VIEWPOINTS – Excavating the truth of the matter through performance: THE BLACK CROOK and UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME

The Civilians (whose short run of The Undertaking at BAM ended last weekend) aren’t the only ones in town who are interested in “investigative” theater. Two ambitious Off-Broadway productions are currently showing New York audiences that, even more than journalism or documentary film-making, theater has the unique ability to shade matters in hues that’s more deeply truthful than just black and white. There’s a certain correlation between the theater and truth, you see. The very act of theater is duplicitous – requiring an audience’s suspension of disbelief – as is the slippery nature of the concept of truth.

The company of "The Black Crook" at Abrons Arts Center

The company of “The Black Crook” at Abrons Arts Center

All the way down at the Abrons Arts Center (a mecca for downtown experimental theater and dance) in the Lower East Side, you have a fascinating resuscitation of allegedly the first Broadway musical, the infamous The Black Crook (RECOMMENDED). This incarnation of the Black Crook is reminiscent in recent seasons of the shuttered Shuffle Along on Broadway, Paula Vogel’s Indecent at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre (which is rumored for Broadway), and even Third Rail Project’s immersive theater piece Then She Fell. The piece, extensively adapted by Joshua William Gelb from the original 1866 musical by Charles M. Barras, is less of a revival than an investigation into the truth behind the haphazard, even suspicious, circumstances leading to the creation of a show that was billed as “an original, magical and spectacular musical drama” with singing, dancing, and melodrama – a musical, in short. The underlying material is admittedly not very good, and Mr. Gelb’s production, which he also inventively directed (with a somewhat uneven cast), is a tad overlong and overstuffed at just over two hours (despite the original five hour-plus running time of the original production). Nevertheless, his take on The Black Crook asks deeper questions that provoke a deeper dialogue about the very nature of musicals: Is there really artistic merit in the form besides mere commercialism? Would theater as an art form merit from its absence? Therefore, in many ways, this The Black Crook is very much an anti-musical. I’d even go far as to suggest that this production isn’t a musical at all and more a play with incidental music.

Scott Sheppard and Jennifer Kidwell in "Underground Railroad Game" at Ars Nova

Scott Sheppard and Jennifer Kidwell in “Underground Railroad Game” at Ars Nova

Then you have the terribly exciting new play Underground Railroad Game (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), which just recently opened at the small but mighty creative hotspot Ars Nova in Hell’s Kitchen (the birthplace of the extraordinary Broadway-bound musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812). Jennifer Kidwell, Scott Sheppard, and Lightning Rod Special’s shape-shifting two-hander ambitiously dares to excavate the truth about black-white race relations America via the Civil War. And boy does their play dig deep. They’ve set the piece in an elementary school located just south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Caroline (black) and Stuart (white) – sensationally played by Ms. Kidwell and Mr. Sheppard with delicious verve and commitment – are romantically-involved fifth grade teachers who attempt to engage their students in the Civil War (and, inherently, in race relations). In order to do so, they’ve have concocted a ludicrous game based on the Underground Railroad, which involves smuggling slave dolls to “safehouses” within the school. But that’s just the premise. Over the course of the play, Ms. Kidwell and Mr. Sheppard take the audience on playful but audacious flights of fancy, as well as to semi-lit subconscious realms that artfully reveal the musty tangle beneath the surface-level race rhetoric we’ve become accustomed to (spoiler alert: there are no answers here). Despite the labyrinthine nature of Underground Railroad Game, it’s to director Taibi Magar’s great credit, as well as his excellent design team, that production holds together stylistically. Ars Nova has consistently exhibited an impressively high level of polish and and invariably infused its productions with distinctive visual flair. Underground Railroad Game joins the club with aplomb.

 

THE BLACK CROOK
Off-Broadway, Musical
Abrons Arts Center
2 hours, 10 minutes (with one intermission)
Through October 7

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME
Off-Broadway, Play
Ars Nova
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 15

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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