born there as well, and two sons, Nimrod (Juice Mackins) and Solomon (Prentiss Patrick-Carter), who were born in New York. The immediate contrast, played for laughs by the young boys, is the difference between the way the former islanders speak and the way the local Black youths (at the time designated “Negroes”) speak. It’s a cultural difference the young people can view as significant or not, but in their home their father is adamant that his children will not mix with “these people.” American Blacks, in his view, are inferior to Blacks from the Indies.

Annetta Barton (Lauren F. Walker), Eustace Baylor (Chaundra Hall-Broomfield in Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Of course this culturally exclusive prejudice will be tested by the familiar “melting-pot” conditions of life in New York City, for the boys, and by the thorny issue of who gets to decide whom marriageable daughter Annetta, eighteen, will marry. Joseph Barton favors Mr. Wallace, a bachelor friend and successful store-keeper, old enough to be Annetta’s father but “pure” in his bloodline; Annetta, in the course of the play, falls for Eustace Baylor (Chaundra Hall-Broomfield), a young man who comes from the U.S. south and is living across the hall with his aunt Lizzie Harris (Heather Alicia Simms).

Carter deftly constructs scenes that illuminate this world and, while the plot developments are hardly surprising, real drama comes from getting to know these characters, and seeing how they come better to know themselves and each other.

Florie Barton (Christina Acosta Robinson), Joseph Barton (Russell G. Jones) in Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

There are wonderful, fully involving performances throughout. Christina Acosta Robinson is superb as Florie Barton; seemingly a self-effacing wife and mother, she comes on strong near the end of Act I and completely alters the family dynamic in Act II. Robinson plays her as a woman awakened to her own missed potential by witnessing her husband’s brutal mistreatment of Annetta. Russell G. Jones conveys what Joseph imagines to be tough love and high standards with a patriarchal superiority he deems unquestionable. More than a little tyrannical, he fears the scrappy street ethos of the U.S. will undermine his values, and of course he’s right, but how that plays out is key to the drama Carter finds in questions of social mobility and constructions of racial identity.

Joseph Barton (Russell G. Jones), Annetta Barton (Lauren F. Walker), Florie Barton (Christina Acosta Robinson), Eustace Baylor (Chaundra Hall-Broomfield) in Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

As the young couple yearning to breathe free, as it were, Lauren F. Walker’s Annetta presents the mix of innocence and knowing charm that easily stirs Eustace, played by Chaundra Hall-Broomfield with the kind of heartening self-confidence and easy manner we expect will carry the day. The scenes of confrontation with Mr. Barton have a grim inevitability since neither man can admit the other’s view.

As Aunt Lizzie, Heather Alicia Simms brings a further dimension to the story as a woman much more experienced in how immediate and provisional love can be, but also how life-altering. A conversation in Act II between Lizzie and Florie goes a long way in undermining Mr. Barton’s sense that there should be significant difference between the women due to birth and circumstances. They align in a wish to see the couple succeed.

Florie Barton (Christina Acosta Robinson), Lizzie Harris (Heather Alicia Simms) in Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Ultimately, this cannot be a “happily ever after” story because the faultlines are too clearly marked. The difficulties of living with the hand one was dealt go beyond the bounds of this story for each character. Carter has the skill to conjure the relations that are meaningful for each character, letting us see how all are affected by such conflicts.

The scenic design by George Zhou, costumes by Caroline Tyson, lighting by Ankit Pandey all contribute significantly to the play’s strong naturalistic affect, creating spaces—including an impressive rooftop set—that feel fully inhabited. Aided by Ein Kim’s poetic projections and Tojo Rasedoara’s sound design and original music, the production is a triumph of subtle tech touches.

Eden’s title refers to Joseph Barton’s sense that the promised land, ultimately, is Africa, the land of his origins, following the views of his hero Marcus Garvey whose photo is prominently displayed in the home. Carter’s play shows how the realities of place have a way of taking precedence over ideological considerations, providing a view of how history is often shaped by unexpected affinities and differences.

Joseph Barton (Russell G. Jones), Solomon Barton (Prentiss Patrick-Carter), Nimrod Barton (Juice Mackins) in Eden, Yale Repertory Theatre; photo by Joan Marcus

Eden
By Steve Carter
Directed by Brandon J. Dirden

Scenic Designer: George Zhou; Costume Designer: Caroline Tyson; Lighting Designer: Ankit Pandey; Sound Design and Original Music: Tojo Rasedoara; Projection Designer: Ein Kim; Hair and Wig Designers: Krystal Balleza and Will Vicari; Production Dramaturgs: Austin Riffelmacher, Tia Smith; Technical Director: Nickie Dubick; Fight and Intimacy Director: Michael Rossmy; Vocal and Dialect Coach: Paul Pryce; Casting Director: Calleri Jensen Davis; Stage Manager: Hope Binfeng Ding

Cast: Chaundre Hall-Broomfield, Russell G. Jones, Juice Mackins, Prentiss Patrick-Carter, Alicia Pilgrim, Christina Acosta Robinson, Heather Alicia Simms, Lauren F. Walker

Yale Repertory Theatre
January 16-February 8, 2025

A Wild Goose Chase

Review of A Sherlock Carol, Westport Country Playhouse

Watching A Sherlock Carol at Westport Country Playhouse, written and directed by Mark Shanahan, you might find yourself thinking: how is it no one ever thought of doing this before? To combine two of the most venerable figures of Victorian literature—Sherlock Holmes and Ebenezer Scrooge—into a single story? Deerstalkers off and boughs of holly raised to Shanahan for coming up with this corker of an idea and bringing it to amusing life on the Westport Country Playhouse stage for eight pre-Christmas performances, December 17-22.

