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      ‘Zoey’s Perfect Wedding’ Review: The Bride’s Big Disaster

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      For affluent and educated 30-something New Yorkers, a favored set of the playwright Matthew López, a chain-hotel reception is as tacky as it gets.There isn’t enough food, the D.J. is playing Styx instead of Beyoncé, and a line for the cash bar looks like a humanitarian crisis. The bride’s big day in “Zoey’s Perfect Wedding,” streaming via TheaterWorks Hartford, is predictably a total disaster. (Would we have been invited otherwise?)If rubbernecking the collision of happily ever after with dire disappointment is your kink, buckle up. Though this ill-fated party is likely to be familiar.It’s 2008, Barack Obama has just been elected president, the economy is in the toilet, and Zoey’s college friends have been banished to a far-flung table in a drab ballroom at the Downtown Brooklyn Marriott. Zoey, played by Rachel B. Joyce, is the last of their school chums to get hitched, and this is not how they thought she’d go out. For affluent and educated 30-something New Yorkers, a favored set of the playwright Matthew López, a chain-hotel reception is as tacky as it gets.Charlie (Daniel José Molina) and Sammy (Herdlicka) at the reception.Mike MarquesNot only was Rachel (Blair Lewin) not asked to be a bridesmaid, but staving off a calamity like this one is her job — really. (She’s an in-demand wedding planner.) Sammy (Hunter Ryan Herdlicka), a sports agent impeccably dressed in a three-piece plaid suit, swipes a bottle of liquor from the bar to soothe his offended senses. (“Hey, cutie! Got any Cuervo?” he coos to an unseen male server.) And Rachel’s husband, Charlie (Daniel José Molina), is agog to hear how much more sex Sammy is having than they do (unlike the tequila that flows like water, the couple is on the rocks).Every cliché about bad weddings probably occurs during the first hour of Zoey’s. A cringe-inducing speech from a drunk guest oversharing her personal problems? Check. (Rachel really ought to know better.) A bride who shrieks and sobs and retreats to the bathroom? (Don’t forget that bottle of Cuervo.) Not until it seems as if nothing more could go wrong does the play push deeper into its exploration of relationships, which does not exactly reveal new territory: friendships wane, marriages fall apart, and romance rarely resembles a fairy tale.Unlike his two-part “The Inheritance,” an ambitious epic for which López won a Tony Award in 2021 for best play, “Zoey’s Perfect Wedding” is ready-made and on the nose, like a trifle you might pluck off the dessert table at a function less calamitous than this one. The 90-minute comedy, which premiered in Denver in 2018, predates the playwright’s saga about late-20th century gay Manhattanites, and demonstrates his sustained interest in the dynamics of connection amid the limitations of convention.No union could ever be perfect — and what does perfect even mean? — but López still defers to the value of conformity. Sammy’s open relationship becomes a point of rage for Rachel, who’s in the business of monogamy, and an occasion for Sammy to explain how gay men relate to each other differently than straight people (complete with a tutorial on anal sex). It could be provocative if the lesson weren’t so basic, and if Sammy didn’t eventually capitulate to sharing the emotional needs that are fueling the fiasco.The production, directed by Rob Ruggiero, is playful and polished. A dizzying-print carpet and bland sconces on textured walls are a suitable assault on the eyes (set and lighting design are by Brian Sidney Bembridge). And performances from the ensemble are uniformly strong, committed to the sitcom setup and believably tender as the details of their characters are more fully revealed.“Zoey’s Perfect Wedding” treats the early aughts with a certain nostalgia, a Myspace, post-George W. Bush era of social optimism when Gen X was easing into adulthood — and recognizing the potential disappointments of marriage and material achievement. The retro quality of the play’s perspective can feel almost mournful, rather than enriched with the benefit of hindsight. Letting go of youthful ideals can leave you with one hell of a hangover.Zoey’s Perfect WeddingThrough June 5 at TheaterWorks Hartford in Connecticut and streaming online; twhartford.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      Why the Biggest Ovation at the Tonys Luncheon Was for a Waiter

