THE HANGOVER REPORT – With Sarah Einspanier’s good-natured LUNCH BUNCH, Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks gets off to a spirited start

Keilly McQuail and the company of Sarah Einspanier's "Lunch Bunch", the fist offering of Summerworks 2019 at the Wild Project. Photo by Elke Young.

Keilly McQuail and the company of Sarah Einspanier’s “Lunch Bunch”, the first offering of Summerworks 2019 at the Wild Project. Photo by Elke Young.

Earlier this week, I caught Sarah Einspanier’s Lunch Bunch, the first of three offerings of this year’s Summerworks series, courtesy of the folks at Clubbed Thumb (the company is currently represented on Broadway as one of the producers of Heidi Schreck’s Tony-nominated What the Constitution Means to Me, which it helped develop). Over the years, I’ve been impressed by the quality of the plays and the polished productions they get at this annual festival, particularly given the relatively short runs of the shows. Lunch Bunch continues that trend exuberantly.

Mr. Einspanier’s quirky, mildly avant-garde play tells the story of a group of public defenders who both bond (and antagonize) over the food they prepare for and share during workday lunches. Lunch Bunch is a jovial reminder that it really is the small things in life that get us through each day, particularly if your day job is of the stressful sort. Each character has been lovingly shaped by the playwright. Indeed, it was clear that the audience around me, on some deeply personal level, connected to their idiosyncratic personas and the amusing situations they found themselves in.

As mentioned, the staging by Tara Ahmadinejad is excellent. Her work has a clear point of view, both tonally and visually, capturing the text’s surreal but good-natured essence and unique sense of humor. Likewise, the performances from the enticingly accomplished cast are also quite good, with some especially fine comic performances (ahem, Keilly McQuail). If at the end of the day, the hourlong Lunch Bunch is somewhat less than fully satisfying as an evening length piece of theater, there’s no doubt that as light, entertaining summer fare, it checks all the right boxes. It’s a spirited start to the 24th edition of the always welcome Summerworks series.

RECOMMENDED

 

LUNCH BUNCH
Off-Broadway, Play
Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks at the Wild Project
1 hour (without an intermission)
Through May 28

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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