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    Review: In ‘Plays for the Plague Year,’ the Soundtrack of Our Lives

    Suzan-Lori Parks wrote one play a day for 13 months during the pandemic. Those stories come to life onstage in the form of monologues, dialogues and songs at Joe’s Pub.Upon entering Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater for Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Plays for the Plague Year,” audience members are handed a Playbill, a pencil and two yellow notecards, each with a question about the pandemic: “What would you like to remember?” “What would you like to forget?” The responses are placed in a basket from which they are picked and read during the show. At my performance, someone wrote that they’d like to forget “fear and worry, foreground and background.” People in the audience murmured in assent.We’d all probably like to forget our own experiences of fear and worry during that first year of zealous hand-washing and ever-changing mask mandates. Parks, however, made a project of remembering: For that first pandemic year, she resolved to write a play a day about “whatever happens,” including the mundane goings-on in her apartment, the deaths of friends and strangers, and the Black Lives Matter protests.Here, Parks performs a version of herself called the Writer, who creates plays each day while quarantining with her husband (played by Greg Keller) and their 8-year-old son (Leland Fowler) in their one-bedroom apartment.What unfolds is some configuration of those plays, though “play” is too restrictive a word for these micro-performances, which take the forms of monologues, dialogues and songs. Parks, who also plays the guitar here, is joined onstage by seven other cast members in various roles and a band (Ric Molina, guitar; Graham Kozak, bass; Ray Marchica, percussion).An accounting of each day — an electronic placard hanging above the stage flashes the date and title of each section, presented chronologically from March 19, 2020, to April 13, 2021 — provides the show with a built-in structure to link what often feels like a hodgepodge.Parks wisely uses a series of shorthands to quickly bring us back to specific moments in those early pandemic days — an actor, for example, gliding past Parks in an ornate doublet and Tudor-style cap to signal theater closures, the cast hollering and clapping for a brief moment to signal the daily 7 p.m. cheer for frontline workers.In the plays in which Parks isn’t writing or with her family, she’s talking to a dead Little Richard or negotiating with her Muse who, fed up with Covid, threatens to abandon her. In another, a character named Bob looks for a job. There’s one in which Earth, embodied by a woman wearing a crown of branches and holding a scepter, warns that the pandemic is only the beginning of the world’s disasters.From left: Orville Mendoza, Martín Solá, Danyel Fulton and Rona Figueroa in a short play about Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was shot and killed by police officers in Louisville, Ky.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRuth Bader Ginsburg appears, on the day of her death, as a triumphant Lady Liberty, and the virus, personified as a horror movie villainess named Corona, wheezes and stalks the stage in a black-gray-white ombré dress and virion headpiece with red “spikes.” The costume design, by Rodrigo Muñoz, is as imaginative and visually stunning as runway couture, especially the layered fabrics of the Muse’s handkerchief hem skirt, made to resemble scraps of paper with scribbled writings, and the 3-D elements, like the butterflies on Earth’s chiffon dress.But not all days are created equal, and this three-hour production does feel as if we’re reliving a year’s worth of material. At least the variety in Parks’s script keeps things unpredictable enough to hold our attention.The direction, by Niegel Smith, occasionally gets too darling, like the first scene, when the family members introduce themselves (“I am the writer. I am the hubby. I am the son.”) while passing a red paper heart to one another. But Smith, who also choreographed the show, does make organized chaos in the intimate space (design by Peter Nigrini), rotating characters on a tiny stage adorned with a few pieces of low-sitting furniture — table, armchair, dresser, lamp, rack covered in books.The show’s music is as eclectic as the storytelling; the songs are short, plucky, with hints of folk, jazz and R&B. The surprising mash-up of genres include the doo-wop style of “Bob Needs a Job,” and the bluesy “Praying Now” soon picks up tempo, turning into an upbeat clap-and-stomp. Most aren’t particularly memorable, but the strongest songs — “RIP the King” and “Whichaway the World” — build with an alternating mix of spoken word/rap and soulful crooning from two performers in particular, Fowler and