The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Photo/Marilynn K. Yee

Carson McCullers's novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, now adapted by Rebecca Gilman, is as quietly observant as its main character, John Singer, a deaf-mute. Through his eyes, we follow four of his Georgian neighbors (c. 1939): a labor agitator named Jake Blount; Dr. Copeland, a doctor who enjoys Spinoza and Marx; the socially eccentric but well-intentioned Biff Brannon, who runs the local cafe; and Mick Kelly, a young tomboy who dreams of music. This slice-of-life is only slightly unbalanced by the dry, Clifford Odets-sounding politics that run through it, but the central theme--"The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear"--is too loose, and the large ensemble too compressed, for it to have much impact as a play.

I haven't read the book, so it's hard to say if something's simply missing in translation, but given that the best moments of Gilman's adaptation stem from the subtle, near-tragic growth (or perhaps "acceptance") of its youngest character, Mick (the excellent Cristin Milioti), the observational style seems a better fit for fiction than for the theater. So much is left to our imagination that what ends up on stage often is as fixed and as awkward as the "party" that Singer attempts to host in his room for these four, and it's hard not to notice how undeveloped the supporting cast is. Hughes can't spare any subtlety for Harry (Bob Braswell), who has to explain why Jake's propaganda moves him, and has to telegraph his "shy" feeelings for Mick; the same goes for Willie (Jimonn Cole), whose unjust arrest--and horrific treatment--is really just fuel for the fiery regrets of his father, Dr. Copeland (the generally bland James McDaniel). Roslyn Ruff is forced to do some posturing as Portia, but she at least sells the desperation that leads her to faith.

Doug Hughes's direction is, unfortunately, too smooth to really portray the loneliness. Neil Patel's square flats, which represent the central locations of the novel, slide as neatly to the front of the stage as the too-tidy characters make their pronouncements. His saving grace is that he is able to linger on in some of those moments, capturing the light in Singer's (Henry Stram's) eyes as he shows off for his mentally unstable ox of a friend, Antonapoulos (I. N. Sierros), or the tears of joy Mick finds in the available fantasy of radio music--and what that must "sound" like to Singer, who can only watch her react. The best moment of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter comes abruptly, out of nowhere, piercing the silent steadfastness of the show, and while the rest of the play perhaps requires some muteness to amplify this effect, it would not have hurt Gilman--who can be a dangerously direct playwright (in the best sense)--to add a little more immediacy to her adaptation.

That's where an actress like Cristin Milioti comes in, salvaging every scene she's in. Whether she's scrawling "pussy" or "Motsart" on a wall (neat projections from Jan Hartley allow for this), or unpinning earrings and loosening her shoes after a long day of work, she's made this fourteen-year-old into the most grown-up part of this production. As for Henry Stram, who should be the center of this piece, he's generally terrific, but Hughes's choice to allow him to speak the opening and closing monologues of the play strips away a great part of who his character, Singer, is. It's a tin-eared decision, and it unfortunately has the effect of making much of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter ring false--even when it looks and sounds good.

Orpheus X

Persephone stands in the underworld, "living" with a vicarious childishness through Eurydice, who follows her compulsion to write until the glass walls are bleeding with the chalk of Greek characters. "One isn't disappointed when it ends," she says of Eurydice's writing. "One isn't surprised when it begins. Like a list, you accept its terms and let it run until it stops." Mostly for worse, that's how Rinde Eckert's cold modernization, Orpheus X, goes, the few grand moments coming mainly when the four-part band's rock music overwhelms the overly operatic poetry. This isn't just the reaction of a "narrative junkie," either. It's not that Orpheus X lacks plot, it's that it lacks feeling. Lyrics aren't any less monotonous when sung in falsetto.

Eckert's terms, such as they are, involve him occasionally playing an electric guitar, squeezing his eyes shut in rejection of his world as he attempts to dream a stranger--Eurydice--into life. The one neat parallel here is that Suzan Hanson's Eurydice is trying to forget life. Persephone, who for some reason is played by John Kelly, follows in her footsteps here, too. Eckert, like Orpheus, willingly chooses to "worship things of no importance," so Denise Marika fills David Zinn's otherwise austere stage (I-beams and a tastefully small shrine) with symbolic projections of Eurydice's themes--blood, honey, and her naked body. Objects are listed until they become facts, but while Orpheus calls it "a small museum I have come to love, the signs of something I've missed," the audience is left with only the harsh feeling of absence.

