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      Interview: Beware, the Zombies are here

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      Paper Mug Theatre’s Seb Gardner on Steve and Tobias Verses Death

      We first come across Seb Gardner and Paper Mug Theatre last summer with I Lost My Virginity To Chopin’s Nocturne In B-Flat Minor. Since then they have clearly been busy, as they already have two new shows ready for the stage. The first of which is Steve and Tobias Versus Death.

      Originally planned for the now cancelled Vault Festival, this zombie apocalypse horror is now heading to The Pleasance in March. And of course, with ET being big fans of horror (well, some of us are, others are just scaredy cats), it seemed a great time to chat with Seb about the show, and ask, will there be plenty of fake blood flying around? We also discuss I Lost My Viriginity and what they have planned for the rest of 2022.

      Steve and Tobias Versus Death plays at The Pleasance between 15 and 19 March. You can book tickets here. More

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      Interview: In the End Zone with Pravin Wilkins

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      Playwright Pravin Wilkins on his play Moreno

      Theatre503’s International Playwright Award really is an incredible thing; how this tiny pub theatre manages to attract entries to its bi-annual award from all around the world really demonstrates just what a reputation it has.

      And of course, it’s always great to see many of the shortlisted plays finding their way onto the stage in the coming year or two. Which brings us nicely to Moreno, 2020’s winning entry, which will be making its stage premiere in March.

      This debut play by Pravin Wilkins brings the world of American football to 503’s stage, although it isn’t so much about the sport (the stage just isn’t big enough for a game of American football after all), but about the fallout caused by the actions of one player: Colin Kaepernick is the man who first took the knee and started a movement, but at great personal cost.

      With such a heated topic at its core, we jumped at the opportunity to chat with Pravin, to find out more about the play and what brought him all the way to this little pub theatre in Battersea.

      How did you even hear about Theatre503’s International Playwright Award in the first place? And is it something you will be telling everyone to get involved in for its next edition?
      I came across Theatre503’s International Playwriting Award on Playwrights’ Center, a resource that many playwrights use to keep up on submission opportunities. Of the numerous open submissions I have sent my work to, Theatre503 far and away offers the most complete package, from the perspective of a playwright. It’s already something I’m telling my playwright friends to send in work for, especially as submissions for the 2023 award have recently opened.

      Has winning the award helped with your work back at home in Pittsburgh?

      To put it simply and honestly, not yet. I expect the boost to my playwriting career will really start when the play does go up at Theatre503 and people have a chance to see my work fully realised on the 503 stage. Since I won the award in 2020, some exciting opportunities have arisen – yet, with COVID-19 pushing theatre into relative dormancy in the US until quite recently, I’ve mostly been on my grind as an educator and organiser, preparing for this moment.

      Moreno is your debut play: is 503 getting the world premiere? And will you be here to see it happen?

      I’m thrilled to say that Theatre503’s production will be the world premiere and I will be travelling to London for some rehearsals as well as previews and performances.

      The play is set in the world of American football: were you ever worried that doing this would alienate audiences from outside of the US?

      Not at all. I recall when I was younger, the film Invictus, which centered around rugby, was quite popular in America, although the sport is not widely viewed there. I feel this is because that film, much like Moreno, is not solely about the sport, but about the people who play the game and the politics they must deal with as national (and sometimes international) figures. The personal drama between the characters in Moreno is universal, and the broader conversation about racism in sports and societal structures at large extends far beyond the borders of America, as these issues affect every nation in the world.

      Oscar Russell is credited as “football coach” for the play, which seems an intriguing addition; does that mean we might get to see a quarterback getting sacked on stage (have you seen how small 503’s stage actually is!)?

      I won’t speak to exactly what you will see (although, as a former defensive player, who doesn’t love to see a quarterback getting punished??), but some elements of the game will be represented onstage and Oscar’s professional support was instrumental. He helped our actors immensely with the task of embodying each character’s particular role and position. Additionally, Nancy Medina (Director) and Ingrid Mackinnon (Movement Director) have done a masterful job in making these moments work on the small stage at the 503.

      Colin Kaepernick’s career seems to have been seriously curtailed by his taking the knee: is this something you wanted to address in your play – that politics and sport are not always easy bedfellows?

      Yes, Colin Kaepernick’s career was cut short because of backlash from NFL owners and management along with many fans, media personalities, and indeed the former President himself. But politics, especially the politics of race and class, cannot be separated from sports, or, frankly, any part of society. These issues are universal: Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality did not bring politics to sports, it brought up the fact that it’s already there. Being the messenger of necessary but unwelcome truths is indeed a tall task, and a dramatically charged situation that Moreno explores.

