Ulster American, David Ireland’s reworking of his 2016 play, wants to shock from the moment it begins, with two ostensibly progressive white men discussing whether it’s acceptable for white people to reclaim the N-word as their own. The play seems to position itself as a no-holds-barred satire, steeped in the cynicism of David Mamet and Martin McDonagh. But what exactly is being satirized and to what end? A rare miss for the Irish Rep and for the great Ciarán O’Reilly, who directs, Ulster American never moves past the surface of its faux-bad-boy persona; it’s a satire too lazy to be satirical and with humor too juvenile to actually offend.
There are, a variety of sources have it, no legitimate rhymes for “orange.” But get a load of: “Yes, I know it feels foreign/ Just to suck a week-old Mandarin orange.” In About Time, the new revue at the Marjorie S. Deane, Richard Maltby Jr. does it. And he’s 88.
The Frog & Peach Theatre Company—fancifully named for a classic comedy sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore—has been producing William Shakespeare’s plays on shoestring budgets for three decades. Currently, this scrappy Manhattan troupe is promoting its presentation of Macbeth with the tag line: “What if a madman were king?” That’s cheeky marketing that captures the directorial vision of Lynnea Benson, who’s at the helm.
Calf Scramble, the title of Libby Carr’s dynamic new work, is a double entendre. On one hand, it is an event, familiar to many a rodeo goer, that features teens chasing and roping calves to take home and raise as potentially profitable livestock. On the other hand, it is a fitting description of the play’s intent. Five high school girls find themselves as penned in by their circumstances as the calves are by their metal fences. The animalism of humans becomes jumbled with the humanity of animals, and if, at times, Carr lays on the symbolism with a heavy hoof, one must remember that the play is set in Texas, where everything is bigger, including the metaphors.
It’s 1987 and the Cold War is in the air at Roll-a-Rama in Syracuse, N.Y. Ten-year-old Meek (Alana Raquel Bowers) lives above the family business with her former Black Panther father, Smooch (Will Cobbs), and grandmother Puddin (Lizan Mitchell). When she’s not shoveling snow in exchange for candy, Meek is occupied with stocking her fallout shelter and singing in a Cold War–themed children’s choir, the Seedlings of Peace, much to her father’s chagrin. This is the world of Ro Reddick’s Cold War Choir Practice. What’s exciting about this play is that it feels sui generis: it’s part farce, part family drama, part surreal global-political meditation, and part musical.
The Marcel Marceau that most people, or at least most theater aficionados, know was one of the world’s greatest mimes. As Bip, a lovable, quirky, charming clown, he regaled audiences with a worn top hat from which protruded a floppy red flower. Marceau’s vulnerable and self-effacing persona, though, was but a thin veil obscuring his heroism during World War II, as recounted in Marshall Pailet and Ethan Slater’s Marcel on the Train.
Midlife crisis looms large in The Man from Nebraska, a 2003 play by Pulitzer Prize–winner Tracy Letts (August: Osage County). In a series of swift, short scenes, barely punctuated by dialogue, or rather weighted down by silence, Letts delineates the life of the title character, the retired Ken Carpenter—a terrific Reed Birney. His retirement is spent eating at Outback Steakhouse with his wife, Nancy (Annette O’Toole, in an unshowy part rife with anguish and bewilderment), attending church together, and visiting his mother, Cammie, in a nursing home, where she suffers from either dementia or Alzheimer’s. They also see their daughter, Ashley, who lives nearby, although his granddaughter, Natalie, lives farther away.