To be fair, you should know that I can hardly recall a lick of the music, nor a scrap of the dialogue. (And that's with the script in front of me.) Only the visual elements of Robert Woodruff's direction come to mind: the use of a blue, watery blanket; an infinitely long silence; a literally earth-shaking moment. (All of these things occur in the last ten minutes; you would miss little if you were to sleep until then.) Another of Eckert's terms may be Eurydice's willingness to forget--and there's a powerful moment where she is the one to make Orpheus turn, sending her back to the land of the dead--but it's not praise to call Orpheus X is as "memorable" as Lethe.

She Like Girls

There's real meat to She Like Girls--as there should be, considering it's based on the life of Sakia Gunn, a fifteen-year-old inner-city girl struggling to come to terms with her own sexual identity. But Chisa Hutchinson, the thirty-year-old playwright, isn't quite grown up enough to handle it. She nails the youthful parts, like the faux-tough and grown-up language of the schoolyard: "You know what I’m doing at six in the morning? Gettin’ some fantabuliscious head from Taye Diggs." And she delicately handles the tentative romance between Kia (Karen Eilbacher) and Marisol (Karen Sours), which starts to boil in a hilariously danced salsa. But too much of the first half of the play is gratuitously goofy (as when a teacher mangles his students' names, or whenever we cut to a dream sequence) and the second half of the play feels rushed, compressed into scenes so explicit that they might as well be title cards.

These moments are sometimes redeemed by the actors--for instance, Adam Belvo has enough edge to him to make Mr. Keys's "I Am a Successful Faggot" speech about more than self-acceptance--but just as often drag down people, like Amelia Fowler, who plays Kia's mother, whose tentative homophobia seem to be a dramatic afterthought, or Paul Notice II, who thankfully makes the most of the one scene in which he's asked to show why he poses as a thug. Even the good moments are sometimes brought down by technical issues, like Eilbacher's quietness and Sours's accent; yes, their characters are shy and Mexican, respectively, but the magic of theater is that those who are unintelligible in the real world can find a voice on stage. (Besides, it's not like the rest of the play is grounded in hyper-realism.)

Still, I only pick at the loose threads of She Like Girls because Hutchinson's writing is interesting; even when it gets silly, it feels alive. (Working Man's Clothes has a good habit of producing shows like this.) Hutchinson may not need to have a scene in which the girls gossip about how disgusting it is to be a lesbian, especially when the girls jump Kia in the next scene, but at least it sounds about right. And though the play hardly needs to support Mr. Keys's advice to Kia with a guest appearance by the lesbian poet Adrienne Rich (Jessica Gist), such effects have the added advantage of making the really "real" moments--a flirty phone conversation between Kia and Marisol--connect on a deeper level. A stronger director might have helped: while it's true that Jared Culverhouse matches the mood of Hutchinson's scenes and nicely uses Kelly Syring's graffiti-covered set, he also kills the momentum with lengthy pauses between scenes and allows for far too many "Mac truck" moments--i.e., pauses in the dialogue that are long enough to drive a Mac truck through.

Some may be able to take the rougher edges of this production as a good fit for the rough setting of an almost-datedly homophobic inner-city, but the truth is, She Like Girls is only, at best, likeable. Here's hoping that Hutchinson gets past her own awkward-as-a-first-kiss moments and finds the deep love that this play, and Sakia Gunn, are asking for.

Meg's New Friend

Photo/Deanna Frieman

It's hard to live in New York City without the taste of leather on your tongue. After all, with the constant cultural shifts of this melting pot, if your foot isn't already in your mouth, it will be soon. Even with the best intentions--like Samuel (Michael Solomon), a lawyer--it's only a matter of time before you accidentally call a girl "honey" or a black man "brother," and all of a sudden you're sexist, racist, or both. Some people, like Sam's girlfriend of three years, Megan (Megan McQuillan), avoid the issue by covering "safe" topics--like a Philadelphia production of Wicked--while others, like Ty (Damon Gupton) use yoga to transcend. Some, like Sam's older sister, Rachel (Mary Cross), are too self-deprecating and desperate to notice the way they belittle others (like her lover, Ty).