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      The Rainbow Room event is meant to honor nominees; guests aren’t allowed. But when your father works there, that changes everything.Klay Young, a 63-year-old Harlem resident who immigrated to New York as a teenager from Belize, has worked as a server at the landmark Rainbow Room for 30 years, taking orders, ferrying food, clearing dishes for any number of rich and famous people. He has pictures with Mikhail Gorbachev, Liza Minnelli, John Travolta, and Presidents Carter and Clinton.This week, he served a newly minted dignitary: his daughter, a stage actress who in November made her Broadway debut in a new Lynn Nottage play called “Clyde’s” and this month scored a Tony nomination for her quick-witted performance as a formerly incarcerated sandwich maker.Something about that confluence — a breakout performer reaching the literal heights (the Rainbow Room is on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center) where her immigrant father has long toiled as a waiter — brought a much-needed moment of inspiration to an industry still struggling to rebound from a very rough few years.Here’s what happened: The Rainbow Room, once a restaurant and now an event space, has for years been the home of a treasured Tony Awards ritual: a nominees-only luncheon at which the actors, writers, directors, designers and others up for awards share a meal, get a plaque and bask in a moment of shared glory.This year, seated among the honorees was Kara Young in her white-and-black Maje dress with the gold necklace she borrowed from her mother. Working the room in his lunchtime uniform of dark blue pants, white shirt and dark blue vest was Klay Young, making sure everyone had what they needed.When Emilio Sosa, who was helping preside over the ceremony as chairman of the American Theater Wing, got up for the routine recitation of the names of honorees, he paused at Kara Young. He noted that her father was present — as it happened, he was getting a Diet Coke for a celebrant — and had worked there for years. The celebrants rose to their feet.“The whole room just lost it,” Sosa said. “To see her coming full circle, from a little girl watching him serve, and he had worked this luncheon for years, to having his daughter be a nominee was just one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Lifetime Achievement: Angela Lansbury, an acclaimed and beloved star of stage, film and television, will be honored with a special award during this year’s ceremony.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.A New Star: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.Among those moved to tears: Kara Young, who as a little girl on special occasions had come to the Rainbow Room with her father, taking in the sweeping views and dancing with him on the rotating floor.“I know that job has put food on our table and has given us a really beautiful life,” Kara Young said later. “He’s such an honorable man, and for him to get a standing ovation was the most unexpected moment ever.”Young, left, with Reza Salazar, was nominated for best featured actress in a play for her performance in “Clyde’s.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesKlay Young, who had been serving chicken paillard and arranging coffee cups at the lunch, was stunned. “Oh my goodness,” he said later. “I had to pause for a second. I looked at her. She looked at me. It was riveting. I could not say anything but ‘gratitude.’ And there were silent tears of joy coming down my face.”Sosa, a costume designer who immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic and whose parents were janitors and factory workers, said he recognized the emotional power of the moment as soon as he realized the coincidence.“A lot of times, when young people say they want to be artists, the first thing they get is pushback about how they’re going to earn a living,” Sosa said. “So the pride in this man’s eyes really touched me. And I could not let that moment pass.”Among those also struck by the event was Nottage, who snapped a picture of the father-daughter pair.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Hitting the Right Notes When Setting History to Song

