Thursday, April 15, 2021

In Mourning for Dying City"


The first question I ask whenever I see or even her about a revival is “why are they doing this show?” The answer to that is right in its name for Second Stage Theater. For although it may now be best known as the incubator for such shows as Dear Evan Hansen and Next to Normal, the company longstanding mission has been to give a second staging, a second chance, to works created by contemporary American playwrights. So it makes sense that it would give such a chance to Christopher Shinn’s Dying City, which hasn’t had a major production here since it debuted at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre in 2007 and became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Alas, the revival that opened at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser space this week makes you wonder what the Pulitzer nominators were thinking.

The play is a two-hander but it has three characters.  It starts with a white guy named Peter buzzing relentlessly to be let into the apartment of a woman named Kelly, who is clearly reluctant to let him in. But it’s not what you think. It turns out that Peter is a successful gay actor and the identical twin of Kelly’s husband Craig who died in Iraq a year earlier. Brother-in-law and sister-in-law haven’t seen one another since the funeral even though Peter has been trying to get in touch with Kelly. 

As Dying City moves back and forth between the night before Craig left for his deployment and the encounter between the two people closest to him, relationship are examined and secrets are revealed. Shinn clearly intended the play to be a meditation on grief but he also wants to ruminate on the differences between fraternal and spousal love, the definitions of what it means to be a responsible man and, in a nod to a major issue of the day, what constitutes a just war.

I suspect it’s the latter that appealed to those Pulitzer adjudicators. But while its question is timeless, the treatment here makes Dying City seem dated. And some of its dramaturgy is clunky too. Peter keeps getting and making phone calls that have no effect except to get him on and offstage when the playwright needs him to. And a deus ex machina concerning some emails makes no sense at all

Still, one might forgive all of that if the relationships between the characters seemed immediate and the performances made them seen genuine. But neither is the case in this production.

The play calls for a single actor to play the brothers in alternating scenes. With the aid of some telegraphing hair and costume changes—a T shirt for Peter, a flannel shirt for Craig—Colin Woodell, whose screen credits outnumber his stage credits in the Playbill, does a good job distinguishing the brothers but he doesn’t dig deep into what motivates either sibling.

That’s even more of a problem for Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a TV actress making her theater debut in a tough role that is almost all subtext. For Kelly, a psychologist by profession, is intent on keeping her true emotions to, and maybe even, from herself. So it’s right for the character to be opaque but the actor playing her shouldn’t be.

Both actors might have fared better if the originally scheduled director Lila Neugebauer had stayed with the production. But when Neugebauer, a master at guiding actors through difficult plays, left, reportedly to begin working on a movie, Shinn took over the directing duties himself (click here to read more about that).

Having a playwright direct his own work is rarely a recipe for success. By nature, most writers have more of an affinity for the words they’ve created than for the actions needed to bring those words to life onstage. Shinn’s direction is plodding, making the show’s running time seem far longer than its 90 minutes.

Even the design elements are flat-footed. The apartment Dane Laffrey designed for Kelly is OK but I’m still trying to figure out what the black void that took up so much of stage left was supposed to signify. Meanwhile lighting designer Tyler Micoleau displayed no subtlety when it came to indicating the constant time changes.

But I’m going to stop now because I get no satisfaction out of beating up on a production, particularly one that’s already as wobbly-kneed as this one is.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Jeff Blumentkrantz is Killing Again in "Murder for Two"


The prodigiously talented Jeff Blumenkrantz returns this week to the off-Broadway musical Murder for Two. Which is great news for anyone looking for an evening of great fun. I somehow never got around to writing about this hilarious show when my theatergoing buddy Bill and I saw it at Second Stage Uptown last summer.  But I should have—and I'm jumping on this chance to give it a shout-out now.  

As the title hints this is a two-man show: Brett Ryback plays an ambitious young cop who is investigating the murder of a famous but not-much-loved mystery writer who is offed during a weekend house party; Blumenkrantz plays all of the murder suspects. Joe Kinosian, who filled in for Blumenkrantz while the actor was off on other assignments, wrote the show's perky music and Kellan Blair the clever book and lyrics. The actors take turns accompanying themselves on piano.  
 
There’s no time for costume changes as there is in Broadway's similarly-themed and also-funny A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder so Blumenkrantz contorts his rubbery face and adjusts his lanky body to switch from one suspect to another, ranging from a southern belle to a trio of Dead End Kids-style newsboys. The resulting mayhem is now playing at New World Stages.  It'll slay you.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Happy 50th Birthday...

...to London's National Theatre!
And all of us theater lovers can celebrate with the terrific new app that spotlights 50 landmark NT productions with photos, cast lists, set and costume design sketches and even images of prompt scripts.  You can find it all by clicking here.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Want to Know How Tough It Is To Be A Working Playwright Today?

Page 73 Productions, an off-Broadway company that specializes in works by early-career playwrights has just announced the 26 semi-finalists for its annual fellowship. The eventual winner will get $10,000 for him or herself and an additional $10,000 in development support for the play.  The runner-up prizes are the chance to participate in either Page 73's writers' workshop or its summer residency program, which includes "a week of writing or workshop time at Yale University."  But here's what really got me: 400 people applied.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Second Thoughts on My Summer Festival Fatigue


I’ve been feeling badly all week about the grumpiness of Saturday's main B&Me post on summer theater festivals, particularly that line where I said " there are too many people doing theater in New York and many of them should be doing something else."  

I still think the shows I saw were weak but I do recognize the value of the festivals. There are some truly talented artists who participate in them and the festivals provide a place for those theatermakers to hone their craft and for theater lovers to discover them.  

That case has been well made in a few pieces I’ve read, including this one and this one.  Plus, you can find reviews of all the this year's Fringe shows here.