      From our viewpoint on this side of the world, it felt like American football showed a very racist core with its spectators. Would that be a fair assertion, or was it just a microcosm of what was happening across the country?

      I don’t like to paint with a broad brush, but I will say that the hate and vitriol coming from NFL fans certainly drowned out the support and love for Kaepernick amidst his protest. If you were to go to an NFL or a Sportcenter comments section on a social media article about Kaep from around that time and just check out the hateful things people were saying… it was despicable. People were demanding he never be allowed to play again, some even posted videos of themselves burning his jersey. Yet, with the election of Trump, a famously vile torch-carrier of racism, I think we saw clearly illustrated that there is indeed a deep and enduring white supremacist element all across the country. So yes, the response of NFL fans to Kaepernick’s protest reflects a broader attitude across America.

      Taking the knee became very political both in America and the UK, with various politicians coming out for and against it, most famously Trump himself. Is it still talked about much in America, and is it still causing such division?

      The symbol of taking the knee not only continues to be widely discussed, but it has come up again in a tangible way with Eminem’s kneel during the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show receiving both praise and criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Moreover, athletes across the world – from soccer players on the US Women’s National Team, to Olympic fencers, to European footballers – have taken a knee during performances of songs celebrating national pride at major global sporting events: this has become a universally understood symbol of protest against injustice, particularly racial injustice. The Monday after the Super Bowl this year, MSNBC commentator Joy Reid wore a Kaepernick jersey as she and a co-host spoke about the halftime show and the ongoing lawsuit by former NFL coach Brian Flores alleging hiring discrimination. So yes, both the symbolic statement of taking the knee and the substance behind it remain highly relevant and continue to reveal divisions in American society.

      Do you feel that the racism around the booing is the same in America as in the UK? Do you feel it has made a difference at all, and is it something that will ever change?

      I don’t know enough about sports in the UK to comment on whether the reaction of fans to players’ races or their stances on racial issues are the same as they are in the US, but I believe it is fair to say racially-charged jeers come from the same root, regardless of the accent in which they are shouted. And while you can’t really get a booing crowd to stop booing, you can influence who makes up that crowd and how they view the players who make their entertainment possible. This change will occur if the NFL and other large sports organisations focus more on diversity in hiring at the uppermost levels, along with more outreach to fans from Black and brown communities. Because of people like Brian Flores, a former NFL head coach who is fighting right now to hold the league to account for likely subverting rules designed to bring more people of colour on as coaches, there is the possibility that things will improve. But with Colin Kaepernick’s NFL career effectively snuffed out by almost-certain collusion among NFL owners (who paid an untold sum to Kaepernick to keep the details of the court case under wraps), it is clear that progress will be slow and often hindered by reactionary forces.

      What’s next for you? Is sport something you would like to centre future plays around, or will you be stepping into new fields for your next work?

      I love sports, but for me it moreso is social movements that are at the centre of my work. The setting of American football is simply one arena in which these conflicts play out. Most recently, I have been interested in labour movements and the history of American unions. I am working on two projects in this vein: first, a play centring on a group of fictional university campus workers in San Diego, California who must consider bucking their union representation when it appears their leaders are colluding with administrators; second, a TV drama set in late 1800s Chicago, covering the events that culminated in the Haymarket Riots and the unjust execution of four anarchist labour organisers. The aim of the former is to spotlight and investigate the burgeoning modern revival of unions; the latter, to pay homage to the workers and organisers of generations past, whose struggles are inextricably linked with ours. Someday, however, I am sure I will return to sports – maybe I’ll write something about basketball.

      Our thanks to Pravin for his time to chat to us. Moreno opens at Theatre503 on 1 March, and then plays until 26 March. Further information and booking via the below link. More

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      Looking Straight at the Struggles of Old Age