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      In the wake of “Hamilton”-mania, critics, creators and historians debate how stage musicals since balance the complexities of the past and the politics of the present. A lot of history is happening in American musical theater right now. (Sorry, last “Hamilton” joke, we promise.) On Broadway, “Paradise Square,” which was just nominated for 10 Tony Awards, tells the story of a mixed Irish and Black community in Lower Manhattan in the 1860s that’s torn apart by the Civil War draft riots. Downtown, at the Public Theater, the sold-out “Suffs” depicts the women’s suffrage movement in the years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment.And coming to Broadway in September (now in previews in Cambridge, Mass.), Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page’s revival of “1776” revisits the debate over the Declaration of Independence, with a cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors as the founding “fathers.”This is American history with a capital H — shows that aim to illuminate who we are, who we were, who we want to be. Those questions have only gotten more complicated in the years since 2015, when “Hamilton” took the culture by storm. We’ve been through two elections (and an insurrection), a pandemic, and a broad reckoning on race and racism, including in American theater. All this has changed how we see — and stage — the past.We asked The New York Times critics Jesse Green and Maya Phillips to discuss the phenomenon alongside Paulus, a 2013 Tony winner; Claire Bond Potter, a professor of history at the New School and co-editor of the essay collection “Historians on Hamilton”; and Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a professor of history at Rutgers University and a co-executive producer of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” Jennifer Schuessler, who covers intellectual life for the Times (and wrote about the creation of “Suffs”), led the conversation. Edited excerpts follow.During its development, “Suffs” came to explore how Black women were marginalized in the movement for women’s suffrage.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJENNIFER SCHUESSLER What strikes you all about the ways American history is being depicted and invoked onstage right now? Is something new happening?JESSE GREEN Theater, particularly musical theater, has often abetted the distortion and flat-out erasure of inconvenient histories. Now it’s trying to do a better job. That’s a good thing. But you can’t fix the past with broken shows. History may be dramatic but it isn’t necessarily theatrical — and that’s the pitfall. How do you make facts sing?MAYA PHILLIPS There is built-in tension: does one prioritize the narrative of the past or the politics of the present? I’m not saying these necessarily have to be in opposition, but it’s a delicate balance. You don’t want a show with a story that feels squeezed into the frame of our present in a way that’s too obvious or didactic, which was a problem with both “Suffs” and “Paradise Square.”DIANE PAULUS Artists, especially right now, are interested in shifting the gaze — looking to tell stories that need to be told, stories that have not had their due. I also think producers, and we can’t forget that it is the producers who determine what gets on stage, are looking to play their role in how to expand the stories that audiences are exposed to.SCHUESSLER OK, historians: Do you see this as an exciting moment? A frustrating one?CLARE BOND POTTER I think Americans are hungrier for historical explanations, in part because so many historically unprecedented things have occurred in the past 15 years. The first Black president, and the failure to elect the first woman president — twice! Then the Trump presidency, which exploded the idea of what politics is. Americans are digging into the past to find answers for questions about why politics seems to be both producing radically new dynamics — and reproducing old ones.ERICA ARMSTRONG DUNBAR It’s more than political — it’s creative and it responds to the feelings and needs of the public. It reminds me of the moment that [the television mini-series] “Roots” first aired, in 1977. The history wasn’t perfect, and it was overdramatized, but it was new and important and people, Black people in particular, were immediately invested in this new kind of storytelling. The same thing is happening with musical theater.GREEN The opportunities are huge and the stakes are high; popular history has a way of replacing the real kind. (Check out “The King and I,” a gorgeously crafted and hugely influential show that’s almost completely untrue.) Which is why representation is so important. Erica, you work on “The Gilded Age,” which I feel sure is providing, for white people anyway, the first we’ve really heard about the Black middle class of that era, a story somehow omitted from our education and consciousness. But I think you’re saying that it’s not just about “fixing” history but also about artists finding stories that compel them.DUNBAR Exactly! I don’t think any of us go to the theater for a history lesson. We want to be entertained, we want to fall in love, be angry, and learn a bit if we can.SCHUESSLER Wow, a historian saying we don’t go to the theater for a history lesson — you’re really playing against type, Erica!Diane, what you would say from the perspective of an artist? What appealed to you about reviving “1776” — a very familiar history with a very familiar set of (white, male) characters. And how do you see the show as speaking to the present?Crystal Lucas-Perry, center, as John Adams with castmates in a new revival of the musical “1776” that features women, trans and nonbinary actors.Evan Zimmerman for Murphy MadePAULUS I really agree that audiences are interested in looking back to our history to understand the present moment. The theater is uniquely positioned to do this in a way that taps into our imaginations, into empathy, and what I love about the theater is that it can only happen in the presence of an audience. In “1776,” I have been excited to build this production with my co-director and choreographer, Jeffrey L. Page, in a way that actively poses questions to the audience: How can we hold history as a predicament, versus an affirming myth?SCHUESSLER Can you say a little bit about your and Jeffrey’s broader intentions in doing this show with a diverse cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors? Why is that gender-flip interesting to you?PAULUS When taking on a revival, I am always interested in how to make the production speak to a contemporary audience, while respecting the authors’ original intentions. “1776” was written in the late ’60s, during the civil rights movement and at the height of the Vietnam War. There is a critique of our country built into the bones of this musical. Our casting bridges the realities of the past and the present, from who was excluded from Independence Hall to an aspirational vision of an inclusive society.The “1776” revival is co-directed by Diane Paulus, right, and Jeffrey L. Page, who is also the show’s choreographer.Matthew MurphySCHUESSLER This brings up the question of how to balance the historical record with the needs of the present. It’s different with a show like “1776,” where everyone already knows the basic story, versus shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square,” where many people will not know the history at all. How should shows confront the ugliest, messiest realities of the past, versus giving us a more uplifting version?POTTER It’s important to emphasize that theater — go back to Shakespeare — has never been historically accurate. It always speaks to questions of the moment. But when we say stories are not well known, I would say the story of the Draft Riots is well known to Black Americans. And the depiction in “Paradise Square” — which ends with a multiracial community coming back together — is emphatically not what occurred. True, “Paradise Square” also presents this moment as a “future yet to be realized” — a turning point where people have choices, and that is an important story to tell about racial division in this country. But Kaitlyn Greenidge’s recent novel “Libertie” frames this event differently, as a 19th century 9/11, where Black New Yorkers flee to Brooklyn, traumatized and covered with ash, and are taken in by the Black residents of Weeksville. Greenidge’s account is also fiction, but better history, in that it conveys what a catastrophe this was for African Americans in New York City.SCHUESSLER Erica, your scholarship has been about free Black women in the urban North before the Civil War. What do you think about the history in “Paradise Square”?Joaquina Kalukango, center, plays a bar owner with a key role in “Paradise Square,” a storytelling choice one historian praises as “powerful.