Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Daniel Glenn’s inpsired KING PHILIP’S HEAD […] functions as both biting allegorical satire and unfortunate origins story

• By drediman
• June 25, 2019
• No Comments

Jennifer Ikeda and Crystal Finn in Daniel Glenn’s “King Philip’s Head Is Still on that Pike Just Down the Road”, an offering at Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks series at the Wild Project.

Last night at the Wild Project in the East Village, I caught Daniel Glenn’s new comedy King Philip’s Head Is Still on that Pike Just Down the Road, the final offering of this year’s Summerworks series, courtesy of the folks at Clubbed Thumb. The piece tells the story of seven Plymouth Colony councilman as they navigate how best to govern themselves, particularly vis-à-vis the colonists’ co-existence with the Native Americans.

After the amusing but ultimately less than fully satisfying experiment that was Lunch Bunch by Sarah Einspanier and the mis-judged You Never Touched the Dirt by Zhu Yi, I’m happy to report that this final Summerworks presentation is an unqualified winner. In King Philip’s Head Is Still on that Pike Just Down the Road, Mr. Glenn has written an often hilarious play that functions both as a biting allegorical satire, as well as an unfortunate origins story of our country. With respect to the latter, the work turns out to be an interesting companion piece to Daniel Fish’s grippingly radical, Tony-winning revival of Oklahoma!, which is currently running at Circle in the Square.

The play has been given a witty, wonderfully droll staging by director Caitlin Ryan O’Connell. The cast, comprised of seven women and one man, takes on the gender-inverting challenge of Mr. Glenn’s script and runs with it without looking back. They’re a total hoot to watch, particularly the central, existential feud between the two polarizing and longest-lasting constituents, superbly played with high spirits by Jennifer Ikeda and Crystal Finn, who give inspired, not insignificant nods to Samuel Beckett and Monty Python.

RECOMMENDED

KING PHILIP’S HEAD IS STILL ON THAT PIKE JUST DOWN THE ROAD
Off-Broadway, Play
Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks Series / The Wild Project
1 hour, 20 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 29