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      In two Paris theater productions, there’s no sugarcoating the physical decline that comes at the end of a long life.PARIS — There is something piercing, almost brutal, about watching someone struggle to walk, eat or even sit down. When faced with the physical decline that often comes with old age, many of us instinctively avert our eyes. In Paris, however, two theater artists are forcing audiences to look.In “A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad,” a new play by the writer and director Carole Thibaut, the members of an extended family gather around their ailing matriarch — who may or may not have passed away. And mortality looms even larger in “A Death in the Family,” a new play by the British playwright Alexander Zeldin, which is primarily set in a French nursing home.If there is such a thing as an overly naturalistic play, “A Death in the Family,” which had its premiere at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, may represent it for some people. In truth, nothing much happens for long stretches. Zeldin convincingly portrays daily life, down to the bland furniture and wall colors, in an institution for residents at the end of their lives: The most dramatic event of all awaits, but in the meantime, the days must be filled.There are slow, silent meals, and group activities to make viewers in good health wince — especially those closest to the actors, in seats onstage. Is it compassion we feel as we watch the residents working hard to follow basic dance movements to a children’s song? Or panic, at the thought of a potential future we would rather ignore?Zeldin has experience when it comes to discomfort. The “Inequalities” trilogy he created between 2014 and 2019 (composed of “Beyond Caring,” “Love” and “Faith, Hope and Charity”) turned the spotlight on casualties of government austerity policies in Britain, including workers with insecure contracts and homeless families. His work found eager audiences abroad, and an invitation from the Odéon led him to stage his first production in French — a language he speaks fluently.Marie-Christine Barrault in the foreground with, from left, Mona, Ferdinand Redouloux and Catherine Vinatier in “A Death in the Family,” written and directed by Alexander Zeldin at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe.Simon GosselinThe realities of old age have been in the spotlight lately in France. This month, the government began an investigation into one of the country’s largest nursing home providers after a journalist published a book accusing the company of mistreating residents.For the theater world, the upheaval caused by the pandemic has provided unlikely opportunities to reconnect with older audiences. In summer 2020, the first professional performance after France’s stringent initial lockdown was held at a nursing home in Chalon-sur-Saône, in the east, and a number of performers have brought readings and small-scale performances to hospitals.With “A Death in the Family,” Zeldin has done the reverse, bringing older people to perform in one of Paris’s most prestigious playhouses. He and his team did extensive research in local nursing homes, and out of 13 roles in the play, a handful are taken by older amateur performers. (Eight actors alternate in these parts.) This is no walk in the park in a pandemic: The premiere had to be postponed three times because of coronavirus safety measures.Other than the fact that the amateurs have fewer lines than their experienced colleagues, it is nearly impossible to tell the two groups apart, with strong performances across the board. On the night I attended, Francine Champion — making her stage debut at the age of 93 — caught the eye as one of the nursing home residents. So did the veteran actor Annie Mercier, while Nicole Dogué and Karidja Touré brought touching empathy to their roles as nursing assistants.One resident serves as the main character: Marguerite Brun, who is introduced at her overwhelmed daughter’s home. Zeldin’s typically sharp and economical dialogue fails him in some scenes involving Marguerite’s family, with lines that don’t land quite as naturally in French as they do in his English-language productions. Still, casting Marie-Christine Barrault, an Oscar nominee in 1977 for the film “Cousin Cousine,” as the initially prickly Marguerite was an inspired move. Her radical vulnerability as the character declines, especially in the nearly silent scene in which Dogué gives her a bed bath with a kind, unspoken sense of intimacy, is likely to linger in many people’s minds.“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” attempts to portray many generations at once.Jean-Pierre Estournet“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” lacks the laser directorial focus of “A Death in the Family,” but it is far less bleak. The imminent death of the main character, Galia, is treated as an opportunity for her family to rally and find meaning in their shared history, however painful.As Galia, Monique Brun is the glue that holds the cast — and the performance — together. She spends much of the show in a red armchair center stage. Her deep, exuberant voice projects no self-pity, even when she may be speaking from beyond the grave, since the timeline is blurred. Yet she is deeply affecting, too, when she gets out of the chair at night and walks slowly and stiffly, reminiscing quietly with one of the loves of her life.“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” is a little chaotic when it comes to the rest of the characters, perhaps because it attempts to portray so many generations at once — and to tie them to real historical events, like the rise and decline of the local coal industry. The production has been in Paris at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, but it was inspired by the history of the city of Montluçon, in central France, where Thibaut has been the director of the Théâtre des Îlets since 2016.Years of research went into this ambitious project, and plenty of details ring thoughtfully true, like the death of Galia’s fictional parents during World War II. During one interlude about the city’s economy, tiny bottles of local wine are even handed out to the audience. But the dialogue doesn’t quite flow, with tonal changes, heavy-handed voice-over commentary and tangential stories about, for instance, one granddaughter’s anger at the casual misogyny of the older men in the family.It’s all believable, and Thibaut has been a major voice for feminism in the French theater for years. Yet “A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” has more emotional heft when it focuses on the rite of passage underway for Galia and her family. Like Zeldin, Thibaut doesn’t shy away from portraying death, and however hard it is to look, there may be closure in following them down that path.A Death in the Family. Directed by Alexander Zeldin. Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, through Feb. 20.A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad. Directed by Carole Thibaut. Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, through Feb. 26. More

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      5 Monologues, Each a Showcase for Asian American Actors Over 60

