How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
"Clybourne Park"
Some of this year's best plays have seemed more like collections of shorter pieces — fragmentary narratives taking place across multiple historical periods. What makes the good ones more than an evening of one-acts are the living, evolving central characters. "Clybourne Park" by Bruce Norris, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons, interrogates race through two generations in the same neighborhood.
The first act is standard enough — uptight white denizens hemming and hawing over the inclusion of a black family in their neighborhood in the '50s — but the second half of the show flips everything. Not only is it set in the present, in the exact same house that has been defiled by time and delinquents, but now the "problem family" is white. Furthermore, though the same cast reappears in new roles, not every actor portrays the descendant of his or her prior role.
It takes the audience an extra leap to comprehend the self-righteous racist from Act I becoming the victim in Act II, but the heightened irony only strengthens Norris' darkly funny tale. The "then and now" approach is fresh and keeps the story moving at a fast clip. The revelations are crisp and shocking.
"Clybourne Park" played at Playwrights Horizons (416 W. 42nd St.) through March 21
— Natalie Zutter
"A Behanding in Spokane"
One of the best plays of the year is undoubtedly Martin McDonagh's "A Behanding in Spokane." Directed by John Crowley and set in a suitably grimy hotel room, the story revolves around Carmichael (Christopher Walken), a man who had his hand cut off 40 years ago and has been looking for it ever since.
Hoping to trick him and receive his reward money, a couple (Anthony Mackie and Zoe Kazan) steal a hand and deliver it to Carmichael. However, Carmichael is not deceived and the attempt to sell him the wrong hand results in a mess of suspense-filled and darkly hilarious events.
Despite the all-star cast, the actors manage to melt into their roles, so the shock of being in the same theater as Christopher Walken dies down once his comically sinister character appears. Sam Rockwell also does a terrific job playing Mervyn, a hotel clerk who ponders oftentimes-peculiar questions and has his own debts to settle with Mackie.
In one shady hotel room, anything and everything happens, including gunfire, gasoline, a mysterious suitcase and a persistent phone call. It's a show that cannot be slept through. It's also masterfully paced and structured, beginning right where it ends.
"A Behanding in Spokane" is playing at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater (236 W. 45 St.) through June 6. Tickets ($61.50-121.50) are available via telecharge.com or by calling 212.239.6200. Rush tickets ($26.50) may be available at the box office when it opens.
— Julia Pugachevsky
"In the Next Room, or the vibrator play"
Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room, or the vibrator play" was easily one of the best on Broadway this year, and yes, the play is actually about what the title says. Ruhl sets the play in the 1880s — a time in which doctors treated women diagnosed with hysteria with electric pulses to their nether regions. They thought they were releasing their tension. That's one word for it.
The play has some hilarious moments, and the entire cast has spot-on comedic timing. Half the stage is set in the consulting room of Dr. Givings, and the other half in the sitting room with his wife. The stage is clearly separated by a wall, physicalizing the notion that neither husband nor wife trespasses in the other's domain.
Though on the surface the play seems to be a farce, there are much deeper questions about gender relations and motherhood buried within it. The play's main concern is embodied in that wall — in the notion that people separate themselves from one another in order to satisfy rigid social conventions.
The play is a seamless weaving of the comedic and the serious, culminating in the most breathtaking, fantastical final sequence that has taken place on a stage in quite a while.
"In The Next Room, or the vibrator play" played at the Lyceum Theatre (149 W. 45th St.) through Jan. 10 .
— Monica Skoko
"A Lie of the Mind"
"A Lie of the Mind," Sam Shepard's most acclaimed work, was given the royal treatment by director Ethan Hawke, whose star-studded cast imbued their characters with intense emotion. This primal story is rendered on a cinematic scope, with perfect pulsing mood music and Hollywood talent.
The story is simple: A man, the unbalanced Jake (Alessandro Nivola), believes he has killed his wife Beth (Marin Ireland) in a fit of blind rage. He retreats to his childhood California home with his mother Lorraine (Karen Young), while his brother Frank (Josh Hamilton) tries to find Beth and discover what really happened.
Seasoned film and theater pros Keith Carradine and Laurie Metcalf are great (along with everyone else) as Beth's parents. Unusually for Shepard, the women are written with immense complexity, and it is fascinating to watch them struggle alongside the men.
Everything coheres in a compelling and perceptive production. The violence (talked about more than seen) is eclipsed by the play's poetry. It hit me square in the gut.
"A Lie of the Mind" played at The Acorn Theater at Theatre Row (410 W. 42nd St..) through March 20.
— Jessica Kramer