For Meg's New Friend, being PC is a double-edged sword; playwright Blair Singer boldly tackles the issue dead-on, but this also makes him overly explicit, and ends up objectifying his supporting cast. Ty is a burst of fresh air, charming in his confident passivity, and seductively honest, even when that involves hitting on his current lover's best friend and admitting, in the process, that all relationships should have a three-month expiration date. On the other hand, Sam--no matter how well-acted by the capable Solomon--is the all-too familiar asshole who picks fights just to be dramatic. Singer asks us what leads us to connect with people--for instance, is it because we want to diversify and have a black friend?--only to announce that we can't always choose. (Hence the pending foot-in-mouth.)

The play works best when it steps back from easy labels and deals with taking a hard look at what's behind those words. In that, it's a smart move to make Megan a far-from-hard-hitting television reporter, as she knows the importance not only of words but of the images that are conjured up behind them, the intents. ("You have to have the image. Makes it real. Present. Without a photo, the audience can't connect.") She wants Ty as a friend--her first black friend, and also her first male friend--but they both immediately see each other as more. The strongest scenes are those in which characters evaluate themselves: Ty confessing his attraction to sad girls, Rachel admitting her desperation (Jewish, single, and 38, she sees herself as "invisible"), and Megan coming to terms with her attraction to Ty.

The script, at about eighty minutes, is tight, and that has unfortunately led the characters to be a bit stiff--the plot has them grow, but to see them do so is like watching them get prodded by a shoehorn. Thankfully, while director Mark Armstrong struggles to establish his characters in the early scenes (they frequently lock up when they're not talking, or aimlessly fidget with their empty wine glasses), the play opens up about halfway through, especially for Cross, who really ties the conceit of the play together when she attempts to condemn her former best friend with a canned speech, only to find that the words don't match up with the reality. ("Yeah," she says, "it doesn't feel right.")

Singer's last play at Manhattan Theater Source, The Most Damaging Wound, had an intensity and a camaraderie that managed to make the words themselves beside the point. The problem he runs into with Meg's Best Friend is that now the words are almost entirely the point, and while his ear for natural speech is still there, it feels like he's constantly skirting the issue--which is perhaps a little too PC. (His comparisons to The Seagull certainly don't do him any favors.) The play itself is fun enough, and it is nice to see Gupton avoid stereotypes, but Meg's New Friend is more of the fair-weather sort than of the best.

Post No Bills

[First posted to Show Business Weekly]

Photo/Sandra Coudet

“It’s real when you hit bottom,” says Esteban (Teddy Cañez), who knows what he’s talking about. He was once the Mexican Johnny Cash and now busks in the Port Authority subway. “I don’t understand,” replies Reyna (Audrey Esparza), a nervy, orphaned runaway who—thanks to the gimmicky miracles of theatrical shorthand—has become this gruff loner’s protégée. Like all buddy dramas, in which two opposites come together and learn a valuable lesson from one another, Esteban comforts her: “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.” However, playwright Mando Alvarado has yet to do so. Post No Bills has some good musical bits (composed by Sandra Rubio) and entertaining co-stars—the blind, urban sage Sal (John-Martin Green) and the late-twenties hipster Eddie (Wade Allain-Marcus)—Alvarado is too carefully following in the footsteps of other plays to ever risk hitting the bottom.

Too bad: his actors certainly seem game. Esparza is a coil of lightning, able to bunch herself in and then explode outward, and her childish goofiness helps to gloss over some of the weaker plot points. (One minute she’s threatening to stick a bazooka up his ass, the next she’s staying with him?) Cañez is naturally brooding, and his deep voice helps him show the pain of his music; these qualities help him surprise us each time he reveals a third dimension: Esteban’s feelings for Reyna. And though Sal and Eddie are written largely as devices for these two, Green finds the anger behind his comic relief, and Allain-Marcus turns his energy into an outsized shyness that works for his romance with Reyna and rivalry with Esteban.

It’s also a waste of Michael Ray Escamilla’s direction; the man knows how to spin a story with visuals, and he fills the empty gaps in Alvarado’s script with cute sight gags (watch Sal), but for the majority of the play, the set is just a blue-washed wall—the sort you see for subway construction. There’s terrific storytelling, both from him and designer Raul Abrego, when those walls part to reveal Esteban’s studio apartment, so it’s a shame that the play itself still seems to be under construction.