Danyel Fulton.Sometimes it seems as if Parks is overreaching, as when she speaks to her former mentor, James Baldwin (perfectly embodied by Fowler, who replicates his posture and cadence of speech), so he can muse about American history. Or in a long ceremony during which the cast hands flowers to the audience at the end of a section about Breonna Taylor, played by Fulton; but Fulton’s performance is poignant enough on its own.The playwright’s conversations with the dead, however, many of whom begin their scenes unaware or in denial of their demise, is the show’s most compelling motif. She speaks to several who are Black, especially those lost to Covid and those to police brutality. Through these post-mortems, Parks is asking trenchant questions about how we memorialize Black bodies. What would the dead say? How would they want to be remembered, if at all? So the Brooklyn educator Dez-Ann Romain, who died from complications of the coronavirus, snapping “Don’t make me speak of myself in the past tense,” and George Floyd asking, “Would I be safe if Harriet Tubman was on the 20?” become tragic self-written elegies. We’re watching the dead mourn themselves.Then there’s Parks, who, even playing this version of herself, always feels earnest, as when she listens to the speeches of her characters, while sitting off to one side of the stage, leaning forward attentively. You can easily imagine this being the way Parks sees the world refracted back to her, conversing with the dead, building abstractions.Unfortunately, her own domestic narrative feels flat by comparison. So “What’s the takeaway? What’s the concept? What’s the tone,” as the Writer’s TV producer asks her at one point during a conversation about the Writer’s plays project.“Plague Year” never answers these questions; the Writer ultimately discovers that the plays “didn’t save us.” But this isn’t Parks renouncing her ambitious undertaking. She’s offering another way to think about the production, which isn’t always a cohesive work of theater: Perhaps it doesn’t have to.Theater doesn’t save us, the Writer says, “but it does preserve us somehow,” so this piece still is a record. This is catharsis. It’s preservation.Plays for the Plague YearThrough April 30 at Joe’s Pub, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 3 hours. More

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    Review: In Clare Barron’s ‘Shhhh,’ Staging a Memoir of the Body

    The playwright directs and stars in her new play for Atlantic Theater Company’s Stage 2. It’s less a traditional narrative and more of a series of flirtations with discomfort.To get to your seat, you walk past someone’s toilet, stationed next to their sink, above which their pill bottles sit on a shelf.It’s hard to get more intimate than that.And yet that’s exactly what “Shhhh” manages to do. The new play, written by, directed by and starring Clare Barron, is explicit and occasionally uncomfortable, but all for the right reasons.Arnulfo Maldonado’s exquisite set design for the show, which opened on Monday at Atlantic Theater Company’s Stage 2, truly makes the space feel as if it were an apartment transformed into a theater rather than the reverse. There’s that bathroom stage left. And in a corner, partially obscured by a wall, a mattress lies on the floor, the sheets tousled on top. Candles and hanging string lights create a seductive atmosphere, but the industrial-looking metal rolling carts add a cool edge. And the audience members in the first few rows sit on cushions on the floor, extending the cozy vibe.“Shhhh” begins with Sally (named Witchy Witch in the program, and performed by Constance Shulman) recording an ASMR meditation. The sound of it is unsettling. Shulman’s signature rasp seems to envelop the space as she narrates what she’s doing — she talks about the Lysol wipe she’s using as we hear the sound of the cloth moving, amplified by a mic, and she taps her nails against a ceramic cup, telling us it’s full of lavender tea. She speaks slowly, stretching the syllables of each word so far they could reach from the theater, in Chelsea, to the East River. (The sharp sound design is by Sinan Refik Zafar.)Sally, a postal worker, says her job makes her feel close to people, even though that intimacy isn’t real. She goes on a so-so date with Penny (Janice Amaya), a nonbinary person who shares that they feel most comfortable and in control of their body during sex parties.Sally’s sister is Shareen (Barron), a playwright with a lot of “health stuff” who has a codependent and often consensually iffy sexual relationship with a male friend, Kyle (Greg Keller).And Francis (Nina Grollman) and Sandra (Annie Fang) are, well, two random young women who talk about body agency and consent in a pizza shop as Shareen, sitting at another table, silently listens.Barron and Greg Keller in the play. Arnulfo Maldonado did the set design.