Until Theater's Triumphant Return, Some Theater
Thoughts on a few of May's streaming offerings
Broadway makes its triumphant return this September, which is exciting. Mostly because I need a job. Not a job on Broadway, but the sheer amount of money and momentum that Broadway gets flowing across every area of the industry is truly massive. That’s what makes its return so essential (though, of course, there is still a lot of work to be done).
With focus shifting to a re-opening narrative, attention to digital work is naturally waning right now. Some folks have hit their limit with online viewing (which is perfectly fair). Yet many companies are just hitting their stride in the virtual realm.
I was amused, even delighted, by Jesse Green’s knocking The New Group’s recent Waiting For Godot as a “first-gen take” on a pandemic play. His point was to contrast its Zoom boxes approach with the more creative work of, say, Theater In Quarantine.
I haven’t yet seen Godot. But certainly Lincoln Center, MTC and other mainstream arts organizations are only just now beginning to drop Zoom readings and archival streams, almost begrudgingly—releases that lag far behind digital theater’s huge advances in its use of form.
As arts advocate Howard Sherman noted in a recent Twitter thread, the return of Broadway and larger institutional theaters only highlights who has actually been driving the field forward this past year. I do understand why some companies have waited it out. But it’s worth noting who has been growing and expanding new forms, as demonstrated by the shows included below.
Black Feminist Video Game — (The Civilians, on-demand thru May 16th)
Darrel Alejandro Holnes’s play has two wonderful things going for it. The first is that titular video game, created by Ché Rose and Jocelyn Short of Cookout Games. Black Feminist Video Game is a thrill, its Sega Genesis aesthetic channeling the nostalgic comfort of 90s 2D gaming while also subverting it with unapologetically Black content.
Second is Holnes’s use of live-streaming culture as a window into our protagonist, Jonas, who is autistic. For Jonas, streaming his every moment seems to be mostly about a sense of control. He is looking to place a narrative onto both himself and where he sits in the immense space of Black history. “Black history is too much to remember,” he complains to his mother. “There’s so much history. And you know, I also want to be in history.”
His mom suggests the Black Feminist Video Game, and it becomes Jonas’s guide. It’s a frequently didactic guide, in parts glitchy and unfinished. But though Holnes’s text does have issues with preachiness, that critique is hard to disentangle from a judgment on the neurodivergent mind Holnes’s text is placing us into. Holnes conveys, with humor and care, the distinct ways Jonas’ mind processes information: ordered and packaged in a form that many viewers may find unfamiliar. It’s a wonderful window into seeing the world a little differently.
Vancouver — (Ma-Yi Studios, streaming thru May 31st)
Horribly sad but hauntingly beautiful, Ralph B. Peña’s Vancouver is a special piece. Filmed in a barn in Wisconsin last September, the puppet play is a snapshot of the life of one mixed-race family who have relocated from Japan to the Pacific Northwest. As their daughter struggles with depression, mom and dad disagree on how best to help her.
The puppet work is astonishing. K.T. Shivak’s simple, expressive facial designs suggest a deep well of sadness battling glimmers of hope. The wires and sets are acknowledged in Francisco Aliwalas’s gorgeous photography, which incorporates lights descending from the roof and puppeteers arriving to work. It’s a uniquely comforting viewing experience.
Most moving is the father’s relationship with Lucky, the family dog, who speaks back only to him. Lucky is a blunt truth-teller given sage voice by Daniel K. Isaac, in a really extraordinary vocal performance. Their best-friend bond is the show’s throughline and culminates in a devastating final shot.
Midnight at the Never Get — (Signature Theater, streaming thru June 21st)
One advantage of streaming has been renewed attention for shows that might not have gotten their due the first time around. Several people told me to see Midnight at the Never Get during its York Theatre Company run in 2018, and alas, I didn’t listen. Thankfully, Mark Sonnenblick’s musical has now been sumptuously filmed by Signature Theater.
It’s a wonderfully moving little show. I am, admittedly, a sucker for mysterious locations turning out to be purgatory—a fave theater trick of mine. But it’s an effective setup, Sonnenblick’s songs are bangers (cast recording when?), and the themes of self-cenorship and queer self-hatred resonate powerfully.
At its center, Sam Bolen (continuing in the lead role he originated at the York) delivers a tragic tour-de-force, conveying the charm and desperation of a man struggling to push out all memory of a world that tossed him to the side. He’s a star in the making.
Intuitive Men — (The Tank, streaming on-demand)
A pair of sweaty, overthinking millennials fret about life, love and chi as they struggle through an intuitive yoga class. (You can also select a “Play & Yoga Score” version, if you’d like to join the class.)
Sofya Levitsky-Weitz’s dialogue is charmingly Will Eno-esque, hopping lightly from one impossible psychological quandary to the next. Intuitive Men leaves a lot to ponder but, as befits a play built around a yoga class, it keeps the vibes chill. And it’s very funny, thanks to the precise comic timing of Brendan Dalton and his co-star, the playwright Will Arbery.
This is ultimately a play about two nice, useless boys wondering if they’ll ever be anything more than nice, useless boys.
The Woman’s Party — (Clubbed Thumb, streaming thru August)
A clash between the new and old guard of the National Woman’s Party in 1947, just ahead of the expected passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, mirrors our modern day clash of pragtimism vs. progressivism in Rinne B. Groff’s new work.
Director Tara Ahmadinejad here brings the same delightful energy that lit up her Zoom piece Disclaimer. Her smooth, colorful staging keeps Woman’s Party moving even as it gets a little bogged down in its second part by Wikipedia-spouting debate.
Groff’s play truly hits its peak in the final section, which is dominated by a “final throwdown” between Alice Paul and Doris Stevens over the best path forward for the National Woman’s Party and the passage of the ERA. The confrontation is thrillingly performed, particularly by Rebecca Schull as Paul, and ties all of Groff’s ideological threads together in a beautiful bow.
You can also read me in:
BNet, with a look at online archivists who are amassing video evidence that Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark did actually happen;
Broadway’s Best Shows, talking to legendary Broadway photographers about what memorable shows, challenging shoots, and why they do what they do.