Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Off-B'way Review: Trophy Boys

Louisa Jacobson, Emmanuelle Mattana,
Esco Jouléy, and Terry Hu in
Trophy Boys.
Credit: Valerie Terranova
In a program note for her play Trophy Boys (at MCC Theater), Emmanuelle Mattana observes, “Gender is a scam but it is also a gift. Drag is radical joy and liberation.” She is explaining her choice to cast the four male roles of an elite-school debate team with female, non-binary and non-cis gendered actors. This tactic of drawing the performative aspects of toxic masculinity into relief by opposite casting has been done before—in such productions as Operation Mincemeat, Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, the long-running Off-Broadway musical The Club, and an all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew in Central Park. Thanks to Mattana’s sharp writing, Danya Taymor’s fierce direction and fearless performances, the choice comes off as more than a mere gimmick but an insightful commentary on sexual political and power plays.

Louisa Jacobson and Terry Hu in
Trophy Boys.
Credit: Valerie Terranova
The play’s premise is explosive enough. The championship debate team must argue in the affirmative for the statement “Feminism has failed women” and they are pitted against their sister school’s all-girl squad. At stake is a prestigious trophy and the boys’ hopes of getting into Ivy League colleges and positions of power and influence. Mattana gets in some witty satire of male privilege as the debaters prep by twisting logic and playing with semantics in order to strengthen their position. This despite their constant affirmation that they love women and are strong allies of progressive causes. Taymor ups the testosterone level by inserting desk-humping dance breaks, unleashing the kids’ ravenous libidos. 

The plot takes a dangerous twist when an anonymous rumor surfaces that one of the boys committed sexual assault. Mattana goes in for the metaphorical kill as the lads abandon all semblance of civility when their dominance is threatened. They turn on each other when it’s revealed each could be guilty of the anonymous accusation. This is a edgy political cartoon, a detonating comic sketch, staged by Taymor like a series of time  bombs, going off several times during the 75-minute running time.


Louisa Jacobson, Emmanuelle Mattana, 
Terry Hu and Esco Jouléy in
Trophy Boys.
Credit: Valerie Terranova
The able cast adds depth to the cartoonish quartet of adolescent narcissists. Playwright Mattana also plays Owen, the entitled chief debater. She endows him with a fierce intelligence, a brittle vulnerability, and an adept ability to manipulate words and the emotions of his teammates. Louisa Jacobson perfectly captures the alpha jock machismo of Jared, the diametric opposite of Marian Brook, the prim, reserved heroine she plays on HBO’s The Gilded Age. (Ironically, Jared is the one who constantly states he loves women even as he plans the downfall and humiliation of his feminine opponents including his grilfriend.) Terry Hu displays the sensitive exterior and the dark interior of David, the low man on the team’s totem pole, struggling to gain the respect of his fellows. Esco Jouléy robustly limns the braggadocio of sports-minded Scott who is concealing more than friendly feelings for Jared.

Matt Saunders’ classroom set captures the staid academic atmosphere and Cha See’s lighting aprropriately shifts the mood from raucous rock-infused anarchy (augmented by Fan Zhang’s high-decibel sound design) to ominous and frightening. This is a tight, short show with a powerful message on the still-pervasive problem of gender inequality.


June 24—July 27. MCC Theater Space/Susan and Ronald Frankel Theater, 511 W. 52nd St., NYC. Running time: 75 mins. with no intermission. mcctheater.org.

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

The 14th Annual David Desk Awards

Operation Mincemeat deserved better
in this season's award-giving, IMHO.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes
The Tonys, Drama Desks, NY Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics, etc. are all long over. So it is time to deliver my own accolades with my choices for the best of the 2024-25 Broadway and Off-Broadway season. I was not as enamored with Maybe Happy Ending as all the major theater awards. Operation Mincemeat got my vote for Best Musical but Happy Ending won everything in spite of my opposition. I also felt Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, Smash and We Had a World were unfairly overlooked for nominations.


Outstanding Play
The Antiquities, Jordan Harrison
Grangeville, Samuel D. Hunter
The Hills of California, Jez Butterworth
Liberation, Bess Wohl
Purpose, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Vladimir, Erika Sheffer
We Had a World, Joshua Harmon


Outstanding Musical

The Big Gay Jamboree

Death Becomes Her

Operation Mincemeat

Smash


Outstanding Revival of a Play

Eureka Day

A Streetcar Named Desire

Yellow Face


Outstanding Revival of a Musical

Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Gypsy

Sunset Blvd.


Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play

George Clooney, Good Night and Good Luck

Adam Driver, Hold On to Me Darling

Jon Michael Hill, Purpose

Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Paul Mescal, A Streetcar Named Desire

Paul Sparks, Grangeville


Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play

Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California

Francesca Faridany, Vladimir

Patsy Ferran, A Streetcar Named Desire

Lily Rabe, Ghosts

Jeanine Serralles, We Had a World


Monday, June 30, 2025

B'way Update: Joe Turner Returns

Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer
August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone will return to Broadway next spring at a Shubert theater to be announced. Golden Globe winner and Tony, Oscar and Emmy nominee Taraji P. Henson (Netflix's Straw) and 6-time NAACP Image winner Cedric the Entertainer will star as Bertha and Seth Holly, the owners of a boarding-house in 1911 Pittsburgh. Bertha and Seth host numerous guests including the mysterious Herald Loomis who is searching for his wife from whom he was separated during slavery. Emmy and Golden Globe winner and Tony nominee Debbie Allen will direct. Henson was a producer of Jaja's African Hair Braiding and Joe Turner marks her Broadway acting debut. Cedric the Entertainer was last seen on Broadway in American Buffalo in 2008. Further casting will be announced at a later date.

Ed Hall and Bo Rucker in
Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988)
Credit: Joan Marcus
Joe Turner
opened on Broadway in 1988 and ran for 108 performances. It was nominated for 5 Tony Awards (winning one for L. Scott Caldwell's featured performance as Bertha) and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Lincoln Center Theater presented a revival in 2009 which ran for 69 performances and was nominated for 6 Tony Awards, winning for Roger Robinson's featured performance as Bynum and Brian MacDevitt's lighting. 





Friday, June 27, 2025

Off-B'way Reviews: Lowcountry; Duke & Roya

Babak Tafti and Jodi Balfour in
Lowcountry.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster
Two unconventional plays about odd romantic pairings recently opened Off-Broadway. Both attempt to tackle significant topics outside of the “boy-meets-girl” arena, and both come up short. Abby Rosebrock’s Lowcountry at Atlantic Theater Company takes the awkward-first-date premise into dangerous territory but stretches credulity too much for its themes to reach full impact. 

Both participants in the rendezvous are seriously damaged individuals. David (Babak Tafti, deftly conveying suppressed trauma) is a divorced father emerging into the dating world after wearing an ankle monitor for a sexual offense (the true nature of his crime is slowly revealed during the course of the date). By court order, he must attend a recovery program for sex addicts and report to a probation officer who has issues of his own (Keith Kupferer in an effective cameo). David’s date Tally (Jodi Balfour in a kinetic, jittery performance) is a hot mess returning to her hometown after stints in Los Angeles as an actress and gig worker. She’s still dealing with the death of her mother when she was a child as well as coping with her difficult father. 


Jodi Balfour and Babak Tafti in
Lowcountry.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster
Their encounter takes place in David’s cramped apartment in small-town South Carolina (Arnulfo Maldonado designed the realistic, squalid setting).  According to the terms of David’s parole, any encounters must be in public. The play opens as he is preparing a pasta dinner for Tally while lying about the location to his parole officer Paul in his regular phone check-in. The main focus of the play is David and Tally’s clumsy attempts to connect. Rosebrock uses their fumbling reaching out to provide social commentary on our fractured society. (Perhaps that could be the meaning of the title, indicating our polarized, degraded American culture as well as the coastal region of South Carolina.) David is foreign-born, adopted and made a citizen as a child. His country of origin is never revealed but the specter of ICE deportation hangs over him like a menacing cloud. Tally drinks and smokes weed to cope with her rage, presumably over her mother’s early demise which she claims was brought on by the mom’s dislike of then President Bill Clinton. 


Babak Tafti and Jodi Balfour in
Lowcountry.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster
Jo Bonney’s direction is well-paced and Tafti and Balfour deliver compelling portraits of two desperate losers oppressed by bad luck and bad choices. But Rosebrock’s central theme is not entirely clear. Is she saying our divisive culture has pushed David and Tally into an impossible corner with no escape but tragedy? Tally’s motives are not focused either, though they gradually become somewhat clearer. The play does culminate with a shocking act of violence which is not completely earned by the proceeding character development. In the script provided, Rosebrock reveals Lowcountry is part of a trilogy. Perhaps the other two plays would explain further. 