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDUNBAR I think “Paradise Square” attempted to tell the story of trauma and resistance, and strength within the context of 19th century history. Was it completely accurate? Probably not, and I’m not sure that any show always gets the history right. But once again, it’s about more than facts and figures. It’s about moving people into the center of narratives who have never been there for the public to see. To center a story about the draft riots around a Black woman is fresh, and powerful.PAULUS I completely agree, Erica. In “1776,” some of the most moving parts of the musical are the scenes with the courier — not a founding father. Franklin, Jefferson and Adams are the famous historical characters. The courier, who delivers the dispatches from the battlefield to the Continental Congress, is literally nameless. But this character, who has the least power in the room, gets one of the most powerful songs — “Momma, Look Sharp.”SCHUESSLER Jesse, you were less than enthusiastic about “Paradise Square.” And Maya, I gather you felt similarly. How well do you think that recentering worked?GREEN As an approach, I’m all for what we’re calling recentering. The problem with “Paradise Square” isn’t the perspective from which it is told, but that in attempting to pile the whole history of a community (even the made-up parts) onto a few fictional figures who represent elements of the conflict, the authors created stick people who couldn’t bear the burden. This leaves you with the false impression, as musicals by nature tend to, that there’s one hero and one villain. Only because Joaquina Kalukango was so phenomenal in the leading role was anything richer conveyed. There’s history, and then there’s craft.PHILLIPS Well-put, Jesse. The question of scope is always a tricky one to navigate in these history shows — how large is our lens? In my review of “Suffs,” I argued that a show can’t be everything to everyone; an attempt to do that will end up sacrificing story and character.SCHUESSLER “Suffs” drew a lot of comparisons with “Hamilton,” but there was something fundamentally different about it, starting with its title. It was about a movement, not an individual — which may be truer to history, but also a lot harder to dramatize. Claire, what did you think of how “Suffs” handled the history?POTTER Much like “Hamilton,” “Suffs” tended to reduce both the successes and the flaws of the campaign for the 19th amendment to the personality of one person, Alice Paul. And while I appreciated the elevation of Paul, Ida B. Wells, and others to the status of male “founders,” the risk is simply refocusing on personalities rather than some of the movement’s broader themes: for example, its racist dynamics, tactical differences and generational divides.I also want to speak to Jesse’s point about the reductionism of “Paradise Square.” He’s right, but then the musical also, in a way, addresses the question of contemporary populism: are poor white people entirely to blame when they lash out at women, people of color and the state? How are anti-democratic dynamics promoted and provoked by others — in the case of “Paradise Square,” a Copperhead politician [as those northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and supported a negotiated peace with the South were called]?SCHUESSLER Suggesting the draft riots (or the Civil War itself!) were driven mainly by the machinations of elite capital is … a strange interpretation. But I think it also connects with the show’s efforts to resonate with today’s politics (and the way people view America’s recent wars). More broadly, do these shows fall into a trap of trying to provide a comfortable, “relatable” place for the audience (especially the white audience)? That was one of the criticisms of “Hamilton” from historians, including some who were huge fans: that by exaggerating (some might say inventing) his credentials as an abolitionist, the show gave us a founding father it was “safe” to like.GREEN The audience can handle the dissonance! It’s white authors’ comfort that seems to be at stake. They come off as terrified of failing to check off every box on the sensitivity list. That’s no way to make a musical.SCHUESSLER When I interviewed the creators of “Suffs,” they talked about how the events of 2020 — the George Floyd protests, and the roiling conversation around the We See You White American Theater letter — prompted a big conversation among the company. They ended up expanding the role of Ida B. Wells, along with other changes. Diane, was there a similar conversation among the “1776” team?PAULUS The process of making theater feels very different to me now. We are centering antiracism as a core value, we make community agreements as a collective across the entire company for how we want to exist together. All of this is a process we are learning from every day.SCHUESSLER Erica, you started working on “The Gilded Age” back in 2019. How has the summer of 2020 affected things?Louisa Jacobson and Denee Benton, right, in the HBO series “The Gilded Age,” which includes a storyline about the Black middle class.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBODUNBAR I’d like to circle back quickly to Jesse’s comment. Jesse mentioned “terrified white authors” or something like that — and how fear has pushed creatives to think more about sensitivity. Well, fear can be a great motivator! And sometimes, it’s for the best. When I began consulting with “The Gilded Age” I was working with an entirely white creative team. A great team, but entirely white and male. There must be diversity in the creative process to produce authentic and powerful entertainment. While there were conversations before the summer of 2020, I believe that moment moved the needle. While I am infuriated that it takes the murder of Black people to move the needle, well, that’s what happened. Because of the changes and additions, we produced a better show.POTTER I’d like to return to the topic of flattering the audience: It is something theater producers must do, to some extent, and it’s something good historians can’t do — and look at the outcomes when we don’t! The massive attack on the 1619 Project is in part a massive refusal of a past that challenges both progressive and patriotic narratives held dear by many white Americans.What even flawed shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square” can do, much like historical fiction, is get people interested enough to do their own research and reading. History is a series of choices. People are self-interested, stubborn, brilliant, irritating — they don’t always make the right ones. And that is an important historical dynamic to understand.GREEN True sensitivity comes from deep knowledge and empathy. It welcomes the audience to accept complexity so that characters aren’t just saints or signposts. I’m thinking especially of Arthur Scott, the hard-to-like father of the Black heroine in “The Gilded Age.” What I find unhelpful is signaling one’s sensitivity so vividly that it’s the only thing the audience can see. In a way it defeats the purpose of recentering the narrative.DUNBAR Ultimately, this is about authentic storytelling (which if it’s a period piece must rely on accurate history). When done correctly, it doesn’t feel two-dimensional and we are able to see the complexity of characters.SCHUESSLER I wonder if this isn’t easier in long-form television, or even in straight plays, than in musicals. Maya, you mentioned the other day that you thought “Wedding Band,” the new (old!) play by Alice Childress that recently ended a run in New York, may be a better depiction of history than some of these capital-H History shows. Can you say more?PHILLIPS Writing in the early 1960s, Childress uses a few fictional relationships to tell the story of race in America at the time. It’s an interracial love story that takes place in 1918 South Carolina, and we find Black people — especially Black women — of different means and situations. It’s not just about the rift between whites and Blacks but also the class divides among Blacks. The play isn’t trying to be a history lesson; history is simply happening in and around the story and the characters. And the play doesn’t need to prove to us that it’s relevant. We can read our present racial politics into it.SCHUESSLER “History is happening around the story”: I love that. We talk about “living through history” when something big happens, but we’re always living through history.Maya’s recommendation of “Wedding Band” leads me to ask all of you to speak to a moment of dramatized history — either a show/movie/whatever — that you really loved?POTTER I am practically the only person I know who is digging Showtime’s “The First Lady.”SCHUESSLER OMG! You are canceled.DUNBAR Ha!POTTER I know! But I think it demonstrates the limits and possibilities of gender at different moments in time, but also the ways that First Ladies stretched the limits of what it meant to be a woman in politics at each moment.DUNBAR I’m going to be very liberal with the term dramatized history — meaning history is something that happened yesterday. Sooo …. I think one of the most incredible shows on television right now is “Atlanta.” While it is a show that takes place today (or for this answer, yesterday) it is fresh, brave, and really creative in the ways that it engages everyday life for Black people.PAULUS I recently rewatched [the 2018 film] “The Favourite,” which I think did a brilliant job of taking Queen Anne’s reign and making that history feel raw and immediate. For more recent “history,” I thought [the Hulu mini-series] “Dopesick” was devastating in its examination of the opioid crisis.GREEN The musical that best reframed history for modern audiences this season was “Six” — the “Tudors Got Talent” competition about the women who were married to Henry VIII. The facts were right enough, the characters were hilariously contemporized and, perhaps most important, the tunes were catchy. A song always cuts deeper than a sermon. More