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Shhhh!” doesn’t have a traditional narrative; there’s no antagonist, and there’s not much of a sense of causality across scenes. The work itself has the feel of a series of flirtations: discomfort, assaults, insecurities and sorrows are spoken about and alluded to, but not detailed. We don’t get back stories or explainers. We just get the way these people speak and move and touch in relationship to one another. It’s telling that most of the sex acts mentioned are ones of penetration and discharge but much less often about the simple delicacies of a caress, or a kiss.The conversations these characters have are visceral: They talk of gushing wounds, feces-covered sheets, body fluids of all flavors. Though this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with Barron’s works, which include “I’ll Never Love Again” and the Pulitzer Prize finalist “Dance Nation.” She’s made a specialty of writing what are essentially staged memoirs of the body. Barron rarely opts for the romantic idea of pleasure, instead examining pleasure tied to physical violence and emotional manipulation, shame, self-esteem and trauma. The whole production aches with an unspoken loneliness.That ache comes through in Barron’s direction, but also in the performances, led by Barron herself, who sheaths Shareen in a delicate melancholy. Her gaze seems to drift off into the distance serenely but without satisfaction. She seems unsteady. And yet her somberness also belies a ferocious hunger; throughout the show Shareen plays with her food, pressing her fingertips into the scraps, crumbs and flakes on her plate or table and bringing them to her mouth, almost compulsively. The characters move self-consciously — in the way they recline or cross their legs — and seem to traverse the distances that separate them cautiously, as if wading through a river to the other shore.Keller is believable as the guy friend who soon realizes he may have to hold himself accountable for some questionable bedroom behaviors, and Grollman, Fang and Amaya, who get to wear the show’s most eclectic fashions (the satisfyingly offbeat costume design is by Kaye Voyce), give top-tier performances in small roles. Shulman is less convincing as Shareen’s older sister, supposedly by only two years, despite the nearly 30-year age gap between the two actresses. Shulman’s monotone drawl is a comic novelty at first, helping many of the jokes land, but this delivery, dry as a dust storm in the desert, becomes tiresome.Nina Grollman, left, and Annie Fang in a powerful scene at a pizza shop.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe other issue is the show’s erratic pacing. A Looney Tunes-esque chase scene and a mystical ritual both feel interminable. While other scenes are too short, and characters lack depth. Amaya has a sparky energy, but their character is less developed in relation to the others. And the characters of Francis and Sandra speak in only one scene, in the pizza shop, though the dialogue is incredibly compelling: candid exchanges about what it’s like to be a woman in a world of modern dating, and romantic metaphors about isolation and desire. I could’ve watched an entire show of this conversation.I went into this show expecting the grotesque and perhaps even the gratuitous, especially once I passed a sign in the theater warning the audience about the nudity and the play’s content. Nothing triggered me or offended me, not even Shareen’s description of her diarrhea or the sight of a used DivaCup. (I can’t say the same for everyone else, particularly the three audience members who shuffled out early in the show, never to return.)But then there was one moment that got to me, when Francis and Sandra are talking about the ways the men they’ve dated have manipulated their way to getting what they want, like unprotected sex. As Francis recounted a drunken negotiation she had with a guy, my body stiffened. The exchange was so familiar; it made me recall my own sticky encounter with a date.While that moment in the show may have made me feel uncomfortable, I was also grateful for the scene, and even the thorny feeling it inspired — theater should sometimes cause us discomfort. After all, the greatest intimacies we can hope for, as audience members, are those we build between our seats and the stage.ShhhhThrough Feb. 20 at Atlantic Stage 2, Manhattan; atlantictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

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    To Love, Honor and Co-Star: Making Room for Two on Zoom

