‘I NEED THAT’: Danny DeVito. Photo: Joan Marcus.

I NEED THAT
Written by Theresa Rebeck
Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel
Through December 30, 2023
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
(212-719-1300), www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

By David NouNou

What is there to be said about a hoarder? We’re all guilty of it in one form or another. Hoarding is a universal condition which most people suffer from, but can it sustain a play for 100 minutes? The answer to that would be a resounding no, but what sustains I Need That is Danny DeVito’s Sam, the hoarder.

Sam is a widower living alone. His home (amply hoarded by set designer Alexander Dodge), is uninhabitable; as a matter of fact, his neighbor from across the street as taken pictures of the inside the house and reported him to the police as a hazardous place that can be a fire trap. He has gotten a few eviction notices to make his place habitable but he has ignored them. His mementos go back as far as 60 odd years and includes books that his late wife used to read, board games he played with his daughter, a 60-year-old TV set that was built by his father, and all sorts of items that only have importance to a hoarder.

Sam has not stepped outside his home in years. His contact to the outside world is Foster (Ray Anthony Thomas) who is his best friend, and who steals from him. Sam tells Foster about the items he has collected over the years: a ring, bonds, and magazines which Foster then steals, then pawns, cashes in and/or sells on eBay behind Sam’s back and keeps the proceeds.

The other contact in Sam’s life is his daughter, Amelia (Lucy DeVito). She devotes her life to trying to protect her father from bringing him food to trying to fend off the law from evicting him. Both Foster and Amelia try their best to help Sam unload, but he argues back that he is organizing.

To tell you more would be revealing the outcome which is unfair to a theatergoer. Suffice it to say there is a lot of extemporaneous filler halfway into the play, and the play goes off into tangents. There is even a mention of the TV show “Hoarders.” While most hoarders may be crotchety and unlikable, Sam is crotchety but lovable.  After all, he is Louie De Palma from “Taxi” in the form of Danny DeVito.

Having seen Mr. DeVito in the 2017 Roundabout revival of Arthur Miller’s The Price (in which he was robbed of a much-deserved Tony Award), Mr. DeVito is a consummate stage actor. He is as comfortable on the stage as he is on any TV set. He is the oxygen that pumps into the veins of this lackluster play. What also adds dimension to the performance is that he is performing opposite his daughter, Lucy. There is a beautiful care and chemistry between them that comes across as only a real father and daughter possess. They enhance each other’s performances.

Ray Anthony Thomas gives a sincere performance as a caring friend but is also guilt-ridden from his constant stealing. His apology scene to Sam is very touching.

Ms. Rebeck is a good and prolific playwright. She always has a grand idea, but in a lot of cases she can’t flesh them out properly. Think of Dead Accounts, Seminar and Bernhardt/Hamlet (also at the Roundabout), to name a few. Her two best plays are Mauritius, and Mad House, the play I saw in London last year at the Ambassador Theatre with David Harbour and Bill Pullman, also directed by Mr. von Stuelpnagel. I am truly stunned that Mad House has not made it to Broadway yet. With a little tweaking and editing by Mr. Von Stuelpnagel, it can be a terrific play on Broadway.

The positivity here is that both Ms. Rebeck and director Moritz von Stuelpnagel work together well and both have their own quirky, edgy chemistry together. Mr. von Stuelpnagel has the capacity to flesh out and edit scenes in Ms. Rebeck’s play to give them a smoother polish and finish.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 8, 2023
Reviewed at November 7, 2023 press performance.

‘I NEED THAT’: Ray Anthony Thomas, Lucy DeVito & Danny DeVito. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘I NEED THAT’: Lucy DeVito & Danny DeVito. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘I NEED THAT’: Danny DeVito. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘I NEED THAT’: (left to right) Ray Anthony Thomas, Danny DeVito & Lucy DeVito. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘I NEED THAT’: Ray Anthony Thomas, Danny DeVito & Lucy DeVito. Photo: Joan Marcus.

