'Is This A Room' & 'Dana H.': 2 plays in rep

‘IS THIS A ROOM’: Will Cobbs, Pete Simpson & Emily Davis. Photo: Chad Batka.

IS THIS A ROOM
Conceived & directed by Tina Satter
In repertory with
DANA H.
Written by Lucas Hnath
Directed by Les Waters
Through November 27 & 28, 2021
Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.thelyceumplays.com

By David NouNou

After seeing most of the fall plays of 2021 so far, I realize that it’s not so much about Broadway coming back to life as it is the industry has transplanted small Off-Broadway ventures (that were meant to be more experimental in nature and give voice to newer playwrights), with casts of one to four people, with minimal expenditures—many of which were successful, more effective and intimate in smaller venues—and have dropped them in these large theaters just so they can be filled and open in time for the fall season. Since no one had planned on new, original plays due to the pandemic that forced Broadway to shut down for 19 months and not knowing when theaters would reopen, hardly any new plays were planned for this season.

Cases in point are Is This A Room and Dana H., both being critical and sold-out shows at the intimate Vineyard Theatre. They alternate performances in repertory now on Broadway at the Lyceum. First, Tina Satter has conceived and directed Is This A Room. The show is based word for word from the original transcript of a true story set in June of 2017 about a 25-year-old former U.S. Air Force linguist named Reality Winner (Emily Davis). Upon arriving home one day after grocery shopping, Reality is confronted by three FBI agents in her driveway. What seems at first an inept, fumbling round of questioning turns into a systematic interrogation breakdown and charging of leaked evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, all of which led to her four-year prison sentence.

What would have been a claustrophobic and believable setting at the small Vineyard Theatre and made to feel you were witnessing an actual interrogation, in the expanse of the Lyceum Theatre that urgency is lost and the characters are swallowed on that massive stage. In addition, redactions from the transcript are represented as blackouts, which at first are really distracting and confusing until you witness it a few times and then catch on. The saving grace is Ms. Davis’ heartbreaking, unraveling performance.

Second is a play by Lucas Hnath, best known on Broadway for the brilliant A Doll’s House Part 2 and Hilary and Clinton. Mr. Hnath has now written about and adapted the harrowing true story of his mother, Dana Higginbotham, in Dana H. Her bio in Playbill states that she is a writer, educator and chaplain. For the past 20 years, as chaplain in both hospitals and hospices throughout Florida, she has provided counsel for those who live with the effects of trauma, loss and life-threatening or life-limiting issues. Her story is recorded by Hnath’s friend and fellow writer, Steve Cosson, in 2004 about events that took place in 1997.

Dana H. is portrayed by Deirdre O’Connell, sitting in a chair in a seedy motel room facing the audience, lip syncing to the original but edited tapes about the horrible events that took place in 1997. She relates how she met Jim, a fugitive, a man she was counseling in a psych ward of a mental hospital. He was ultimately set free during the Christmas holidays and has nowhere to go, so she takes Jim in. Soon after Dana is divorced, Jim comes back to abduct her and takes her through a hellish, five-month ordeal traveling throughout the South but mainly in Florida. She encounters many evil deeds and has no chance of escape because Jim is constantly by her side and the moments that she does have, the police side with Jim instead of seeing her pain and ordeal and she is sent back to him.

What you hear is very compelling and riveting and you go along with the lip syncing because Ms. O’Connell captures every nuance and movement in the recordings, but three quarters into the play, in the middle of one of Dana’s experiences in a motel room, a fast-forward effect of the tapes takes place and the whole thing unravels and looks and feels like a gimmick. I couldn’t help but wonder why Mr. Hnath didn’t write the play as a monologue instead of using fast-forward taping methods and tape sound effects. He is an adept writer and could have written it as a riveting monologue for any accomplished actress, which would have made the events more credible and compelling.

The two women in both plays have something in common. They both give brilliant portraits of two women having their normal daily lives uprooted, and both women have strong survival instincts. Both Ms. Davis and Ms. O’Connell deliver heart-wrenching performances and give the plays their plausibility. However, what was once monumental and harrowing at the intimate Vineyard is simply performing a transcript and lip syncing to tapes and now seems both constricting and gimmicky at the Lyceum.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 20, 2021
Reviewed at October 16 & October 19, 2021 performances.