The Axis Theatre Company’s new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is something to celebrate. Directed by Randall Sharp, and superbly performed by a 12-member ensemble cast, this Twelfth Night is a wild and wonderful romp through Illyria.
Here There Are Blueberries, a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, explores the idea that a picture can speak a thousand words. The play has been created using “historical artifact, interviews conducted with real people, historical transcripts, and other primary sources.” Centered on an album of photos that was meant to be destroyed, the play asks whether the side of those who commit atrocities in history should also be shown.
October 7: A Verbatim Play by Phelim McAleers depicts events in the Gaza Envelope of southwest Israel on the day of last year’s attack by the Islamist organization Hamas. It’s based on interviews conducted by McAleers and his wife, journalist-filmmaker Ann McElhinnie, immediately after the siege that reportedly killed 1,200 people, wounded an estimated 5,400, and resulted in seizure by Hamas of more than 250 hostages. In a May 7 speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, President Joe Biden lamented that, eight months after the assault (and despite ongoing warfare in Israel and Gaza), “people are already forgetting” the brutality of that day. McAleer’s play is agitprop against forgetfulness, burning a sense of the day’s agony into playgoers’ imaginations.
It’s I’m Not Rappaport meets Waiting for Godot meets The Gin Game! Take two old codgers on a park bench, combine with existential meanderings in a fixed setting, season with the ravages of aging, and you have Just Another Day, Dan Lauria’s uncertain reflection on all three components (but especially the third). Just Another Day suffers from being too much—well, just another day. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, and a great deal of curiously multisyllabic palaver fills out the hour and 45 minutes, including intermission. But it does have two actors very much worth seeing, for Lauria has cast himself, and opposite him, a flawless Patty McCormack.
Summer means free theater in New York, and Molière in the Park, an organization co-founded by Lucie Tiberghien and Garth Belcon. The Miser becomes the third free production at LeFrak Center, following The Misanthrope (2022) and Tartuffe (2023). Directed by Tiberghien, it’s an invigorating new version of the French playwright’s 1668 satire.
Potomac Theatre Project’s Sex, Grift and Death, an evening of one-acts by British playwrights Steven Berkoff and Caryl Churchill, captures the brutal nature of sex, financial survival, death, and illness. The lively cast uses a mixture of British and American accents that work for the sensibility of each piece.
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire has lived many lives since Caryl Churchill wrote it 42 years ago. The piece’s ambition is grand, but its scope is intimate, allowing for immense freedom of interpretation. Director Rachel Chavkin’s revival at New York Theatre Workshop focuses on its chamber roots as an ensemble piece for six actors.
There are some choices that are done in the name of love. Fen, by British playwright Caryl Churchill, directed by Patricia Lynn, presents the choices many would not consider. As the audience walks into the lower theater of IATI, the set is staged with five metal wash buckets used for collecting vegetables and stones, a table and two chairs, all representative of the agricultural life in Britain in 1983. Most of the townspeople work on the local farm. They share their stories and also bare their shame there.
Upon entering, the audience finds itself in the middle of a love affair between Val (Aimee Ranger) and Frank (David Rudi Utter). She has left her husband and two daughters to be with the man she loves. She has broken traditional gender roles and is torn with being morally correct and being with the love of her life.
As the play continues, the audience is introduced to a daughter and her stepmother, played by Lauren Lubow and Katie Consamus, respectively. All the characters take on multiple roles, and among the outstanding cast, Lubow skillfully switches out of hers effortlessly and poignantly.
The women’s stories are intriguing and tragic. Their lives reflect the small-town and farming mentality where poverty permeates the air. Love is often not a choice but a luxury. We see the abuse of a stepmother continue, a farm owner contemplating selling his land; we see hunger and loss. All through these stories is woven the notion of love and what it means for these people. Churchill is a great storyteller and her characters, although there are many to keep track of, reflect the deepness of her words.
Throughout, Lynn has drawn excellent performances from her actors. Lynn does a spectacular job of organizing seamless transitions and strategic blocking; still, the number of characters became confusing. Additionally, Lynn and set design consultant Allyson Lubow’s use of the space was excellent. The space can feel rather confining, but the production used all of it efficiently and relevantly. It felt like we were in the outskirts of their world, peeping in quietly.
As Val comes to grips with the dilemma of leaving her family for love, she arrives at a decision that will end her misery.The decision may seem rash and illogical to a viewer, but considering her outlook on life, it might have been the best one.
Fen leaves audiences thinking about choice and love and everything in between.
Presented by Red Garnet Theater Company at the IATI Theater Black Box, 64 East 4th St. Closed Feb. 21.