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‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: (Left to right) Harvy Blanks, Michael Potts, Brandon J. Dirden & Andre Holland. Photo: Joan Marcus

JITNEY
By August Wilson
Directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Through March 12, 2017
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th Street
(212-239-6200), http://jitneybroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Besides Fences, Jitney is one of the late August Wilson’s most solid dramas, and the first installment in his “Pittsburgh Cycle” of plays. Originally mounted in 1982, the show has been produced many times off-Broadway (most recently in New York in the early 2000s). This revival makes a powerful debut on Broadway with a superb ensemble cast.

It is 1977 in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, an African-American community, a place where traditional taxi cabs will not travel to, and Becker (John Douglas Thompson) runs a “jitney” (gypsy cab) car service. The story explores the lives of the men who work for the car service, set in a ramshackle building about to be torn down as part of gentrification, with calls coming in via an old rotary pay phone.

There’s Youngblood (André Holland from Moonlight), the young Vietnam vet who is often fighting with girlfriend Rena (Carra Patterson) about fidelity and just where he goes each night; the alcoholic Fielding (Anthony Chisholm), a man always wanting to borrow money to buy booze and who claims he was once a tailor for Count Basie; the gossiping busybody Turnbo (Michael Potts); the numbers runner Shealy (Harvy Blanks) and others. Each has a story to tell, illuminated by August Wilson’s colorful, crisp dialogue.

The drama’s biggest conflict centers on Booster (Brandon J. Dirden), the 39-year-old son of Becker. He has just been released from prison after serving a 20-year sentence for murder, but Becker has trouble forgiving him over the crime and what it did to the son’s mother.

Mr. Thompson’s Becker is a protagonist of almost Shakespearean proportions, a symbol of hard work and ethics in a world and era that offers few opportunities for black men. He is the epitome of a devoted husband and “tough love” father, one that cannot overlook or easily forgive his son’s past. Becker’s showdown with his son at the end of Act I is raw and packs an emotional punch as he unnerves Booster for what he did two decades earlier. It is truly a cathartic moment of theater at its best.

David Gallo’s dilapidated set anchors the story well, and there is a marvelous authenticity to the 1970s costumes by Toni-Leslie James, from polyester leisure suits to funky denim.

However, it is August Wilson’s florid, slang-riddled soliloquies that give Jitney its heart and soul. Although it takes a while for audiences to catch up with the show’s rapid-fire rhythm in the first act, one is soon riveted to every word each character utters.

The ensemble cast is a pleasure to watch, especially Mr. Thompson as Becker, Mr. Dirden as Booster and Mr. Potts as Turnbo. Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s direction allows each character to shine, but the use of jagged jazz music inserted into certain scenes seems unnecessary and awkward. Regardless, this is a brilliant production of a story that, although set in 1977, has enough timeless appeal and human themes to more than ring true in 2017

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published January 22, 2017
Reviewed at press performance on January 21, 2017

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: (Left to right) John Douglas Thompson, Michael Potts, Anthony Chisholm & Brandon J. Dirden. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: Andre Holland & Ray Anthony Thomas. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: John Douglas Thompson & Michael Potts. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: Andre Holland & Carra Patterson. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: Andre Holland & Carra Patterson. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: Brandon J. Dirden & John Douglas Thompson. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: Michael Potts, Anthony Chisholm & Keith Randolph Smith. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY’: Keith Randolph Smith & Harvy Blanks. Photo: Joan Marcus

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‘THE CRUCIBLE’: (Left to right) Ben Whishaw & Tavi Gavinson & cast. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

THE CRUCIBLE
Written by Arthur Miller
Directed by Ivo Van Hove
Through July 17, 2017
Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th Street
(877-250-2929) www.TheCrucibleOnBroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

