B'way/Off-B'way Review: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York); Gruesome Playground Injuries

Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts in
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).
Credit: Matthew Murphy

A pair of two-character shows with differing depictions of amorous connections have recently opened on and Off-Broadway. One is a charming rom-com musical replete with cliches and plot-holes you could drive a truck through. Despite these flaws, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) is an engaging and lighthearted romp, perfect for holiday fun. Strangers arrives on Broadway after runs in London and the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. The other Off-Broadway offering, Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries, has no songs, is much darker, complex and more honest in its portrayal of the dysfunctional relationship of two accident-prone outsiders who come in and out of each others’ lives from elementary school to young adulthood.

The elaborately titled Two Strangers takes the basic romcom trope of two previously unacquainted, dissimilar characters meeting in a tense situation, running into conflict and then into each others’ arms. There’s shopping, sightseeing, sex, heartbreak, and an ambiguous resolution. Luckily, Jim Barne and Kit Buchan’s songs and dialogue are snappy and cute enough to overcome the overly familiar story arcs. Tim Jackson’s slick and smooth direction and choreography works perfectly on Sutra Gilmour’s versatile revolving set, employing set pieces in the shape of luggage of varying sizes to suggest multiple scenes in Gotham. 

Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts in
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts are bubbly, bright, and multifaceted as the mismatched pair. Tutt exudes boyish enthusiasm and gleeful hopefulness as Dougal, a lonely British bachelor in New York for the first time to attend the wedding of his estranged dad. Pitts is the somewhat depressed Robin, the sister of the bride (much younger than the groom), who has been tasked with shepherding Dougal and performing a million ceremony-related chores including transport of the titular gateau from Flatbush, Brooklyn to Manhattan. Of course, Dougal’s puppyish eagerness and excitement for the Big Apple at first grates against Robin’s cynical veneer, but they eventually wind up canoodling. Several secrets involving ruptured family relationships for the two are gradually revealed, but too many loose threads are left dangling by the end of their brief time together. 

Off-B'way Reviews: Curse of the Starving Class; Dakar 2000

Christian Slater, Calista Flockhart,
and Lois in
Curse of the Starving Class.
Credit: Monique Carboni

Sam Shepard’s darkly funny and tragic family drama Curse of the Starving Class premiered in London in 1977 and then Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1978, winning an Obie Award for Best Play. Bruce Beresford direct a 1996 film version starring James Woods and Kathy Bates. It has been revived by Signature Theater Company in 2019. Despite this relatively recent production and its age, a new staging in Signature’s theater complex by a different company (The New Group), Curse does not feel repetitive or dated to the late 70s thanks to a muscular production by New Group artistic director Scott Elliott. When this unflinching portrait of the symbolic disintegration of the American Dream and the nuclear family was first produced, the country was reeling from Watergate and the first major spell of mass disillusion with our trusted institutions. In 2019, we were sharply divided by Trump’s populism and politics of rage. Now we are even more shattered and conflicted and Shepard’s bleak vision feels especially relevant. 

The basic plot echoes the works of Chekhov, Williams and O’Neill with the dysfunctional Tate clan clawing each other over the fate of their home and ranch in California (Arnulfo Maldonado designed the hyper-realistic kitchen set.)  Alcoholic dad Weston (a grizzled Christian Slater) plans to sell off the land in order to pay his enormous debts, mostly for bar tabs and restoring antique cars. Mother Ella (appropriately desperate and harried Calista Flockhart) has similar designs, but wants to use the profits to flee to a fantasy life in Europe. Their two children, Wesley (a zombie-like Cooper Hoffman) and Emma (razor-sharp Stella Marcus) seek to establish their own identities in different ways. Wesley wants to stay on the land and make it work while Emma, like her mom, indulges in elaborate dreams of escape involving fishing boats and becoming a mechanic. 

Cooper Hoffman and Christian Slater
in Curse of the Starving Class.
Credit: Monique Carboni

Shepard uses the clashes of the Tates to develop his themes of alienation and disconnection from American society. No one trusts banks, institutes, or the country at large. When asked to describe a slick real-estate dealer (appropriately glib Kyle Beltran) looking to purchase the family spread, Emma tartly replies, “You know, ordinary, like a crook.” Also, the family is caught in an economic squeeze, unable to make their land pay. Ella often exclaims they are not starving, but not rich either. “We’re somewhere in the middle,” she declares. They are constantly opening the refrigerator, seeking sustenance which is hardly ever there. There are myriad images and references to food, eating and livestock. Emma has been saving a chicken to dissect for her 4-H Club, but Ella boiled it before the demonstration. Wesley brings a live sheep onstage (In one of the few instances of miscasting, Lois the animal actor appears a bit too well-fed for her role.)

B'way Update: Swept Away Dates, MTC Season

Swept Away will play the Longacre.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

After the Tonys, there is still lots of Broadway news to report: Swept Away and Eureka Day now have dates for upcoming runs and the latter announces its casting. Manhattan Theater Club has announced three world premiere productions for its Off-Broadway 2024-25 season, one of which will be co-production with Signature Theatre. 

Swept Away, the musical following four survivors of an 1888 shipwreck, will begin previews at the Longacre Theater on Oct. 29 and open on Nov. 19. The musical features a book by John Logan (Red, Moulin Rouge! The Musical), direction by Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, American Idiot) and choreography by Tony Award nominee David Neumann (Hadestown). Previous stagings have been seen at Arena Stage and Berekely Rep.

Zoe Chao will star in
Eureka Day.

Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector's comedy about the havoc wrecked by vaccination requirements at a California elementary school, will begin previews on Nov. 25 and open on Dec. 16 at Manhattan Theater Club's Broadway berth, the Samuel J. Friedman. The cast will include Zoe Chao (Peacock's If You Were the Last), Tony nominee Amber Gray (Hadestown), Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (Summer 1976, The Assembled Parties), Tony winner Bill Irwin (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), and Emmy nominee Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley). This Broadway premiere MTC engagement will be directed by Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County) following a London production. Eureka Day previously played Off-Broadway in 2019.