Thursday, June 26, 2025

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Vineyard; Dates for Punch, Oedipus, Chess

Anne Washburn
Vineyard Theater has announced two productions for its upcoming 43rd season. A third winter production will be announced soon. First up this fall is The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire by Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns: A Post-Electronic Play) in a co-production with The Civilians and directed by Obie winner Steve Cosson. The story concerns a community living off the grid who must cope with the death of one of its members.

||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| by Eisa Davis (Warriors concept album) follows in a winter premiere. Tony and Drama Desk winner Pam McKinnon (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) directs. Four gifted teenagers collaborate and collide one pivotal summer at a prestigious girls’ music program in Berkeley. As their connections intensify, the world outside thrums with a steady

Eisa Davis

undercurrent of disaster and emergency – and they must find new ways to improvise on stage and off.

In other news, three previously announced Broadway shows have confirmed dates and theaters.

Punch at Manhattan Theater Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theater will begin previews Sept. 9 ahead of a Sept. 29 opening.

The revival of Chess will begin previews at the Imperial Theater (where the original Broadway production ran in 1988) on Oct. 15 in advance of a Nov. 16 opening.

Robert Icke's adaptation of Oedipus starts previews at Studio 54 Oct. 30 and opens on Nov. 13.

Sunday, June 22, 2025

B'way/Off-B'way Update: St. Ann's; Endgame; Jeffrey Ross; Etc.

Julia McDermott in Weather Girl.
Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic
St. Ann's Warehouse has announced its 2025-26 season which will include a rare Eugene O'Neill revival, a performance by cabaret star Justin Vivian Bond, and the London hit Weather Girl. The season opens with Brian Watkins' Weather Girl (Sept. 16--Oct. 12), a one-character play about the climate change crisis seen through the eyes of Stacy, an underpaid and oversexed California TV forecaster. Julia McDermott repeats her Edinburgh and London performance.

Justin Vivian Bond will play folk legend Marianne Faithful in Flaming September (Sept 24-28), directed by Daniel Fish (Oklahoma!). 

Michelle Williams, Mike Faist, Justin Vivian Bond
Oscar and Tony nominee and Emmy winner Michelle Williams (Blackbird, Fosse/Verdon) and Tony nominee and Emmy winner Mike Faist (Dear Evan Hansen) will headline a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie directed by Tony winner Thomas Kail (Hamilton) (Nov. 25--Feb. 1). O'Neill's 1922 Pulitzer Prize winning drama about a reformed prostitute seeking redemption was last seen on Broadway in 1993 with Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson. (Note: this Michelle Williams should not be confused with the pop singer from Destiny's Child of the same name who is currently appearing in Death Becomes Her. I thought Equity had a rule against that.)

Aaron Monaghan and Marie Mullen in
Druid's Endgame.
Credit: Ros Kavagh
In other news: Ireland's Druid Theater Company will present its production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Irish Arts Center (Oct. 22-Nov. 23) Director Garry Hynes and actress Marie Mullen who won Tony Awards for The Beauty Queen of Leenane stage and are featured in this nihilistic play taking place after a nuclear holocaust. Bosco Hogan, Aaron Monaghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Rory Nolan also star. Endgame was last seen in NYC at the Irish Repertory Theater in 2023....

Stand-up comic Jeffrey Ross will bring his solo show Take a Banana for the Road to Broadway at the Nederlander Theater, starting previews Aug. 5 and opening Aug. 18 for a limited run until Sept. 29....

Jinx Monsoon will take over the lead in Oh, Mary!

Oh Mary!
has benefitted from its Tony wins for Best Actor and Director. Cole Escola's wild rewrite of history has been extended to Jan. 2026. Escola gave his final performance in the title role June 21 and Titus Burgess will take over starting June 23 until Aug. 2. On Aug. 4, RuPaul's Drag Race winner Jinx Monsoon will go straight from Pirates! The Penzance Musical to Mary! through Sept. 27.

Friday, June 20, 2025

Book Review: Old Babes in the Wood

(Borrowed from Jackson Heights Library): Margaret Atwood's collection of stories follow new patterns. The contents consist of a group of tales about an elderly couple Tig and Nell at the beginning and at the end (the latter stories follow Nell's journey through widowhood, all very touching). In between are a series of unrelated stories with an undertone of fantasy and fairy tales (hence the title, I guess). My Evil Mother reminded me of a more mature version of the 1960s sitcom Bewitched with a woman recounting growing up with an eccentric mother who claimed to be a sorceress. Freeforall is a sort of gender-reversed Handmaid's Tale with a matriarchy victimizing fertile young boys. In The Dead Interview, Atwood talks with the ghost of George Orwell during a seance. A snail is reincarnated in the body of a woman in Metempsychosis or The Journey of the Soul. I've read a lot of Atwood's books and this one was fun and moving.