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      ‘Fat Ham’ Review: Dismantling Shakespeare to Liberate a Gay Black ‘Hamlet’

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      James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set at a Southern barbecue, gets its first in-person production at the Public Theater.I could begin with the ghost. Or the famous existential question.But I’m not reviewing another run-of-the-mill adaptation of “Hamlet”; “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’s outstanding transformation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into a play about Black masculinity and queerness, both echoes “Hamlet” and finds a language beyond it.So I’ll start with a scene that especially evokes this production’s charms: In the middle of a backyard barbecue, a group of family members and friends sitting around a table covered with plates of ribs, corn on the cob and biscuits is suddenly bathed in a blue spotlight. They break out into an impressionistic dance (choreographed by Darrell Grand Moultrie), curling forward and arching backward in slow motion, arms fanning out, then they slump down into their seats and begin headbanging. All the while, our hero, Juicy (Marcel Spears), whom Ijames characterizes in his script as “a kinda Hamlet,” mournfully croons along to Radiohead’s “Creep.”This is Ijames’s tongue-in-cheek style of wit: Of course the melancholy prince would have sung “Creep” had Thom Yorke and his band been around in 17th-century England. Without undermining its drama, “Fat Ham” pokes fun at the theatricality of Hamlet’s anguish.And Saheem Ali, the director of “Fat Ham,” which opened on Thursday at the Public Theater in a co-presentation with the National Black Theater, can sure throw a party. By adding in the lights and movement, the scene takes on an increased flair. But then again, having directed the similarly vivacious “Merry Wives” at the Delacorte Theater and “Nollywood Dreams” at MCC Theater last year, Ali is at his best when given an occasion to celebrate Blackness.Marcel Spears (singing from the porch) mournfully crooning along to Radiohead’s “Creep.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJuicy knows about trauma — after all, he’s a gay Black man in North Carolina. But his more immediate concern is this barbecue, which is a wedding celebration for his mother, Tedra (Nikki Crawford), and his uncle Rev (Billy Eugene Jones), who have married just a week after the murder of Juicy’s father, Pap (also played by Jones). When Pap returns in a spiffy spectral form — crisp porcelain-white suit and shoes — to tell him that Rev orchestrated his murder, Juicy must decide whether he’ll seek revenge. And all this in the midst of a party also attended by his family friends, the judgmental Rabby (Benja Kay Thomas) and her adult kids, Opal (Adrianna Mitchell) and Larry (Calvin Leon Smith).Just a few weeks ago “Fat Ham” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama despite having never had an in-person production. In April 2021 the Wilma Theater released a filmed version of the play that my colleague Jesse Green wrote was “hilarious yet profound.” But perhaps that’s no surprise given it’s from the playwright of such critically acclaimed works as “Kill Move Paradise” and “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington.”So many playwrights and directors try to find the spaces in Shakespeare’s texts that they can squeeze into, strong-arming their personal sensibilities and contemporary politics into some of Shakespeare’s best-known speeches and scenes. Ijames does the opposite in “Fat Ham”; he steals the bones of the original and sloughs off the excess like the fatty bits on a slab of meat. He crafts his own story and then within it makes space for Shakespeare again.That’s to say that there is actual Shakespeare here, with Juicy slipping into Hamlet’s original language now and then. (Spears, who’s no stranger to classic Shakespeare roles, pulls on the old English comfortably, like an old pair of jeans, his line-reading colloquial and unfussed.) In fact, Ijames keenly grants everyone a level of meta-awareness. The effect is stunning, making the play a living text, moving between “Hamlet,” the story happening on the stage and the world beyond the fourth wall.“What you tell them?” more than one character asks Juicy — “them” being the audience. The assumption being that Juicy may mislead us, as if we don’t already know some version of this story and how it ends. “Fat Ham” uses that to its advantage, challenging our expectations of, say, Tedra, who isn’t shy about defending herself against the trope of the weak, unfaithful wife and irresponsible mother. At one point, she says of the audience: “They done already made up they minds about what I’m worth. What I get to feel. What I get to do.”Ijames also opts out of the Hamlet-Ophelia romance, instead making several of the traditionally straight characters gay. And Opal is not the fragile love-stricken girl in so many other “Hamlet” adaptations but strong and tough enough to throw down in a street fight.What would normally be a story about revenge instead becomes one about the toxic masculinity and homophobia that plague the Black community. “You was soft,” Rev says to Juicy with a sneer. “And the men in our family ain’t soft. And I started to think — look at this little pocket of nothing.”Just as “Hamlet” is full of humor, so too is “Fat Ham,” from Juicy’s deadpan sarcasm to Rev’s elaborately singsong sermon of a mealtime prayer. And Chris Herbie Holland as Tio (that’s Horatio), Juicy’s kooky cousin and best friend, shakes up every scene he’s in with raucous comedy.Tensions mount between Jones, left, leading a prayer as Rev, and Spears’s sarcastic Juicy.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Fat Ham” truly sings in the ensemble scenes, and Ali’s direction crackles in the many instances when there are overlapping jokes, remarks and barbs. If the comedy’s not in the script, then it’s in the controlled chaos, because the cast is talented, though they shine best when the action of the 90-minute show picks up. The pacing in the first few scenes could slow so the beauty of the language and characters don’t get lost in a monotonous tread. And the actors’ mostly mic-less performance occasionally suffers from their attempts to both emote and project; the volume erases much of the tonal modulation and dialogue pauses.Dominique Fawn Hill’s costume design adds another layer of character development: Rabby’s loud Barney-purple ensemble, with its flouncy hat, for the church-loving gossip queen; Juicy’s gloomy all-black ensemble of overalls and a mesh shirt; Tio’s “Goosebumps” T-shirt and coral zebra-print button-down with acid-washed embroidered jeans; and one resplendent explosion of colorful fabrics and accessories that will catch audiences off-guard, in the best way, at the end of the show.Maruti Evans’s smart scenic design — a maroon-red back porch on a thrust stage covered with AstroTurf, in front of a backdrop of the house — is just as vivid as the costumes and the playful lighting (by Stacey Derosier).For all that Ijames dismantles in Shakespeare’s original text, he builds it back up into something that’s more — more tragic but also more joyous, more comedic, more political, more contemporary. It dons the attributes of Shakespeare that make it classic. “To be or not to be” becomes a different kind of existential query. It’s not a question of life or death, but of who we can decide to be in a world that tries to define that for us: Can you be soft? Can you be queer? Can you be brave? Can you be honest?Fat HamThrough July 3 at the Public Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      18 Arts Organizations of Color Selected for National Initiative

