‘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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DIVA & HER DAUGHTER: Linda Lavin & Jennifer Westfeldt in ‘Too Much Sun.’ Photo: Carol Rosegg

TOO MUCH SUN
Written by Nicky Silver
Directed by Mark Brokaw
Through June 22, 2014
Vineyard Theatre
108 East 15th Street
(212 353-0303), www.vineyardtheatre.org

By Scott Harrah

Prolific Off-Broadway playwright Nicky Silver has been compared to everyone from Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton to Christopher Durang because, like those men of theatrical letters, Mr. Silver writes dark farces with crisp, whimsical dialogue for larger-than-life characters, twisting around clichés about parents and their offspring, in an attempt to understand the complexities of family. There is a lot of Wildean wit indeed and shades of Noël Coward in Too Much Sun, one of Mr. Silver’s most simplistic and funniest plays to date.

It may sound silly to say the legendary Linda Lavin is his muse, but this is the second Nicky Silver play in which she stars, and she’s never been more wonderfully acerbic. Like her character in Mr. Silver’s first Broadway show, The Lyons (for which she received a Tony nomination), Ms. Lavin once again plays a demanding but unorthodox Jewish mother. Here she is also a thespian, but Ms. Lavin’s Audrey is no Sara Bernhardt and not exactly a nurturing mom, either.  Ms. Lavin knows how to deftly extract every drop of demanding-diva spunk from her character, the outrageous aging actress Audrey Langham, for well-earned laughs. In the prologue, Audrey is having a breakdown while in a Chicago rehearsal for Medea. She is absurdly made up, kvetching over everything she despises about the show to her director, particularly the too-glamorous, colorful Medea gown she’s forced to wear. “I feel like I walked out of The Radio City Christmas Spectacular,” she groans.

The action then segues to a seaside cottage on Cape Cod, as Audrey’s daughter, Kitty (Jennifer Westfeldt) and her 40-year-old husband, an advertising man/wannabe novelist, Dennis (Ken Barnett), are dealing with her mom’s arrival.  Dennis has come to the Cape to finally write a sci-fi novel, while Kitty is a bundle of nerves over how she’s going to cope with her mother’s visit.

They have unusual year-round neighbors: Lucas (Matt Dickson), a carefree, gay marijuana dealer planning to go to UCLA in the fall, and currently living with his father, Winston (Richard Bekins), a well-to-do widower who is obsessed with India and the romance of the British Raj.

Everyone on this particular “Cape of Good Hope” is under the bewitching spell of summer, when expectations in the breezy Massachusetts sun run high as people shed inhibitions and secrets are divulged. The characters are exaggerated but never one-dimensional, and Too Much Sun mines a lot of irony from stereotypes and the dysfunctional essence of modern American families.  When Audrey finally appears, she announces that she’s quit Medea, and she is the only one in the group who genuinely knows what she wants. Her arrival sets off a series of events, with funny but often predictable results.

In Nicky Silver’s mirthfully insane world, everyone is pretending to be carefree, yet somehow they are not. The characters are wrapped up in the make-believe of summer, when the temperature, emotions and hormones all make them irrational in the heat.  Kitty and Dennis appear to be happy, while Lucas wants everyone to believe he is satisfied being a dope dealer. Also present is Gil (Matt Dellapina), the high-strung assistant to Audrey’s agent. Meanwhile, Gil is there to persuade Audrey to return to Chicago and Medea.  As in most Nicky Silver plays, there is the standard gay twist.

Mr. Silver’s narrative delves into comedy, soap opera and drama all at once, and audiences of a certain age will appreciate jokes ranging from digs at Aldo Ray (remember him?) and Jacqueline Susann to industry zingers about Tennessee Williams and the theater in general.

Director Mark Brokaw extracts outstanding performances from the gifted ensemble.  Jennifer Westfeldt gives a poignant portrayal of Kitty, a woman who has been frustrated by her mother for years.  As Dennis, Ken Barnett is remarkable as a man going through the proverbial midlife crisis.  Matt Dickson imbues young Lucas with the right mix of youthful glee, inner turmoil and rebelliousness. Richard Bekins has an air of quiet dignity and wistfulness as Winston, and Matt Dellapina has sharp comic timing as the lovable nebbish, Gil.

Too Much Sun is not a perfect play, as the ending feels contrived. Yet it would be petty to fault the show over Mr. Silver’s epilogue. As lighthearted fare, there’s plenty of crackling dialogue and enough feel-good spirit to delight audiences all summer long.

NOT YOUR TYPICAL JEWISH MOTHER: Linda Lavin in ‘Too Much Sun.’ Photo: Carol Rosegg

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 18, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on May 17, 2014

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