‘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.

‘DANA H.’: Deirdre O’Connell. Photo: Chad Batka.

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

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

‘DANA H.’: Deirdre O’Connell. Photo: Chad Batka.

‘IS THIS A ROOM’: Emily Davis. Photo: Chad Batka.

‘DANA H.’: Deirdre O’Connell. Photo: Chad Batka.

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HILLARY AND CLINTON
Written by Lucas Hnath
Directed by Joseph Mantello
Through July 21, 2019
John Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.hillaryandclintonbroadway.com

By David Nounou

After seeing Lucas Hnath’s 2017 A Doll’s House, Part 2, a follow-up to Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in which Nora returns to her family after a 15-year absence (and all the drama she creates), I was intrigued to see what Mr. Hnath’s next play would be. Upon learning it was entitled Hillary and Clinton, I was giddy with anticipation over what twists he would bring to this world-renowned couple.

Starting out promisingly, we see Hillary (Laurie Metcalf) in 2008 explaining that flipping a coin five times results in one outcome, what are the chances getting the same results flipping that coin over and over again? What if another Hillary in another galaxy was doing the same toss of the coin, what would be the results there? Titillating premise for sure, but the results come up short.

Hillary is despondent that she has lost the Iowa caucus to Barack (Peter Francis James). Now, in New Hampshire, she is in third place, Barack still leading. She and her campaign manager Mark (Zac Orth) are discussing strategies, and he insists that she doesn’t call Bill (John Lithgow) for help. Everyone here is known by their first name. Mark has an offer from Barack’s team that if she drops out gracefully, Barack will pick her as his running mate, saying that it isn’t her turn now. Of course the first thing she does is call Bill for help. What ensues is bitter rancor and chastisements.

What is so frustrating is that in the 80 minutes in A Doll’s House, Part 2, so much happened, while in the same amount of time here, not much happens. After 40 minutes you hear Hillary say it is the end of Part 1, so naturally one assumes that the alternate universe would begin with what if she did run as Barack’s running mate? She wouldn’t have been secretary of state, she would not have been blamed for Benghazi and there may never have been a private server and who knows how the 2016 elections would have resulted in another galaxy? What possibilities to explore indeed. Instead we are served the blaming game and that Bill is the millstone around Hillary’s neck; she would be better off divorcing him and he would be nothing without her.

Laurie Metcalf’s riveting performance is what sustains one’s interest in the show. Without a Hillary wig, makeup or pantsuits, she is Laurie being Hillary in the most natural of ways and the performance is so luminous it could lead to an unprecedented third consecutive Tony Award for her.

John Lithgow as Bill also shines, but here he is more of a lead weight than the charismatic charmer that Bill still is. He is the man made by a strong woman standing behind him and in his shadow.

Joe Mantello as usual extracts every nuance from an otherwise lackluster show to keep it compelling. Pity he couldn’t extract or create that alternate universe. Instead, we have to be satisfied with another stunning performance from Laurie Metcalf as the heroine.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 18, 2019

‘HILLARY AND CLINTON’: John Lithgow plays Bill. Photo; Robert Zuckerman

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‘A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2’: Laurie Metcalf, Chris Cooper & Jane Houdyshell. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2
Written by Lucas Hnath
Directed by Sam Gold
Through July 23, 2017
John Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.DollsHousePart2.com

By David NouNou

In 1879, Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House where in the end, Nora Helmer slams the door of her house, leaves her husband and her children and walks away from a marriage that she felt was her prison. Quite remarkable for its day for a woman with no means of support to take such action. In 2017, Lucas Hnath has written A Doll’s House, Part 2 in which Nora comes back knocking on the door of the house she walked out of 15 years ago.

Nora (Laurie Metcalf) has come back and is greeted by Anne Marie (Jayne Houdyshell), the family nanny and housemaid. It’s an awkward moment but soon turns into hilarity at every turn, thanks to Mr. Hnath’s brilliant writing. Nora has not come to apologize or be forgiven for walking out on everyone but has come back to get something she wasn’t given 15 years earlier.

Nora has done very well for herself. She has become a successful female writer with plenty of money and lovers along the way. Nora has written many books under a pseudonym advocating freedom for women who feel shackled by the restraints and chains of their marriage by divorcing their husbands and starting a new life. In the process, she has provoked a judge who has found her real identity and is going to expose her for the sham that she is.

Thus her reason for her appearance at her husband’s doorstep. Torvald Helmer (Chris Cooper) never filed the divorce papers as he promised Nora he would. People assumed when she left that she was sick, went to a sanitarium and died. People felt sorry for Thorvald, his reputation at the bank strengthened and he never bothered to correct anyone.

The wheels are set in motion for what is to be the thrill ride of the theatrical season. Nora not only left Torvald and Anne Marie, but she also left behind a young daughter, Emmy (Condola Rashad), who has grown up into a young lovely woman. Like her mother, she is strong-willed; unlike her mother, she wants to get married to the man she is engaged to and wants to be enslaved by the man she loves. In this case, Nora cannot see Emmy as an ally to get her divorce.

What is absolutely astounding is how Mr. Hnath has taken Ibsen’s characters and given them new and far more complicated lives than Ibsen would have ever imagined. There are so many sides to align with, but the allegiance keeps shifting. Nora, Thorvald, Emmy and Anne Marie are all embroiled in these dilemmas and the audience is marveling at the expertise of the writing and the humor that is peppered throughout the play.

The performances at the John Golden Theatre are among the best you will see this season. The play has garnered eight Tony nominations and is sure to win a few: Laurie Metcalf, as Nora, is a sure shot. She is monumental and a force to be reckoned with. Jayne Houdyshell. who won Best Featured Actress in a Play Tony last year for The Humans, is up again this year in the same category, as is Condola Rashad. They are the embodiment of featured actresses and great in their parts and what a thrill it would be to see a tie where both of them could win.

There is some redemption here for Sam Gold, the director. After he deliberately stripped all the poetic lyricism and butchered the magnificent The Glass Menagerie earlier this season with his awful minimalism, it’s minimalistic here as well, but it serves the purpose. With expert writing and excellent performances, I can easily see The Doll’s House, Part 2 being named the Best Play of the Year.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 8, 2017
Reviewed at performance on May 7, 2017

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2’: Laurie Metcalf & Condola Rashad. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2’: Laurie Metcalf & Jane Houdyshell. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2’: Laurie Metcalf & Jane Houdyshell. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

‘A DOLL’S HOUSE, PART 2’: Laurie Metcalf. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

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