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      “Out of Time” at the Public Theater is intended to showcase the talents of older actors. “People want to dismiss your stories,” the show’s director says. Not here.They might be asked to play a person lying in bed, dying of a stroke, or someone’s horrible mother, or a beloved grandparent struggling with dementia.“Commercially speaking, ‘old Asian lady’ is a huge amount of my opportunity,” the actor Natsuko Ohama said recently. “I like being ‘old Asian lady.’ But it has its limitations.”The director Les Waters became even more acutely interested in those kinds of limitations as he was watching a dance performance choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at the Skirball Center in 2020. The dancers in it, he recalled, were “older than usual.” He was struck by what he saw.Waters, who most recently directed Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.” on Broadway, and Mia Katigbak, the co-founder of the National Asian American Theater Company, had met a few years back at a festival and had agreed to work together at some point. Three years later, they were together at dinner, and Waters could not help but share what he called “an insane directorial megalomaniac’s vision.”What if there was a show that started at night, ran until the morning, and featured a succession of talented older actors telling stories — demonstrating just how much they were capable of?“Out of Time,” which began performances Feb. 15 at the Public Theater, is not quite as ambitious as that original vision. But it is intended to showcase the talents of older actors all the same. It will feature five performers delivering five new monologues — centered on themes like memory, parenthood, and identity — in a show that will run roughly 150 minutes. All the playwrights and all the actors are Asian American. And all the performers are over 60.Ohama is performing a 40-minute monologue by the playwright Sam Chanse.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesKubota will perform Naomi Iizuka’s monologue, about a man much like the playwright’s father.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesIt is a first, officials at the Public maintain, even if the first is a tad specific: The first production in New York theater to be written by five Asian American playwrights for Asian American actors over the age of 60.“This is to say: ‘Older people in the theater exist,’” Waters, 69, said of the production’s purpose. “We’re here, we’re underused and we have experience.”“As an old person myself, I find people want to dismiss your stories — I did it to my parents all the time,” he added.“Hyper-consciousness” in casting these days means you’ll often see one old person featured in an ensemble, making for “its own kind of tokenism,” said Katigbak, who is 67.“This project addresses that,” she added, “because it centers the old character, the old actor.”The message will be purposefully reinforced by the fact that the actors will be giving long, demanding monologues, some of which run more than 40 minutes and approach 5,000 words.In her monologue, Anna Ouyang Moench, who wrote the 2019 Off Broadway play, “Mothers,” captures a grieving documentary filmmaker dealing with both personal loss and professional rejection.Naomi Iizuka’s piece features an elderly Japanese man who loves Scotch and hates jazz, while Sam Chanse introduces audiences to a novelist who is giving a speech at her alma mater despite (or in spite of) having apparently been canceled by the students she is addressing.“We’ve always had limitations — at every age — just being Asian American,” Leong said.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe playwrights also include Jaclyn Backhaus, whose breakout work “Men on Boats” was a 2015 Off Broadway hit; and Mia Chung, whose “Catch as Catch Can” will return next season, after a 2018 New York premiere.Waters and Katigbak said the playwrights were not given specific prompts, except that their monologues should be “of the moment.” Given that they were created during the pandemic, isolation — and an examination of how loneliness metastasizes and manifests when family and friends all but abandon you — pervades almost all of the works.In a round-table discussion earlier this month, the actors said that living through the last few years has made them intimately familiar with the feeling.“My mother, who turned 97 in August, sits at home and watches TV all day because all her friends are gone,” said Glenn Kubota, who will appear in Iizuka’s monologue. “To see what she has to do on a daily basis just to amuse herself is really eye opening. I’m getting a glimpse of what maybe I will be facing 10, 20, years from now.”Many of the works are also at least somewhat autobiographical. And a few of the playwrights, who are all younger than 60, have created characters that resemble one of their parents. In some cases, in the process of acting, editing and rehearsing, the characters have evolved as their creators have reflected more deeply on themselves and those close to them.The monologue by Iizuka, whose well-regarded “36 Views” opened at the Public almost two decades ago, features a Japanese man who, in peeling back the layers of his life, recounts the time a bomb fell on his house leading him to wander around Tokyo and end up inside a candy shop.Iizuka said the character is strongly influenced by her father, who died in December 2020. “It’s about trying to find joy and pleasure, but also running up against your own mortality,” she said.She shared photos of him with the show’s creative team, who in turn provided them to Kubota. Iizuka said the actor has an “uncanny ability” to capture her father’s “feisty, tart-tongued humor.”“I’ve found this process incredibly nourishing,” she said.Kubota noted that the script had changed considerably — from a first draft he felt was filled with anger to the one he is now performing that mostly expresses love.“Hopefully I can do her work justice,” Kubota said, “because I’m going to be talking about her father in front of all of these people.”As co-founder of the National Asian American Theater Company, Katigbak helped get the project off the ground.Nina Westervelt for The New York Times“Every time I work on something new,” said Wolf, “I do think about generations of minority performers who, for whatever reason, were marginalized.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesSince the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic roughly two years ago, the number of documented episodes of race-based hate toward people of Asian descent have soared, leaving Asian Americans in New York and beyond to endure what has at times been daily dread about their own safety and also the well-being of their older parents.The monologues mostly avoid racial animus and lean toward more universal themes. Even still, Katigbak emphasized that in “Out of Time,” audiences will hear the universal stories through Asian American voices — a rarity in the theater, even in 2022.“We’ve always had limitations — at every age — just being Asian American,” Page Leong, who last performed at the Public in “Too Noble Brothers” in 1997, said of the roles that come to members of her community. “It’s also connected to being relegated to being the surgeon or the lawyer.”Rita Wolf, who has had roles in Richard Nelson’s recent plays, including “The Michaels,” said, “So much of it is about opportunity.” She added: “Every time I work on something new, I do think about generations of minority performers who, for whatever reason, were marginalized. And I think about how they did not have opportunities to do something like this.”Ohama is performing Chanse’s work, “Disturbance Specialist,” which recently clocked in at 40 minutes and 21 seconds and 4,998 words. She joked about doing such a piece at her “advanced age,” since it takes hours and hours of memorization.“When you are our ages, life is there inside of you, so we don’t have to worry about the acting so much,” Ohama said. “But what is concerning to the older actor generally is: Do I know my lines?”“We have dedicated ourselves to this art form,” she added, “and the thing about us older people is we don’t get a chance to show that very often.” More

