THE HANGOVER REPORT – Michael Yates Crowley’s THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN, BY GRACE B. MATTHAUS is entertaining, if smirky

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Susannah Perkins and Jeena Yi in “The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace b. Matthaus” at the Duke on 42nd Street

Before ending its run this past weekend, I was able to take in a performance of Michael Yates Crowley’s entertaining if smirky The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthaus at the Duke on 42nd Street. The absurdist play – a loopy comedy-drama about a high school rape case – received an exceptionally polished production courtesy of the fast-rising theater company Playwrights Realm, as directed and designed with care and panache by Tyne Rafaela and Arnulfo Maldonado, respectively.

Mr. Crowley’s fluid play is undeniably smart; it plays with time, space, and genres with the glee of a kid on Christmas morning. However, despite the whip-smart script, the play ultimately fails to register the gravity and heartbreak of the rape at its core, which gets somewhat lost in all the bells and whistles (perhaps the fault of both the play and the staging).

Nevertheless, the piece is nothing less than entertaining, particularly as acted by the first-rate cast. They threw themselves in Mr. Crowley’s quirky, lopsided world with appropriate deadpan exaggeration. As Grace B. Matthaus, Susannah Perkins gave a fascinating, wide-eyed, wonder-filled performance, piecing together what’s happened to her character almost as if in third person.

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THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN, BY GRACE B. MATTHAUS
Off-Broadway, Play
Playwrights Realm at the Duke on 42nd Street
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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