STARGAZERS
As a junior in college, I was part of a tight-knit community hit hard by a shocking loss. Working as a peer counselor (RA) with early-arriving freshmen, I spent all my time with other counselors. The group became close. Then, on a hike one afternoon, a 19-year-old counselor slipped atop a high falls, fell and died.
In hitting the group just as we were bonding, this sudden, horrible tragedy forged a particular connection among the counselors. Not a closeness, exactly, but a shared understanding born from communal anguish.
A similar bond unites childhood friends Jessica, Aracely and Casey, who reunite midway through Majkin Holmquist’s mournful, deeply moving new play Stargazers, now at the Connelly Theater in a Page 73 production. They gather around a fire pit on the Kansas farm where, years earlier, their friend Cate was killed in a horrific accident. Cate’s mother, Rita, is about to sell the land to an East Coast developer that creates “havens” — master planned communities built around progressive values.
Aracely has moved to Los Angeles, and Casey does not see Jessica often. But that shared loss has linked them in ways both comforting and agonizing. Watching them drink and argue under a starry sky, dancing around their pain, I was taken back to that strange time in college — to that enduring bond each of us so wished we did not share.
Grief is, at times, a dreamlike state. Colette Robert’s production captures that strangeness with quiet care. Rita cannot move past her daughter’s loss – as hauntingly portrayed by Kelly McAndrew, she seems to float through the world, still walking but half-gone. While intrigued by the developer’s proposal of a brighter future for her land, Rita knows that future is not for her. But maybe her daughter’s friends, keeping hold of each other under the vast night sky, will find some way forward.
STARGAZERS continues at the Connelly Theater through May 10th
REDEMPTION STORY
In 1971 Los Angeles, a faded film actress, Connie Lee (Christine Toy Johnson), attaches herself to a young, handsome new arrival, Billy (José Espinosa). Connie was tossed aside by Hollywood after years of playing enigmatic, devious Asian-American caricatures — all of her characters died violent deaths. Years later, she is still performing those stereotypes, and an unwitting Billy becomes her audience of one.
Presented by The Associates Theater Ensemble, Redemption Story is a promising debut from Peregrine Teng Heard that shows wit and stylistic flair, but lacks a clear focus. Connie often feels like a side player in her own story, disappearing for stretches as Heard gets sidetracked in Billy’s love life. (That said, Emily Stout is a hilarious digression as Billy’s maybe-girlfriend Florence, increasingly frazzled at competing for his affections with the clearly unstable Connie.)
When Heard keeps the spotlight on Connie and Billy, Redemption Story finds an intriguing sexual spark. Sarah Blush’s production perks up in the pair’s steamier scenes, conjuring noir-tinged imagery that blurs Hollywood fantasy and grim reality. If only the play had picked this lane and stayed in it.
REDEMPTION STORY continues at The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres through May 19th
AGREEMENT
Agreement has a premise that feels tailor-made for great pressure-cooker theater. Receiving its U.S. premiere at Irish Arts Center, Owen McCafferty’s new work is a transfer from Lyric Theatre Belfast. It is set in the final days of the 1998 negotiations towards a permanent peace in Northern Ireland, with key players including Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam and Irish premier Bertie Ahern. The setup has all the makings of a thrilling, Oslo-style wrangling towards an impossible peace, reachable only through protracted and excruciatingly detailed dealmaking.
Instead, McCafferty’s play goes in circles, restating the same big-picture challenges over and over but never diving into the glorious minutiae. If the constant loops are deliberate, intended to reflect the players holding to their corners, it feels more like the play is taking an hour to clear its throat.
McCafferty does seem to realize that Mowlam, sidelined by her male colleagues and exhausted by radiation treatments, should be the emotional heart of his story. But he only half-commits to that course, leaving the play structurally uncertain.
I did enjoy McCafferty’s sneakily contemptuous depiction of Tony Blair, depicted here as swooping in at the last moment to build upon others’ hard-earned progress. McCafferty does not dismiss Blair’s importance in the talks, and we see his pivotal role in the final hours. But as played by a madly grinning Martin Hutson, Blair is obnoxious and nakedly glory-seeking, characteristics that were a boon for this battle but proved fatal down the line.
AGREEMENT continues at Irish Arts Center through May 12th
THE KEEP GOING SONGS
I have feared for a couple years that the very talented singer-songwriters The Bengsons were drifting into stale self-indulgence. In the husband and wife duo’s early works, they collaborated with rigorous theater artists who would craft fully formed theatrical works around their haunting music. Anne Kauffman gave both Hundred Days and The Lucky Ones ravishing visual life, while writer Sarah Gancher lent Shaun and Abigail’s charming ramblings a narrative spine.
When The Bengsons appeared in concert at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater last year, the unfocused cutesiness felt more forgivable – that was a casual affair, an hour's worth of songs. Still, it got me worried. The pair seemed overly enamored with their own cheesy improvisation, while their thematic interests were sliding into easy cliches – we’re all so sad, the world is ending, keep on keepin’ on, etc.
Now LCT3 is presenting The Keep Going Songs, the pair’s first full production since the shutdown. The subject again feels amorphous: loss, grief, getting by in a frightening world. “The world is on fire!” declares Shaun, a refrain that has become lazily easy in theater, but never really means anything. The aimless evening is not helped by Caitlin Sullivan’s loose direction, which includes several hopelessly awkward attempts at audience participation.
By the time Shaun had produced a giant crab claw and started waddling around the stage, snapping his prop-claw at the air, I was checked out. The Bengsons are incredibly talented musicians and songwriters, and it’s a pleasure to hear them sing. But without a collaborator to push them, they fall back on packaging pain into slogans and banalities.
THE KEEP GOING SONGS continues at Lincoln Center Theatre through May 26th
AND ELSEWHERE:
At Theatrely, I reviewed many Broadway and Off Broadway shows (some might say too many) amidst the April glut: Lempicka, Suffs, Stereophonic, Orlando, The Heart of Rock and Roll, Uncle Vanya and Illinoise
At IGN, I reviewed interactive Off Broadway show Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern
At TDF Stages, I spoke to the creative team behind new musical The Outsiders
And at The Brooklyn Rail, I raved about Cole Escola’s now Broadway-bound comedy Oh, Mary!