Dan Domingues, Isabel Keating, Joe Delafield, Sharone Sayegh in A Sherlock Carol, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The story draws heavily on the familiar plot of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge, a fractious miser, meets with three Spirits of Christmas and undergoes a spiritual transformation—from malevolent to benevolent. Shanahan’s A Sherlock Carol makes Holmes, the famous sleuth, undergo a similar series of events. While that might make for enough of a parallel, as we watch the generally detached and unmoved Holmes become more accessible to his emotions and the spirit of the season, there’s another plot point that’s a bit more surprising.

Holmes, in depression, has withdrawn from his old friend and chronicler Dr. Watson, and sees no point continuing his investigative adventures now that his arch-nemesis Moriarity is dead (“which must be clearly understood”). Who should try to lure him back into the field but Dr. Timothy Cratchit, a now fully grown “Tiny Tim.” And the mystery to be solved: What caused the death of good old Scrooge?

So, a mystery for Christmas, and a story arc moving toward good cheer through the chillier aspects of the season. While we might think Scrooge deserves to be mourned, we can also expect that—in the fashion of Marley’s Ghost—he’s bound to pop in sooner or later.

Sherlock Holmes (Drew McVety), Ebenezer Scrooge (Byron St. Cyr) in A Sherlock Carol, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

What best abets this swiftly moving and theatrically resourceful tale is the cast Shanahan has assembled to flesh out this ensemble of characters: Holmes (Drew McVety); Scrooge (Byron St. Cyr); Tim Cratchit (Dan Domingues); Scrooge’s housekeeper Mrs. Dilber (Joe Delafield); Dr. Watson (Delafield again); Holmes’ one-time flame Irene Adler (Isabel Keating), now a widowed countess; Emma Wiggins (Sharone Sayegh); various Fezziwigs (Keating, Domingues); Old Joe the notions dealer (Delafield again), and the erstwhile Inspector Lestrade (Sayegh again). Viewers who attended Westport’s irrepressible staging of The 39 Steps in the fall will recall Joe Delafield as our harried hero Mr. Hannay and Sharone Sayegh as a series of damsels he encountered. Here, their skill at quick-change characters is invigorating, with either apt to steal any scene they’re in.

Dan Domingues creates what is probably the most sympathetic character in Tim Cratchit, and Isabel Keating’s Countess belts out “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (which, we learn, was old Scrooge’s favorite carol). Byron St. Cyr’s Scrooge is a jolly old soul, often speaking in lines from the lessons the Spirits taught him once upon a Christmas eve. As Holmes, Drew McVety can reel off deductions and observations with the impatience of a genius irked that what is obvious to him is a mystery to others. His final recounting of what happened to Scrooge is a bit reminiscent of the two solutions in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express: one improbable, the other likely.

Shanahan has created the kind of script where anything anyone says may be an important detail in the mystery or a riff on some aspect of a Holmes story—particularly “The Mystery of the Blue Carbuncle”—or Dickens’ Scrooge story, so the ball just keeps bouncing along. And does indeed become something of “a wild goose chase.”

Irene Adler (Isabel Keating), Sherlock Holmes (Drew McVety) in A Sherlock Carol, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

The play is a good opportunity to create curiosity in youngsters about these unforgettable characters as originally presented. The staging stimulates with an awareness of how theater can transform space, time and persons in an eyeblink, bringing alive a wealth of detail with nimble wit and a knowing collusion with the audience. Costumes by Linda Cho have the requisite Dickensian look and James J. Fenton’s scenic design is mostly open stage graced by a range of interesting and imaginative props. And for the dialogue, accents abound.

With the first two shows of Westport Country Playhouse’s “season of laughter,” Shanahan has directed plays that depend on the actors’ awareness of the audience, which—for A Sherlock Carol—requires and repays a certain kindly Christmas presence. Hardly “elementary,” it’s a good deal of intricate fun.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Byron St. Cyr) in A Sherlock Carol, Westport Country Playhouse; photo by T. Charles Erickson

A Sherlock Carol
Written and Directed by Mark Shanahan

Scenic Designer: James J. Fenton; Costume Designer: Linda Cho; Lighting Designer: Alyssandra Docherty; Music & Sound Designer: John Gromada; Fight Choreography: Seth Andrew Bridges; Assistant Director: Anissa Felix; Production Stage Manager: Becky Fleming; Assistant Stage Manager: Amadi Cary

Cast: Joe Delafield, Dan Domingues, Isabel Keating, Drew McVety, Sharone Sayegh, Bryon St. Cyr

Westport Country Playhouse
December 17-22, 2024

Performance schedule is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m.; and Sunday at 2 p.m. The play is recommended for age 7and up. Running time is 108 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.

Pre- and post-show offerings include Together at the Table, on Wednesday, December 18, at 5:30 p.m., offering a pizza dinner to families or groups with student-age children; and Pride Night, on Thursday, December 19, at 6 p.m., featuring a cocktail party for the LGBTQ+ community and friends, with a limited open bar from Trevi Lounge and appetizers from Walrus Alley.

During the run of “A Sherlock Carol,” the Playhouse will be giving back to the community, benefiting individuals and families served by the Domestic Violence Crisis Center, Norwalk Toys for Tots, and Homes with Hope. Donations may be dropped off in the collection boxes located in the Playhouse lobby during box office hours, Tues. through Fri., 12 to 5 p.m.