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      The Wallace Foundation will fund up to $3.75 million in support for each organization, spread across the country, over the next five years.In the 1970s, a series of fires — set as arson for profit — rocked the Bronx. This story, acted out against a soundtrack of salsa and hip-hop, is currently being told by Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater at Pregones Theater in the Bronx.These are the types of stories and organizations that the Wallace Foundation, which aims to foster equity and improvements in the arts, will support in its new initiative. Eighteen arts organizations of color across the country, including Pregones/PRTT, will each receive up to $3.75 million over the next five years.“One of the things that distinguishes this opportunity is the acknowledgment that organizations of color have a certain history of undercapitalization,” said Arnaldo López, the managing director of Pregones/PRTT. “And that means that, for many years — compared to primarily white-serving organizations in the arts and culture — we worked with a fraction of the money.”The 18 grantees were selected from over 250 applicants and include 1Hood Media in Pittsburgh, Chicago Sinfonietta, the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project in San Francisco, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Mich., and the Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Neb.This marks the first phase — aimed at organizations with budgets between $500,000 and $5 million — of a broader national arts initiative by the Wallace Foundation. A future phase will focus on a second, larger group of grantees with budgets below $500,000. In total, the foundation has committed to providing funding of up to $100 million.This iteration, though, was designed around a specific guiding question: How can arts organizations of color use their experience working closely with their communities to stay resilient and relevant?“It’s about: What are the aspirations for their future?” said Bahia Ramos, the director of arts at the Wallace Foundation. “And how might these resources — time and space to breathe and learn together — give them the wherewithal to meet those aspirations?”The first year of the initiative will focus on planning before the next four years of project implementation. Over the next year, grantees will map out their funding in partnership with advisers and consultants, including researchers, ethnographers and financial management planners.One recipient, the Laundromat Project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, hopes to dig deeper into its work: Helping artists and neighbors become agents of change in their own communities. The Laundromat Project was founded 17 years ago by a Black woman, Risë Wilson, at her kitchen table in Bed-Stuy, said the project’s executive director, Kemi Ilesanmi.“We have residencies with artists, we do community engagement, we have a professional development fellowship,” Ilesanmi said. “And all of this is allowing us to figure out how to do that citywide — and do it in the context of Bed-Stuy.”Grantees will also work with a research team from Arizona State University and the University of Virginia to refine their research questions and approaches. Researchers from the Social Science Research Council will develop “deep-dive” ethnographies of each organization to document their histories and practices.“All of us have a great deal to learn from organizations founded by and with communities of color,” Ramos said, “who have deep legacies of working with and on behalf of their communities.” More

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      A Starry ‘Into the Woods’ Will Play Broadway This Summer

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      The fairy-tale musical, with songs by Stephen Sondheim, will feature Sara Bareilles and a cast of much admired theater performers.A production of “Into the Woods” that garnered ecstatic reviews during a sold-out two-week run at New York City Center this month will transfer to Broadway this summer.The Broadway production, scheduled to run for just eight weeks, will again feature the singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife and Gavin Creel as a prince, but the other lead roles will be played by newcomers to the production — including Patina Miller, a Tony winner for “Pippin,” as the Witch; Brian d’Arcy James (“Something Rotten!”) as the Baker; Phillipa Soo (“Hamilton”) as Cinderella; and Joshua Henry (“Carousel”) as the other prince.“When things don’t make sense anymore, this is the show that holds our hand,” Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters and the production’s lead producer, said. “That’s why it resonated so profoundly deeply, and why we need to allow more people to have that experience.”“Into the Woods,” which first opened on Broadway in 1987, is one of the great collaborations between the songwriter Stephen Sondheim, who died last fall, and the book writer James Lapine. The show, a cautionary mash-up of various fairy tales, is widely staged, both professionally and at schools, and in 2014 Disney released a film adaptation.This new production, which began as part of the Encores! program at City Center, will start performances June 28 and open July 10 at the St. James Theater. It is again directed by Lear deBessonet, the Encores! artistic director. Writing in The New York Times, the critic Alexis Soloski declared the City Center production “glorious,” and many other critics agreed.The Encores! cast featured several performers who are not joining the Broadway production because of filming commitments, including Heather Headley, who played the Witch; Denée Benton, who played Cinderella; and Neil Patrick Harris, who played the Baker.The Broadway run will be produced by Jujamcyn, Roth, and City Center, as well as Hunter Arnold, Nicole Eisenberg, Michael Cassel Group, Jessica R. Jenen, Daryl Roth, ShowTown Productions, and Armstrong, Gold & Ross.Jordan Roth said that the physical production would be the same as at City Center, with an onstage orchestra and minimal sets and costumes. “The simplicity and poetry of this production delivered this story right to our hearts,” he said.A New York City Center production of “Sunday in the Park With George,” also written by Sondheim and Lapine, followed a similar path to Broadway. That production, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, had a four-performance run at City Center in 2016, followed by a 10-week run on Broadway in 2017. More