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      ‘Wolf Play’ Review: What Keeps a Family From Falling to Pieces?

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      Hansol Jung’s new play looks at the broken adoption of a little boy who is plucked from South Korea and moved to one American home, then shunted to another.Sand-colored with beady black eyes and a throaty howl, the character at the center of “Wolf Play” is and is not what he seems. Wolf, who serves as the narrator, is a simple but expressive puppet made of wood, cardboard and papier-mâché in this probing and playful exploration of family by Hansol Jung.Loose-limbed and rising just a few feet off the floor of the tiny stage at Soho Rep, Wolf represents a 6-year-old boy who undergoes one wrenching separation after another. The American couple who adopt him from South Korea decide they can’t handle him and the demands of their newborn too, so they find another family for the boy by advertising on a Yahoo message board.An abandonment so awful and absurd calls for fierce survival instincts. Perhaps that goes to explain why the boy isn’t a boy at all, but a wolf who longs for a pack, as Mitchell Winter, the adult actor maneuvering the puppet, insists.Wolves get a bad rap, Winter tells the audience, which is seated on either side of the stage. The lone ones may snatch red hoods, but they don’t make mischief for its own sake. It’s a natural response for familial creatures left to fend for themselves, crouched defensively much of the time. “But stories need conflict,” he says, “and, boy, do wolves know how to fight.”“Wolf Play,” which opened on Monday, proposes that “the truth is a wobbly thing.” In Jung’s freely associative landscape, that means allowing a puppet to be a boy, a boy to be a wolf and a wolf to be an actor in a knit cap with pointy ears (costumes are by Enver Chakartash).The play directed by Dustin Wills and presented with Ma-Yi Theatre Company, portrays a traumatic situation, but with an antic disposition and a goofy heart. How would a boy respond to these wounds but with growls, howls and swinging paws? It seems too much for one being to process, yet there’s a lightness here that chases away the shadows.Wolf, a volatile and reactive jumble of joints, is handed off by Peter (Aubie Merrylees), the father who adopted him, to Robin (Nicole Villamil) and her wife, Ash (Esco Jouléy). Robin is eager to become a mother, while Ash is a boxer prepping to go pro and reluctant to take on a distraction like a child. Ryan (Brandon Mendez Homer), who is Robin’s brother and Ash’s coach, seems supportive of the adoption — until Wolf’s position in the pack seems to threaten his own.If the play has a love plot, it’s between Wolf and Ash, a prototypical fighter with a tough exterior and soft center. Ash is nonbinary, and is the first person to whom the boy speaks out loud. “Wolf Play” suggests there’s an animality connecting us that transcends gendered social scripts; kinship and love are wild and don’t play by any rules. Peter, however, objects to the absence of a conventional father in the boy’s new home.Performances from the ensemble are uniformly strong and suited to the production’s intimate scale. Winter’s double feat as an energetic narrator and a sensitive puppeteer is so nimble that the boy often appears to be a separate living thing, endearing one moment, a terror the next (Amanda Villalobos is the puppet designer).But casting a wolf as a protagonist becomes a tricky gesture when expressing inner feelings is limited to encyclopedic facts about the species. (“Wolves are cautious, the masters of survival.” “Wolves suck at being alone.”) Though Jung’s narrator seems to promise access to the story’s emotional core, there is only so much that taxonomy can illuminate.Wills’s production has the exuberant restlessness of a crayon drawing tacked to the fridge, chaotic but underlaid with a careful internal logic. A door on wheels, mismatched chairs and blue balloons (from Wolf’s “welcome home” party) are roving fixtures of You-Shin Chen’s set. Barbara Samuels’s lighting makes prodigious use of tone and darkness, while the sound design by Kate Marvin inspires the grating quality of a child’s crying.If stories need conflicts, as Wolf suggests, the climactic ones here — a bout in the ring, the inevitable custody battle — ultimately feel manufactured and somewhat beside the point. There’s an unruly quality to Jung’s idea of what theater can be, jagged and untethered, coy and dreamlike. It’s thrilling to see that potential unleashed on the vagaries of love, even if it’s not so easily tamed.Wolf PlayThrough March 20 at Soho Rep, Manhattan; sohorep.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