Wolves at the Window

The problem with Toby Davies's Wolves at the Window (And Other Tales of Immorality) is that there are never any wolves at the window. Perhaps in the early 1900s, when Hector Hugh Munro (more familiarly known as Saki) wrote these trick short stories, they were surprising, the type of novel brave Dahl-ish children might delight in reading under their covers. (For instance, in "The Storyteller," two children who are tired of hearing morality tales, hear a new tale, in which a young girl is savaged by her own goodness.) But in this stage adaptation of ten Saki stories, that nervous delight is muted--first by Davies's choice to collage some stories together, which dilutes the punchlines, and then by Thomas Hescott's muddy direction, which relies more on the audience's imagination than his own. With the exception of a few stories that would be entertaining even if used as a filibuster's fodder, the night's entertainment falls entirely on the cast of four--and consequently, it keeps falling.

However, falling and failing are very different things. While Wolves at the Window suffers from an inability to commit to a style, the motley result is not without its own charms, especially when they force the actors out of their recitative or too-well-mannered states. Gus Brown, whose terrific dryness resembles something out of a Gorey painting, is perfect for this show; watch him as a sad-sack artist who agrees to help a failing business in order to marry the owner's daughter, only to find that, thanks to the cash he earns them, he's now socially ineligible. However, he's even better in animal form--as a tragically dying Goat or as the titular "Tobeymorey," one of those terrific wish-fulfillment tales in which a family, having taught a cat to speak, instantly wishes the gossiping creature would shut up. On the other hand, Jeremy Booth and Anna Francolini, who are often tapped to play slight variations on the exact same character type, desperately need the sort of loony roles that Sarah Moyle gets to play with.

What has happened, both in the writing and the directing, is that a proscenium has been built--literally, it has the sign "Naturally Depraved" affixed to it--but is only rarely played out to. As a result, the show lacks the requisite vitality to lift itself from the page to the stage, and during the more descriptive scenes--like the anti-climactic closers to each act--the show drops to a dead crawl. There is nothing less thrilling than watching an actor describe the stag they are pretending to watch rush toward them, even with a strobe light flickering for effect. The stories that comprise Wolves at the Window relied upon surprise; the play that Davies has cobbled together must not forget to do the same--if all we can expect from a night at the theater are Saki's twists, why not just read the open-source versions online?

Or,

Liz Duffy Adams's newest play is called Or,, which makes it pretty clear that her historical farce has no intentions of wasting time with ifs, ands, or buts. (Well, perhaps a few butts.) The title--of which the comma is a part--is meant to shed some light on our innate dualities, and to that end, Aphra Behn--a bisexual spy-turned-playwright who may or may not have faked her widowhood in order to gain personal freedom--is an apt choice. Likewise, it's a smart choice to cast Maggie Siff in the role, a versatile actor (from Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy) with the ability to play a stern woman in a fluttery way, or a flustered girl in a confident fashion. Above all, Adams's best choice is to reduce the cast to three actors, using the already comic art of double-casting and quick changes to enhance the farcical elements.

Though Adams is intent on illustrating the ambiguity of character, Wendy McClellan directs with a crisp, clean hand. Even the intentionally sloppy bits, where characters are peeking only parts of their body out of the various rooms and closets in which they've hidden, are done with precision. And rightly so: the play Behn is attempting to finish is the one that she's actually in, and it would be impossible to crack as many jokes at the play's structure if it were not so impeccably upheld.

To that end, Behn has no lack of material. She begins in debtor's prison, where she churns out verse and practices her rhymes on the gaoler; when a mysterious masked man shows up to free her, she finds plenty of opportunity to sharpen her wit, too. Some months later, with the masked man revealed as King Charles II (Andy Paris), she is well on the way to being a playwright--if only she had something to submit. Luckily, her new lover, the actress Nell Gwynne (Kelly Hutchinson) comes to the rescue, for Behn's attempts to write her play, overcome her passions, and keep Gwynne from meeting Charles practically write themselves. (O for a muse of fire, indeed.)

Over the course of the lively and non-stop hour that follow this ball-in-motion prologue, we'll also meet William, a former spy and lover; Mariah, the cracking good maid (as in, she'll crack you over the head); and Lady Davening, a supporter of plays, though it often seems as though the cast is several times larger. Paris and Hutchinson, who play all these roles, are exceedingly game, so much so that the biggest laugh of the night comes from Davening's hyperactive advice that one should "never leave actors with nothing to do." (The result is either a stage manager's dream or nightmare.)

Adams might have gone a bit further--as is, the historical double-meanings are lost, especially among people unfamiliar with Behn. However, there's nothing wrong with a blatant farce, and once can't fault Adams for sticking to her game plan: "Compose yourselves for pleasure," announces Hutchinson at the start of the show. That's perhaps the one thing in Or, that has no alternative.