Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Timely Off-Broadway remounts worth talking about: Matthew Freeman’s THE ASK and Jenny Lyn Bader’s MRS. STERN

• By drediman
• October 16, 2026
• No Comments

This very busy fall theater season, a pair of remounts of timely Off-Broadway dramas — both depicting women characters attempting to find their footing in a political fraught world — are back gracing the boards of New York’s stages. If you missed them the first time around, now’s your chance to catch these worthwhile plays. Here are my thoughts on my return visits to them.

THE ASK
Theater 555
Through November 22

The more extensively re-worked remount, primarily in terms of casting and location, is Matthew Freeman’s terrific real-time two-hander The Ask (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). In short, the play — now at Theater 555, a larger venue than the Wild Project — depicts the first meeting between a wealthy older donor (Greta) and the new ACLU planned giving officer (Tanner, who happens to be non-binary) who’s been assigned to her. Although both are idealistic left-leaning liberals and passionate advocates of the ACLU, drama ensues when the generational gap and resulting philosophical differences between them affects Greta’s prospective giving to the organization. Although The Ask is essentially a compactly structured debate-driven play, its unassuming scenario lets the play operate on multiple levels while giving audiences an insightful look into the slippery world of individual giving. Furthermore, it allows the exchange of ideas between the two characters — particularly as it relates to the fundamental scope and mission of the ACLU (no spoilers here!) — to ping pong naturally. Indeed, their budding donor/development professional relationship is a fascinating lens through which to observe their contrasting political views, particularly with its built in power dynamic inequality. Thankfully, their respective arguments are well-matched and fully fleshed out, smartly allowing audiences to make up their own minds on the matters at hand. Over the course of the play, Freeman insidiously develops both characters and their nascent relationship, while allowing their conversation to unfold organically in real time. Although the one act play ends on an unresolved note, it’s implied that Greta and Tanner will sadly continue to be in a stalemate after the lights come down. Jessi D. Hill’s remount continues to be intimate and convincingly naturalistic and now features the starrier pairing of Marilu Henner (replacing Betsy Aides) and Shannon Purser (replacing Colleen Litchfield) as donor and junior fundraiser, respectively. Greta is the more overtly showy of the two roles, and Henner imbues it with a light charisma the belies the steeliness underneath. As the more introspective Tanner, Purser gives a contrasting, equally accomplished performance whose quiet mettle and thoughtful inner resolve are just as memorable. At the end of the day, each character is desperate to be seen and acknowledged as an individual, even to the point of forfeiting, on either end, Greta’s generous donations if it means losing themselves in the process.

MRS. STERN WANDERS THE PRUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY
59E59 Theaters
Through October 25

Then there’s the Luna Stage, Richard Jordan Productions, and Traverse Theatre’s co-production of Jenny Lyn Bader’s curiously titled play Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library (RECOMMENDED), which returned this fall to Off-Broadway’s 59E59 Theaters (the production was also seen previously in New York at WP Theater). Set in 1933 Berlin — in hindsight, the beginning of the end, really — the play chronicles an episode of young Hannah Arndt’s life during which she is taken under custody for suspicion of activist activity. Although it’s based on true events, the play is largely the fictitious fabrication of the playwright. In a series of incisive and meticulously-written scenes, we get inside the mind of one of the great philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century as she navigates her fraught predicament. In short, Bader does Arndt justice — particularly with respect to her sharp instincts and ability to judge (and react to) character and human behavior — which is no small feat. Thankfully, the piece doesn’t hit audiences over the head with histrionic shouting matches, instead asking them to lean forward to observe subtle shifts in relationships, namely between Arndt and the conflicted young Gestapo officer put in her charge (there’s also a fascinating exchange with an attorney, played astutely by Tommy Schrider at the performance I attended, that could have altered the trajectory of Arndt’s fate had things played out differently). Intellectually and dramatically stimulating in equal measure, the play — directed by Ari Laura Kreith in clear-eyed fashion — is a quietly thrilling display of a woman literally willing herself out of harms way in a society that has begun to obstruct rights for some of its citizens (the play begins with Berlin newly under martial law). As Arendt, Ella Kaile continues to give a beautifully calibrated performance that straddles internalized desperation and keen intelligence. As her captor, Brett Temple gives a searching performance that grows increasingly — albeit stealthily — sympathetic as the play unfolds. In summary, Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library is a finely-crafted play that deservedly continues to find an audience.