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      Review: A ‘Merchant of Venice’ That Doubles Down on Pain

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      John Douglas Thompson stars in Arin Arbus’s caustic and assertive new production of the Shakespeare play.More than 30 years ago, John Douglas Thompson, then a successful salesman at a Fortune 500 company, saw a play in New Haven, Conn. When it was over, he offered up a prayer: “Please, God, make me an actor. Teach me how to do that, and make this possible for me.”Thompson told me this five years ago, on the floor of a Broadway lobby after finishing a performance of August Wilson’s “Jitney.” And I remembered it last week, watching him as Shylock in Arin Arbus’s caustic, provocative production of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” at Theater for a New Audience.That prayer has been answered.Since 2009, when he played Othello — also for Arbus, also at Theater for a New Audience — audiences have recognized Thompson as an outstanding classical actor, perhaps the greatest Shakespeare interpreter in contemporary America theater. There are actors of greater plasticity, better grace, lusher voice. But Thompson, a virtuoso of psychological insight and emotional specificity, makes each centuries-old line sound like it has occurred to him in the moment. In his distinctive sandpaper rasp, he takes what’s timeless and transmutes it to the present. To watch him work is to feel fluttery, lightheaded. Blessed, maybe.“The Merchant of Venice” is a fairy tale with a corrosive center, a chocolate filled with battery acid. Its plot joins two folk tales, three love stories and a nerve-splintering trial scene that puts “Perry Mason” to shame. It concerns a melancholy Christian merchant, Antonio (Alfredo Narciso), who borrows 3,000 ducats from a Jewish usurer, Shylock (Thompson), to fund his friend Bassanio (Sanjit De Silva) — a close friendship that Arbus renders as explicitly romantic. Shylock forgoes interest in favor of an unusual condition: If Antonio forfeits, Shylock will extract a pound of flesh from his body.From left, Thompson, Maurice Jones, Yonatan Gebeyehu, Nate Miller, Alfredo Narciso and Varín Ayala in the production, which emphasizes the awfulness of everyone in Venice, not Shylock alone.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDespite his relationship with Antonio, Bassanio is wooing Portia (a flexible and elegant Isabel Arraiza). To confound her suitors, her father has set them a challenge. They have to choose among three caskets: one gold, one silver, one lead. If a suitor chooses correctly, he will find Portia’s portrait. Otherwise, he has to leave, with the promise that he will never marry. The plots combine in that harrowing courtroom scene, where Portia gives her “quality of mercy” speech.Over the past century, scholars have debated whether “Merchant” should be staged at all, particularly after the play was deployed in Germany in the 1940s as Nazi propaganda. Every responsible production has to contend with its uneasy legacy.Arbus’s solution is to emphasize the awfulness of everyone in Venice, not Shylock alone. Mercy? Look elsewhere. On Riccardo Hernandez’s set, a doge’s palace given a Brutalist remodel, and under Marcus Doshi’s grim lights, the characters demean and betray one another. Even the virtuous Portia displays casual racism and less-casual hypocrisy. No one else behaves any better. Emily Rebholz’s costumes — athleisure, Vans, a hoodie with “Brooklyn” printed on it — confirm this atmosphere of treachery as neither long ago nor far away.Casting Thompson complicates the prejudices at work in the play, superimposing Blackness on Shylock’s Jewishness. Black Jews of course exist, but despite the interpolation of some lines from a Yom Kippur prayer at the play’s end, it is this Shylock’s Blackness and not his Jewishness that Arbus’s production emphasizes. “By casting a Black man as Shylock in America in 2021, one becomes painfully aware of the connections between Shakespeare’s 16th-century Venice and our world now,” she said in a news release.This pays certain dividends, giving some lines particular resonance, as when Shylock, in his speech to the Venetian court, says:You have among you many a purchased slave,Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,You use in abject and in slavish partsBecause you bought them. Shall I say to youLet them be free! Marry them to your heirs!Why sweat they under burdens? Let their bedsBe made as soft as yours?In laying bare Antonio’s prejudices during the first act, Thompson mockingly assumes the cringing tones of a racist caricature, a barbed and devastating choice that shows his anguished self-awareness. He knows how the others see him and how they want him to behave. He refuses. But in exacting revenge on those who perceive him as less than fully human, he loses his own humanity, which is his tragedy.And yet, this doubling feels like displacement — diminishment, perhaps — especially as it sidesteps the thorny questions of the play’s own attitudes toward Jews. Threats against American Jews have risen precipitously in recent years, as has online harassment. The hostage situation at a Texas synagogue last month was a sobering reminder of hatred with a long history. None of this necessarily makes Arbus’s focus on Blackness wrong. (And who would deny Thompson any role he wanted?) But anti-Blackness and antisemitism aren’t identical. And both continue. Which is to say: Wasn’t this painful enough? Weren’t we aware already?The Merchant of VeniceThrough March 6 at Theater for a New Audience, Brooklyn; tfana.org. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. More