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTo Love, Honor and Co-Star: Making Room for Two on ZoomHiring couples to act together allows us to see two people in one virtual space. For the couples themselves, though, it can feel like “there’s no escape.”Michael Urie, left, and Ryan Spahn have acted together in one short play during the pandemic. Spahn also handled the camera for Urie’s performance of “Buyer & Cellar” from their apartment.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFeb. 10, 2021Last fall, the actor Jason O’Connell agreed to star in a new production of “Talley’s Folly,” Lanford Wilson’s wistful two-hander, for Syracuse Stage. The other hand? His wife, Kate Hamill. While they would film the piece in an empty auditorium, they would spend much of their rehearsal time at home, on Zoom. So much for leaving your role at the stage door.“There’s no escape,” O’Connell said, mostly joking. “There’s no time apart, there’s no breather. There’s no one to complain to about my co-star.”Since March, when theater began to pop up online, savvy producers have looked for Zoom box workarounds and ways of generating the intimacy that only actors sharing the same airspace can provide. A Covid-19 friendly solution: Hire cohabiting couples to perform opposite each another — on sofas, in bedrooms and on the occasional closed stage — with no grids or time lags intervening.That explains how viewers saw two Apple family siblings — Maryann Plunkett’s Barbara and Jay O. Sanders’s Richard — quarantining together in the latest Richard Nelson trilogy, with their West Village apartment subbing for Barbara’s Rhinebeck house. Cohabiting actors also enabled a surprising scene in Sarah Gancher’s “Russian Troll Farm.” Having spent the play on separate screens, the disinformation workers Greg Keller and Danielle Slavick suddenly leapt into the same box and then into bed.Some of these couples have acted together for decades; others have almost never shared a marquee. None of them could have predicted that they would be turning their homes into theaters and reassuring the neighbors that the bloodcurdling shrieks are just a work thing.The New York Times spoke to six theater couples about acting together while living together. These are excerpts from the conversations.Kate Hamill and Jason O’ConnellTogether eight yearsJason O’Connell, left, and Kate Hamill in the Syracuse Stage production of “Talley’s Folly.”Credit…via Syracuse StageHow they met At the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, through a mutual friend. They married in January 2020 and had planned to honeymoon last summer.Pandemic project “Talley’s Folly”Have you worked together much?O’CONNELL We worked together on Kate’s first play, “Sense and Sensibility.” We did “Pride and Prejudice.” Then I wrote an adaptation of “Cyrano” that I directed her in.HAMILL We know lots of people who have a professional/personal divide, but we really don’t.How has working from home been?HAMILL We’re both workaholics. We’ve had to adjust to a slightly different pace of life. Like, “Do we have any hobbies?” After we got done with our first Zoom rehearsal of “Talley’s Folly,” we turned off the camera and we both started crying because we had missed that part of our lives.O’CONNELL It was very, very special, but also bittersweet.HAMILL In the pandemic, as a couple, you either come out of it, like, “Wow, this is really strong and great,” or “Oh no. I’m glad we like each other.”Greg Keller and Danielle SlavickTogether 14 yearsDanielle Slavick, left, and Greg Keller in “Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy.”Credit…via TheaterWorks HartfordHow they met At the National Theater Conservatory in Denver, Colo. “We had a talk in the library once about death,” Keller said.Pandemic project “Russian Troll Farm”Have you worked together much?SLAVICK We’ve done a bunch of workshops and readings and stuff, but only one other production together, Sheila Callaghan’s “That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play.”KELLER Nobody’s wanted to bring the passion that is our relationship onto the stage.How has working from home been?SLAVICK Exciting. But also daunting. I was still breastfeeding during rehearsals and I was also pregnant, so I was very nauseous. Having people be part of your home life was just kind of vulnerable. But you’re, like, my favorite actor. So I just liked the opportunity to talk with you and listen to you in that medium.KELLER I’m blushing over here.SLAVICK There was so much equipment! It took over our apartment.KELLER A new couple with a kid moved in. They would hear us screaming at each other, her having fake orgasms.SLAVICK I actually stopped them in the hall and let them know that they don’t need to call the police.Crystal Dickinson and Brandon J. DirdenTogether 21 yearsBrandon J. Dirden, left, and Crystal Dickinson in “The New Math”Credit…via The 24 Hour PlaysHow they met In graduate school at the University of Illinois. “I will never forget seeing her for the first time,” Dirden said. “This gale force coming straight at me.”Pandemic projects “New Math,” as part of the 