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      A Theatrical Neophyte With the Know-How of a Pro

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      Jodie Comer, from the TV series “Killing Eve,” makes a thrilling stage debut in “Prima Facie” on London’s West End.LONDON — If you’re going to venture onstage for the first time, a nearly two-hour, emotionally fraught solo play without a break might not seem the best place to start. But the TV actress Jodie Comer, better known as the assassin Villanelle in the Emmy-winning series “Killing Eve,” has taken to the West End in just such a play, “Prima Facie” by Suzie Miller, with gleaming-eyed assurance.First seen in 2019 in the writer’s native Australia, “Prima Facie” is at the Harold Pinter Theater through June 18 — though it will presumably have more life as long as its star chooses to stick with it. “House Full” signs have marked out Comer as the box-office equal of such theatrical heavy hitters as Mark Rylance in “Jerusalem,” the Jez Butterworth masterwork playing just streets away.Comer is cool and commanding as a defense lawyer named Tessa who discovers, at considerable personal cost, the limitations of the law. Assaulted on a night out by a colleague whom she brings to trial, Tessa soon finds herself confronting a legal system whose strictures even a mind as shrewd and sharp as hers cannot overcome. The second half devolves into an angry broadside, but you can only commend the impulses behind a play that wants to educate as well as entertain: Audience members are handed leaflets on the way out to raise awareness about sexual consent.Justin Martin’s busy staging finds Comer leaping onto the furniture and engulfed by a brief onstage rainstorm, to keep a potentially static monologue interesting to the eye: A chair at one point becomes a toilet bowl into which Tessa is sick, and a crucial costume change is done in full view of the audience.Comer plays to all levels of the theater, often sweeping her gaze upward as if to enlist us as her jury. And though she speaks the text at breakneck speed, there’s no denying the visceral power of an evening that owes its sellout status to a theatrical neophyte who possesses the know-how of a seasoned pro.Nicola Walker in Emlyn Williams’s “The Corn Is Green,” directed by Dominic Cooke at the National Theater.Johan PerssonThe director Dominic Cooke’s revival of “The Corn Is Green,” by contrast, is a large-scale production featuring a male ensemble of lusty-voiced Welsh coal miners. But the star attraction is Nicola Walker, a 2013 Olivier Award winner whose gathering TV acclaim since is surely attracting audiences to the National’s Lyttelton auditorium, through June 11: She headlines the legal drama “The Split,” which started its third and final season on the BBC last month.Walker plays the crusading teacher Miss Moffat in “The Corn Is Green,” a 1938 play by Emlyn Williams that draws from that Welshman’s singular path toward literary self-confidence and success. A brisk, no-nonsense Englishwoman, Miss Moffat has arrived in a rural Welsh mining village at the start of the 20th century to bring literacy to a community of colliers distinguished, she’s quick to point out, by their smell. (Their daily routine is hot and sweaty.) One of these begrimed youngsters, Morgan (the charismatic Iwan Davies), displays an aptitude for the life of the mind and not just the mines, and Miss Moffat leads him toward a scholarship to Oxford that the feisty lad at times resists. Morgan is disinclined, at least at first, to be the “little pit pony” that his keen teacher would have him be, though he soon realizes that education makes an entirely new life possible.The play’s journey is preordained, and some of the bumps on the way are because of Williams, who pushes Miss Moffat in a direction — not to be revealed here — that doesn’t entirely jibe with her character. But Cooke enlivens a time-honored tale by involving Williams directly as his play’s narrator (played by Gareth David-Lloyd), setting the scene and monitoring events throughout. And a vigorous Walker invests the peppery spinster at its inspirational center with a fiercely beating heart. Morgan is better for having met her, as are we.Change hovers less happily over “Middle,” the beautifully acted new play from David Eldridge running in the National’s smallest auditorium, the Dorfman, through June 18. A two-hander about a couple in crisis, the play returns to the stage another fine actress, Claire Rushbrook, who is better known for work on film and TV. (Her credits include “Doctor Who” and “Whitechapel,” two well-known British series, and the wonderful Mike Leigh film “Secrets and Lies.”)Daniel Ryan and Claire Rushbrook in David Eldridge’s “Middle,” directed by Polly Findlay at the National Theater.Johan PerssonRushbrook’s Maggie has been married for 16 years to Gary (Daniel Ryan), and the two have an 8-year-old daughter who is in bed upstairs when a sleepless Maggie enters the kitchen before dawn to inform her husband that she’s not sure she still loves him. What ensues is a reckoning across 100 minutes (no intermission) in which the pair, both nearing 50, figure out where they are heading next.Gary’s response, at least at first, is to keep things light, but that doesn’t last. By the end, tears have been shed and crockery smashed on the way to a movingly ambivalent finish. Life doesn’t always allow for tidy closure and nor does “Middle,” which suggests that muddling through is sometimes the only option. Will Maggie leave Gary for John, a policeman with whom she has gone on a date to Tate Modern? She may not know herself, and Rushbrook communicates an uncertainty that is immediately raw. Her eventual breakdown scene feels lived from within.Ryan does well, too, countering his wife’s truth-telling by saying he finds “complete honesty” overrated: He’d rather make jokes than discuss dissatisfactions that are no less real than his wife’s. (Among other things, he wanted a second child, and she did not.) Where Maggie speaks what’s on her mind openly, Gary hides his feelings behind a smoke screen of banter.Polly Findlay’s production keeps us guessing, and the emotional swerves are skillfully navigated throughout. As with Comer and Walker in their plays, “Middle” offers an actress at the top of her game forsaking the screen for the in-the-moment excitement only found onstage.Prima Facie. Directed by Justin Martin. Harold Pinter Theater, through June 18; NTLive broadcast on July 21.The Corn Is Green. Directed by Dominic Cooke. National Theater, through June 11.Middle. Directed by Polly Findlay. National Theater, through June 18. More

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      Interview: Dictating To The Estate

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      Nathaniel McBride on his new play looking at events prior to the Grenfell Tower Fire

      Dictating To The Estate is Nathaniel McBride‘s play that looks at the housing estate where the Grenfell Tower sits. But it isn’t directly about the fire, but rather the years preceeding it, when the estate underwent major redevleopment. It explores how local resident concerns were ignored and how so many factors came together that would ultimately lead the the tragic fire.