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      ‘Space Dogs’ Review: To Boldly Go Where No Dog Has Gone Before

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      … Some never to return. This new Cold War musical about the Soviet-American space race pays tribute to the pups who preceded the cosmonauts.We’re in 1957, the height of the Cold War. The Soviets and Americans are racing to space, and the Soviets have pulled ahead by launching the first human-made object into the Earth’s orbit. The next goal on the horizon: sending a man into space. But before that, there was Laika, a stray dog from Moscow who was the sole living occupant of the spacecraft Sputnik 2, which orbited the Earth. Sputnik fell from space eventually, but Laika did not survive the trip.Now Laika has been resurrected as the subject of a vapid new musical, “Space Dogs,” an MCC Theater production that opened on Sunday and that stars its creators, Nick Blaemire and Van Hughes.Directed by Ellie Heyman, “Space Dogs” recounts the story of Laika, the best known of the dogs that Soviet scientists trained for space travel. In this retelling, a scientist known by the code name Chief Designer led that initiative.Parts of the show are told from Laika’s perspective, from doggie diary entries and songs (Laika is played by a plushie that is mostly handled and voiced by Blaemire). Other parts come from the perspective of the chief designer, played by Hughes. The rest of the scenes break the fourth wall, providing historical and political context. It’s informative, in a slipshod way, but also hopelessly cheesy, packed with dad jokes, puns, silly accents and even a doggie beauty contest. “Space Dogs” gives off the vibe of a B-grade educational children’s show — though one with the occasional vulgarity amid the bleak material.One oddly peppy song recounts how the chief designer, “driven by a void in the center of his chest,” to use a cliché from the show, was imprisoned in the gulag and tortured during the height of Stalin’s rule. And though no dogs were harmed in the making of this show, there are canine casualties and somber existential musings from the four-legged friends. Besides the Bowie-esque chorus and spoken word of “Fill the Void,” and the alternating soft acoustic chords and heavy strumming of “Blessed by Two Great Oceans,” most of the musical’s songs are pretty uniform stylistically and generically upbeat — bouncy yet forgettable numbers that contribute little to the story.“Space Dogs” also telegraphs Pixar-level heartbreak through mawkish tunes. “What if I die? What if I fall out of the sky?” Laika sings, and later croons from beyond the grave about her dashed hopes for a family and delicious steak. It’s emotionally manipulative, especially for tenderhearted animal-lovers in the audience. The show then must walk a difficult line between a celebration of Laika and her canine colleagues (“History was changed by dogs!” the two actors declare) and commentary on the ambitions of two countries on the brink of mutual annihilation.Laika the dog in the spotlight of the musical “Space Dogs,” an MCC Theater production.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHughes and Blaemire attack their material with such enthusiasm; their earnestness is palpable, even taking into account the corniness of the book and their imperfect vocals (the songs they wrote accommodate their range and abilities).The rest of the production appears poised to overshadow the two stars and their story. Wilson Chin’s scenic design is compact and cluttered, full of drawers and speakers of different shapes and sizes stacked together Tetris-style alongside Soviet and American flags. Amanda Villalobos offers some fabulous puppet and prop design that, unfortunately, isn’t prominently showcased until the last third of the show.The lighting design (Mary Ellen Stebbins) is the boldest, full of neons and strobes. Projections, green screens and live cameras all figure prominently as well, and though the celestial lights and scenery are dazzling, all of these elements together offer a glut of visual information that is often overwhelming.What would my own dog think of such a show, I wondered as I left the theater. I’m betting he’d prefer to keep his paws on the ground.Space DogsThrough March 13 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      Interview: We Consent to these questions