Whether one understands Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s modern spin on Arthur Miller’s 1953 masterpiece about the 1692 Salem witch trials, complete with a spooky, ambient score by Philip Glass, seems almost irrelevant. Why? The material is so brilliantly written, it literally leaves us spellbound. This is Mr. Miller’s most complex work, and Mr. van Hove overlooks (if not ignores) the allegorical subtext about the early 1950s McCarthy-era Communist “red scare” in America many believe the show parallels. Instead, the focus is on the paranormal and the creep factor, from eerie lighting to a levitating girl, ominous wind, flickering candles, a lone wolf/dog on stage, and scribbled messages on a classroom chalkboard. Granted, this interpretation is unorthodox and infused with the European sensibility Mr. van Hove used in last fall’s revival of another Arthur Miller classic, A View from the Bridge. Mr. van Hove’s touches may seem affected, but this remains a gripping, intense piece of theater, even at nearly three hours long.

In step with the current trend in retooling classics, the cast sports modern clothes, with the young girls dressed in parochial school uniforms, and cast members drinking coffee dispensed from a 21st century thermos. However, it’s easy to look beyond the surface here and instead focus on Mr. Miller’s tense narrative about real-life events in late-17-century Massachusetts, and how false accusations and government corruption, coupled with religious fanaticism, result in a horrifying outcome. Allegations of “witchcraft” in Salem certainly have similarities with the red-baiting of the 1950s, and perhaps with all the finger-pointing and scare tactics modern politicians use to persuade the masses on the campaign trail.

The accusations begin when a group of local girls allegedly frolicked in a nocturnal “Satanic” ritual in the woods with a Caribbean slave, Tituba (Jenny Jules). After being caught by Reverend Samuel Parris (Jason Butler Harner), his daughter Betty (Elizabeth Teeter) falls into what appears to be a coma-like trance.

The “mean girls” of Salem give some of the show’s best performances. Saoirse Ronan (fresh from her Oscar-nominated performance in Brooklyn) is first rate as Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris’s niece and the girls’ ringleader. With her manic mannerisms and ghoulish features, Ms. Ronan is the perfect demonic catalyst for the trumped-up charges. She is the devil incarnate indeed. Equally disturbing is Tavi Gevinson (This is Our Youth) as Mary Warren, the young house servant who eventually tries, unsuccessfully, to prove the girls are lying.

Ciarán Hinds is excellent as Deputy Governor Danforth, the sanctimonious judge who precipitates the ultimate fate of the accused. Fine portrayals are also given by Bill Camp as Reverend John Hale, and Broadway veteran Jim Norton as Giles Corey, husband of one of the accused.

However, there are inconsistencies in the casting of other roles. Ben Whishaw is often passionate as accused farmer John Proctor—a tough role indeed, played in the past by everyone from Daniel Day Lewis to Liam Neeson—but he has little chemistry with wife Elizabeth (played by Oscar nominee and Tony Award winner Sophie Okonedo). Ms. Okonedo, while a great actress, is miscast here.

This revival won’t please Arthur Miller purists. In fact, it might outrage some. Regardless, the most telling aspect of The Crucible is how much the message of what some see as “good” vs. “evil”—and the ways lives can be ruined with slander and lies—holds up today, even in a production as unconventional as this. Be prepared to be bewitched, bothered and (thanks to director Ivo van Hove) possibly bewildered by Arthur Miller’s haunting masterpiece.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 8, 2016
Reviewed at press performance on April 7, 2016

‘THE CRUCIBLE’: Elizabeth Teeter, Saoirse Ronan & Tavi Gavinson. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

‘THE CRUCIBLE’: (left to right) Elizabeth Teeter, Saoirse Ronan, Tavi Gevinson, Ashlei Sharp Chesnut & Erin Wilhelmi. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

‘THE CRUCIBLE’: Ben Whishaw & Tavi Gevinson. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

‘THE CRUCIBLE’: Ben Whishaw, Tavi Gevinson & cast. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

‘THE CRUCIBLE’: Sophie Okonedo & Ben Whishaw. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

‘THE CRUCIBLE’: Saoirse Ronan & Ben Whishaw. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

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