Angsty-girl plays have been flourishing on New York stages, and in several of these ensemble dramas, the characters use music to let out their frustrations—see, for example, the group dance breaks in John Proctor Is the Villain, All Nighter and the just-extendedDad Don’t Read This. For the title characters of Eisa Davis’ disarming ||:Girls:|| ||:Chance:|| ||:Music:||, though, music represents more than a release. It’s their way of communicating, of making sense of their world, of discovering just what they’re capable of and what (and who) they truly care about.
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down is New York City’s third exposure to the antic stagecraft of Xhloe and Natasha, who write, perform, co-direct, and design and recently snagged major prizes in three consecutive years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. These Gen-Z collaborators (full names Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland) deploy their well-honed professional skills—acting, clowning, dance, acrobatics, and stand-up—with astonishing energy and rugged charm. As writers, their stock-in-trade is a skeptical reassessment of myths about American history. As performers, their mission is to challenge those entrenched falsehoods in a style that’s more imagistic than analytic and informed by Theater of the Absurd.
Abigail Pickard Price’s production of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield may not include all the great characters of the 800-plus pages of the novel, but her exciting adaptation (with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches) for the Guildford Shakespeare Company is not to be missed.
Eljon Wardally’s Blooming in Dry Season turns a family dispute over a daughter’s future into a moving examination of ambition, sacrifice, and the burdens parents pass to their children. Over the course of two acts, layers of conflict gradually emerge, deepening one’s understanding of the characters’ lives. Wardally skillfully builds suspense through subtle clues that reveal the emotional toll hidden beneath the characters’ seemingly happy lives, and director Jackie Alexander paces the production adroitly and guides the powerful performances of an excellent cast.
Girl, Interrupted comes in a choice of formats. Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir is a flippant quick read with an irresistible neurotic edge. The 1999 movie version features Angelina Jolie chewing the scenery around a quietly intense Winona Ryder. “Queens of the Summer Hotel,” the 2021 album by indie star Aimee Mann, is a collection of songs inspired by the book, its sweet melodies belying the dark undertone of its lyrics. Her tunes were originally meant to serve as the score of a staged musical, and now, after a COVID-era delay, they have arrived at the Public Theater as the backbone of a new work, with Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Martyna Majok faithfully adapting Kaysen’s story, if not her impudent attitude.
Some plays tell stories; 73 Seconds excavates silences. In this haunting and ambitious solo work, writer and performer Jared Mezzocchi traces his mother Rosemary’s hidden connection to NASA to explore the fragile constellations of family memory, loss, and unrealized possibility. Sensitively staged by director Aya Ogawa inside the 64-seat planetarium at the Lower Eastside Girls Club, Mezzocchi’s autobiographical narrative is structured in three movements.
Four employees of investment bank Friedman Wallace gather for an “affinity group” meeting. Their affinity? They are women of Chinese descent. Yet Alex Lin chose to name her new play Chinese Republicans. Consider it the first sign of dissonance in Lin’s ineffectual script.
Oratorio for Living Things, Heather Christian’s new music-theater piece, was supposed to open on March 30, 2020. Two weeks before that, New York City’s playhouses closed precipitately in response to Covid-19. On the second anniversary of the aborted premiere, Oratorio has returned. After 24 months of isolation and loss, there’s a miraculous feel to this piece of theater.
