Just a Short One

Review of The Weir, New Haven Theater Company

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Weir
By Conor McPherson
Directed by George Kulp

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

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

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

Utopia Dreamin'

Review of Furlough's Paradise, Yale Repertory Theatre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cast: Tiffany McLarty, Lauren F. Walker

Yale Repertory Theatre
April 24-May 16, 2026

Fencing with Disaster

Review of Native Gardens, Hartford Stage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Native Gardens
By Karen Zacarías
Directed by Nicole A. Watson

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

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

Hartford Stage
April 17-May 10, 2026

Earning Our Trust

Review of Primary Trust, Westport Country Playhouse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Primary Trust
By Eboni Booth
Directed by Logan Vaughn

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

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

Westport Country Playhouse
April 14-May 2, 2026

A Fierce Rhinoceros

Review of Rhinoceros, Yale Repertory Theatre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Becoming a rhinoceros is the "new normal."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yale Repertory Theatre
March 6-28, 2026

Waging Little Wars

Review of Little Wars, New Haven Theater Company

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

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

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

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

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

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

Little Wars
By Steven Carl McCasland
Directed by John Strano

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

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

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

A Gem on the Water

Review of Gem of the Ocean, Long Wharf Theatre

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Gem of the Ocean
By August Wilson
Directed by Cheyenne Barboza

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

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

Long Wharf Theatre
February 27-March 15, 2026

Attention Paid

Review of Death of a Salesman, Hartford Stage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death of a Salesman
By Arthur Miller
Directed by Melia Bensussen

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

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

Hartford Stage
February 27-March 29, 2026

NHTC Wages Steven Carl McCasland's "Little Wars"

Preview of Little Wars, New Haven Theater Company

Next week, Thursday, March 5th, New Haven Theater Company opens its three weekend run (Thursdays through Saturdays) of Steven Carl McCasland's Little Wars, directed by company member John Strano, an ensemble piece about seven women, mostly writers, who have come together for a social evening on June 22, 1940. "It's a work of speculative fiction," Strano stresses, and it involves some big names at a dinner party on a fateful date. In a house in the French Alps, the women—Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967), Lillian Helman (1905-84), Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), Agatha Christie (1890-1976), "Mary" (an alias), and Bernadette (the only character completely fictional)—hear a radio broadcast which declares that Marshal Philippe Pétain, as prime minister of France, has signed an armistice with the Axis powers.

Last week I spoke to director Strano, company member Deena Nicol-Blifford (who plays Stein), company president and the play's producer, J. Kevin Smith, and visiting artist Ash Lago (who plays Toklas) about the intricacies of the play.

Strano pointed out that the first third of the play is a comedy that "smacks of Noël Coward," as we see these women "try to outwit and outtalk each other." Though their reputations precede them, the seven are mostly meeting in person for the first time. And that's where the "speculative" comes in: there's no record of such a meeting having taken place, yet, Strano said, McCasland's script is based on much background knowledge of these formidable women. Stein and Toklas, of course, were a lifelong couple, immortalized in Stein's memoir The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), while Parker and Hellman were friends since 1935, with the latter the executor of Parker's will. Agatha Christie would seem to be the odd-woman-out, but Strano explained her presence: according to McCasland, an early read drew the comment that "there's a mystery" in the play, which occasioned the introduction of the world's most famous mystery writer. Then there's the "mystery woman," known as Mary, and the fictional Bernadette.

For Strano, the play is "arguably timely" and "provides an extraordinary showcase for the talented women" of the company, whose distinct voices he feels fortunate to bring together as the play's director. After the initial comedy of the women meeting up, the play pivots on the kinds of unique stories they might tell one another. "It's not group therapy," says Strano, but we are privy to "what all these talented intellects had to deal with as women in a man's world." As interlocutors at an "alcohol-fueled, fantasy dinner party," the women show a willingness to share what Strano calls "the shame and guilt" of their pasts. Finally, the dramatic challenge from the outside world makes them confront how people can be "complicit by being complacent," so that silence about injustice contributes to injustice. The women then shift from what Ash Lago called "the little wars that wear people down," waged by the women as they make their way in the world, to the larger war against fascism and its murderous plan. Strano sees the play as a parable or allegory, in which situations of our present day find a relevant echo.

To earn a production by the New Haven Theater Company, a play must be proposed by a member, then be read by all, and then agreed upon by all. Strano's commitment to the play stretched over three seasons after he attended a Zoom read of the play in 2020 or 2021. Nicol-Blifford spoke of Strano's "passionate persistence" in advocating the play, and said that one consideration was that a seven-person cast makes Little Wars a "big play" for the company, particularly when all the actors must be women. The Company has traditionally consisted of more men than women, but, now, with five female company members taking part, joined by two visiting artists, the play is having its moment. Sandra Rodriguez, who played Elizabeth Bishop in NHTC's production of Dear Elizabeth, directed by Smith in fall 2024, plays Hellman, and Jodi Williams, who, with Ash Lago, appeared in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, plays Dorothy Parker. Longtime member Margaret Mann, last seen in The Christians in 2025, and a co-director on several recent shows, in addition to starring in Marjorie Prime in 2019, plays Christie; as Bernadette, visiting artist Lynnette Victoria makes her NHTC debut, while the key role of “Mary” is played by Abby Klein, who acted in both Dear Elizabeth and Webster’s Bitch.

Rehearsal for Little Wars, with Ash Lago, Margaret Mann, Abby Klein

For Lago and Nicol-Blifford, Stein and Toklas present "solidly a unit" that grounds the play. Nicol-Blifford commented that their performances are not meant as "imitations" of the two famous women, but that McCasland has deliberately borrowed a few lines from the various authors that will be recognizable to viewers familiar with the women's writings. Lago noted that Toklas' number of lines significantly decreases once all the guests are assembled, which seems to be in-keeping with the self-effacing manner of Toklas, as fictionalized by Stein in the Autobiography. Lago sees Toklas as at times "more empathetic" than Stein and "anchoring" the couple during hard things that come up in the play. For Nicol-Blifford, getting into the part meant seeing that, as an actor, it's important to learn from a character, whether we "like them or not as people." Playing people who actually lived means "there's so much gray area" about what they thought or did; they aren't simply bounded by the text of the play. For Nicol-Blifford that means giving Stein due centrality; "she's very, very smart and several steps ahead of everyone else."

A noted innovator in literary writing, as well as an art collector and mentor to many artists, such as Picasso, and authors such as Hemingway, Stein's reputation continues to increase. It will be interesting to see her presented in a setting both real and fictional, dealing with other female writers of notable accomplishment. Hellman was a major playwright of her time, and most of her plays dealt with significant social issues; Parker was a poet and writer known for her scathing wit. Though both were anti-fascist leftists, Hellman was for a time associated with the communist party in its Stalinist period. The women's politics will no doubt be of some significance in how they respond to the challenges of the time the play depicts.

While we talked about the play, I recalled the staged reading of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy which NHTC presented in 2016. Turns out that McCasland's play dates from about 2015, so that the timely fear of a fascist, racially-profiling regime unites the two plays. I expect McCasland's play will be a bit more upbeat in its close, though that remains to be seen.

New Haven Theater Company presents
Little Wars by Steven Carl McCasland
Directed by John Strano

Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 pm
March 5, 6, 7; March 12, 13, 14; March 19, 20, 21

839 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

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