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      Director Paul Collins on bringing Consent to the stage at Questors Theatre

      Until recently, we weren’t aware of Questors Theatre (we apologise for that oversight on our part) but now it’s on our radar we are more than happy to see what amazing shows they are presenting us with. This community based theatre in Ealing are clearly not afraid to tackle the difficult subjects, as their next show, Consent, clearly proves. Nina Raine‘s play, first performed at the National Theatre, follows the two barristers on either side of the case and the turmoil of their lives away from the courtroom.

      We sat down with director, and former barrister himself, Paul Collins, to ask why this play appealed to him and whether being a former barrister is a help or hinderance to directing the play ahead of its opening night on 19 February.

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      What was it about Consent that made you want to bring it to Questor Theatre?

      This is a tautly written play raising issues about trust in personal relations and the contrasting demands of empathy and detachment, for lawyers and for us all. And it manages to be viciously funny from time to time, as well. 

      The play focuses on the two opposing barristers in a rape trial; as a former barrister were you able to bring personal experience to the play, and how realistic are the two based on your real-life experiences?

      The playwright, Nina Raine, acknowledged legal input and the legal side has an authentic ring. Some of the barristers’ chat is deliberately extreme for dramatic effect, but it’s not far off! But the real focus of the play is on the relationships between the characters.

      Did you ever need to stop yourself being too forensic and detailed in your approach to the legal moments of the play?

      No! There’s only one courtroom scene and we don’t attempt to set it realistically. I’ve used my personal experience to a limited extent, to help the actors, but the author has provided what’s really needed. The detailed work has been much more directed towards the ebb and flow of the characters’ emotional and sexual relationships.

      The play is only five years old, but in that time we’ve seen a lot of change, especially with the #MeToo movement and (hopefully) a changing attitude towards how we deal with sexual assaults. Has this affected your approach to the play at all?

      If the play were being written today I’m sure the author would think carefully about the implications of the binary approach to sexuality which it presents. But the central portrait of the law and its practitioners having a detached and sometimes callous attitude wouldn’t change. How can lawyers do their job without being detached? How can empathetic lawyers do their job objectively? These questions remain. And the audience may wish to think about fidelity, betrayal, disillusionment, revenge, and consolation.

      In 2021, only 1.6% of reported rapes lead to a suspect being charged. Does Consent try to give any reasons for such statistics.

      One word against another – in the absence of other evidence, prosecution is a lottery. The play demonstrates this clearly. Ways in which an alleged rape victim should be supported are highlighted in this play, but there’s no easy answer.

      What made you step away from the bar into directing? Was the attention to detail required as a barrister good training for directing?

      It was retirement from the circuit bench after 19 years (25 years at the bar previously) that gave me the time to direct. It’s stimulating, draws upon many different aspects of one’s abilities and highlights where they may be lacking! I love working in the the theatre with talented and dedicated people of all ages and backgrounds. You should ask the cast and stage team whether my background is a help, or a hindrance!

      What brought you to Questors Theatre, and what is it about the venue that should make people come and check it out?

      I’ve been an acting member of the Questors for over 40 years although for many years the demands of work prevented me from taking an active part in the life of the theatre. It’s a splendid place to have in a thriving, cosmopolitan community like Ealing. There’s much we can do to improve but we try to be a focus for young and old, wealthy and not, and for those of every race, colour, sexuality and for those with a disability. The Questors takes large numbers of young people under its wing for a wide range of classes. Anyone in West London who becomes involved, even just as an audience member, feels how important it is. Consent is the kind of play which can be raw, challenging and, to some, perhaps offensive in its language, but which doesn’t shrink from tackling real questions about human behaviour head on.

      Our thanks to Paul for giving up his time to chat to us about the play.

      Consent plays at Questors Theatre in Ealing between 19 and 26 February. Standard tickets are just £14, with concessions for members, under 16s and full time students. More information and bookings via the below link. More