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues; “Lessons in Survival”Have you worked together much?DICKINSON The first show we did was “Angels in America.” Brandon was Belize and I was the angel.DIRDEN We work together maybe every other year. It actually helps the relationship. We can’t be too mean to each other, because we’re probably going to have to work together pretty soon.How has working from home been?DICKINSON The 24 Hour Plays reached out to us. I told Brandon, “We’re doing it. You’re going to do one and I’m going to do one. Because we’ve got to do some art.” So we did and I told them, “That was great. Brandon and I should do one together.’” Two weeks later, they were like, “We want to take you up on that.” And I was like, “How are we going to home-school?” We told our playwright, “You have to incorporate our kid.” Which turned out to be fun. Though we did almost kill each other for about five seconds.DIRDEN Chase [their son] was the best part of the process. He took direction very well.Michael Urie and Ryan SpahnTogether 12 yearsUrie and Spahn in Talene Monahon’s short play “Frankie and Will.”Credit…via MCC TheaterHow they met Friends set them up. “We had plans to see ‘Doubt,’” Urie said. “Very romantic.”Pandemic projects “Nora Highland,” “Buyer & Cellar,” “Frankie and Will”Have you worked together much?URIE Most recently, “Hamlet,” which we did in Washington, D.C. We’ve also worked together on some movie projects. Ryan and Halley Feiffer wrote “He’s Way More Famous Than You,” which I directed.SPAHN That was when we learned how to collaborate. We turned our apartment into the production office.How has working from home been?SPAHN Jeremy Wein does Play-PerView. He reached out. I had never even heard of Zoom. I had this two-hander, “Nora Highland.” Michael and Tessa Thompson did it live online.URIE There was no audience, but it felt something like theater, because it was live.SPAHN We would talk about the hunt for that feeling of opening-night jitters.URIE “Buyer & Cellar,” which we did in our living room, had exactly that. It was a big old comedy put together right before you. Ryan was the director of photography.SPAHN After that one, we did a short play Talene Monahon wrote, “Frankie and Will.” Our dog was in it. And we have a cat, so we had to animal wrangle. It gave us something to put our manic, terrified, and laser-focused energy into.Jennifer Byrne and Timothy C. GoodwinTogether four yearsJennifer Byrne, left, and Timothy Goodwin at home with their dog, Awesome.Credit…Timothy C. GoodwinHow they met During a production of “Shear Madness” in Fort Myers, Fla. “We had a start-over first date in New York City,” Byrne said.Pandemic project “Singles in Agriculture”Have you worked together much?BYRNE We never work together. I’m in musical theater and Tim is into plays and film and TV. Our paths for auditions rarely cross.How has working from home been?BYRNE Ken Kaissar and Amy Kaissar, the artistic directors of Bristol Riverside Theater, were looking for acting couples quarantining together. They hit us up by email and Ken found “Singles in Agriculture.” We did a Zoom cold read and it was our rhythm, it was our energy. It felt right.GOODWIN Usually you can leave work at work. But the space that we sleep in is also our rehearsal space and our performance space. We have a nice lighting set up. But as soon as the rehearsal is over we tear it all down.BYRNE We literally open the blinds, we open the windows and we shut the door so that it gets super cold in the bedroom. Almost like starting over.Maryann Plunkett and Jay O. SandersTogether 32 yearsClockwise from lower left: Jay O. Sanders and Maryann Plunkett as two of the Apple siblings, along with Laila Robin, Stephen Kunken and Sally Murphy in “What Do We Need to Talk About? Conversations on Zoom.” Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHow they met On the set of “A Man Called Hawk,” a spinoff of “Spenser: For Hire.” “Our first kiss was on film,” Sanders said.Pandemic project The Apple Family Plays’ pandemic trilogyHave you worked together much?SANDERS Countless reading and workshops. And some small film things.PLUNKETT Because of the Rhinebeck panorama [Richard Nelson’s sequence of Rhinebeck-set plays], it feels like we’re working together all the time. We like to work together.How has working from home been?PLUNKETT With the Zoom plays, we’re sitting side by side. It’s the utmost in trust, and playfulness, knowing that I’m looking into Jay’s eyes, but I’m also looking into the character’s eyes. Shoulder to shoulder, captured in a little tiny box, there’s no room for faking it.SANDERS I used to dream about this, when I was a young actor, finding someone who could be a partner, who could be at the same level. It’s a very rare relationship that we’re fortunate to have. We appreciate it every day.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More