      The play felt important and one we wanted to give plenty of attention to. So as well as this written interview you can also listen to Nathaniel tell us more about it on our Runn Radio podcast here.

      You can also support the production by donating to theie crowdfunding here, this will help finance all production costs and assist the play in reaching a wider audience.

      The play looks at Grenfell pre-fire – what made you want to tackle it from that angle?

      The play is about how the fire came to happen, and that means looking at the events that preceded it. It is often said that the Grenfell Tower fire was avoidable. This is true, but understanding how it came to happen means examining the many acts that could have been taken to avoid it, but weren’t. The play is partly about these: not only acts of omission, but also positive refusals to act, which were taken by wide variety individuals, from government ministers to council officers to building contractors, over an extended period of time.

      And what can you tell us about the sources you used to research your writing?

      The main initial source was the Grenfell Action Group blog, which was kept by Edward Daffarn and Francis O’Connor, two residents living on the estate where Grenfell Tower stood. I was also able to get hold of some minutes of council meetings, as well as its regeneration plans for North Kensington. But the original problem was a general shortage of information.

      This changed when Phase 2 of the public Inquiry came to cover the events dealt with in the play. Suddenly I went from having a relative lack of material to being overwhelmed by it. Among these new documents, the most revealing were the private communications among councillors, council officials and TMO officers, which showed the real attitude they held towards the residents they were supposedly appointed to serve.

      A lot of information came from blogs published prior to the fire, have you tried to use as much of the text verbatim where possible to keep the original words?

      My method is not to add or change any words, but I do edit, often quite rigorously. From a blog post that is several hundred words long I might, for example, use just a couple of dozen words. The issue then becomes one of ensuring the edited text retains something of the essence or intent of the one on which it is based. Whether I have done this successfully will be for others to judge.

      Have you had much involvement with local residents and those affected by the fire itself during the writing and rehearsals for the play?

      We have worked in contact with the residents we represent in the play. We asked their permission to use the evidence they presented to the Inquiry, sent them copies of the script when it was finished, and several have now met the actors who will be playing them. More generally, we have tried to keep all the bereaved and survivors involved in what we’re doing through Grenfell United, the organisation that represents most of them. We held an online reading for them last year, and this year we are holding a special performance for them at the beginning of the theatre run. We are also currently fundraising for a mental health worker to offer support to any audience members who may be affected by the content of the play.

      You’ve clearly tried to highlight that it was not one single thing that caused this tragedy – but do you point a finger of blame at individuals or have you tried to show it was not one event or one person but a series of them?

      What has most clearly come out of the Inquiry is that the failures which made the fire possible were systemic, and extended over a wide range of different institutions. It wasn’t just one thing that failed, but a whole series of things. In saying this, I don’t mean to exonerate the individuals involved,  but my own view is that it was the dysfunctional regulatory and supervisory systems, weakened over many years, that probably had  the greater influence on the outcome of events than any particular individuals. That is not to say that the arrogant and disdain attitude of the authorities towards the residents did not play a part. Nor is it to deny that, if we ask who or what made these systems so dysfunctional, we often find ourselves coming back again to certain powerful individuals. David Cameron boasting that his government would ‘kill off the health and safety culture for good’ is a case in point.

      How vital has the information that has come out during the ongoing public inquiry been?

      This has been key, and has enabled me to substantially rewrite and – I hope – improve the play. Perhaps the most important material to come out has been the revelations about what was going on behind the scenes at the council and the TMO, and in particular how senior officers and councillors were actively pursuing ways to silence residents and dismiss their concerns. At the same time, the Inquiry has been a vindication of the criticisms and concerns brought by the residents.  

      What is it you hope people who watch the play will leave thinking about?

      I am hoping the play might have particular relevance to people living in social housing, and especially those who find themselves in conflict with their landlord. I don’t know if it will be much practical use, but I would like to think that it will give them a sense that they are not alone, and that the problems they face are common. While the residents of Grenfell Tower were victims, they were not passive victims: they repeatedly warned the council about fire safety issues, and when they saw the refurbishment of their homes was not being properly carried out, they organised and fought to hold it to account.  It is important that people know this.

      And by staging it at Maxilla Social Club are you hoping that local residents will want to come and see it? Have you already had much feedback from them at all?

      This is what we are hoping. Maxilla is a North Kensington institution, and has been an important meeting place in the campaign for justice for the victims of the fire. The venue has also let us set our own ticket prices, meaning we can keep them affordable. Our hope is that some people who would not normally go to see a play at a conventional theatre will come to Maxilla.

      As for feedback, we did a stall last week on Portobello Road where we distributed flyers for the play, and I have to say the response was very positive.

      Our thanks to Nathaniel for his time to chat with us.

      Dictating To The Estate plays 31 May to 12 June at Maxilla Social Club. Further information and tickets can be found here. More