Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Two new Off-Broadway plays excavate the human condition via “Our Town”

• By drediman
• March 4, 2016
• No Comments

Over the years, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town has acquired a quaintness and sentimentality that has become synonymous with the play – an unfortunate development. Despite the inherent small town colloquialism of Mr. Wilder’s ever-popular play, it is, at its core, as unsentimental a portrait of the human condition as they come. Thankfully, David Cromer’s unforgettable revival a few seasons ago was able to remind us of the true essence of the play (particularly in his harrowing staging of the play’s third act). As many art enthusiasts know, works of art build upon pre-existing structures and points of view in the continual quest to unlock the mysteries of our existence. This winter, two new Off-Broadway plays aspired to be Our Town’s of our times. They mostly succeeded.

Noah Haidle’s Smokefall (RECOMMENDED), which is currently running at the Lucille Lortel Theatre by way of MCC Theater, is a spiritual cousin to Mr. Wilder’s play. Like Our Town, Smokefall, which chronicles three lost generations of a Michigan-based family, is a play about life, death, and love that operates under its own logic. Structurally, its daring and highly theatrical disregard of time and space brings to mind one of Our Town’s key tents – that human existence is a part of something unfathomable and infinitely larger than itself. So large, in fact, that time and space are irrelevant. The play comes to New York with strong critical word of mouth from Chicago, where it enjoyed two successful and unprecedented runs at the Goodman Theatre. Although I wish I could lavish the same level of praise on the piece, I unfortunately found the play’s hypnotic hold on me loosen towards the middle of the second act, during which its characters start becoming more like conduits for ideas rather than real people. Still, Mr. Haidle’s play is a rich, haunting experience that will stay with me. The MCC production is sensitively directed (as always) by Anne Kauffman and touchingly acted by a quintet of fine actors. Zachary Quinto – in particular as Footnote (the play’s Stage Manager stand-in), among other characters – is giving a clear-eyed, affecting performance. The production also features a striking set by recent MacArthur fellowship recipient Mimi Lien.

O, Earth (RECOMMENDED), an elliptical, haphazard, yet very entertaining new play by Casey Llewellyn, uses Our Town – the play itself – as a means to excavate LGBT history in this country. Ms. Llewellyn’s asks the questions: What if Wilder, who himself was gay, were to reconstruct his play in light of the progress made by LGBT activism? How would the time capsule that is the play Our Town interact with another time capsule, one that contains key figures of LGBT history? In her play, Ms. Llewellyn smashes these two dimensions together and the result is the hyper-meta fantasia that is O, Earth, whose improbably diverse roster of characters includes the Stage Manager, Emily, George, Ellen Degeneres, Portia DiRossi, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera. Frustratingly, all these personalities merge into a stew that’s more cacophonic than symphonic in which, like Smokefall, time and space are irrelevant. Ultimately, though, what rings loud and clear is the importance of knowing one’s heritage – theatrical or otherwise. The Foundry Theatre’s rousingly-acted production, which recently closed at HERE, was directed to within an inch of its life by Dustin Wills, who was aided by an inspired design team (the Magritte-inspired set was by Adam Rigg, the theatrical lighting was by Barbara Samuels, and the witty costumes were by Montana Blanco). As it should be – a play this ideologically sprawling needs a firm hand to make the the entire endeavor cohere and stand.

SMOKEFALL
Off-Broadway, Play
MCC Theater at Lucille Lortel Theatre
1 hour, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Through March 20 

O, EARTH
Off-Broadway, Play
The Foundry Theatre at HERE
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed