On the tiny stage of Irish Rep’s basement Studio Theatre, two women sit at a cafe table catching up on their lives. The Approach has a cast of three, and the pairing of women changes for each scene. This Dublin-set play centered solely on women talking with one another is written and directed by men (Mark O’Rowe and Conor Bagley, respectively)—and, alas, for a good portion of its 70-minute run time, it fails the Bechdel test.
Scorched Earth, a dance theater piece created, directed and choreographed by Luke Murphy, asks, “What does it take to be of a place?” At the center of the play is the tension between William Dean (Will Thompson), a confident new arrival in a rural Irish community, and John McKay (Luke Murphy), a local tenant who lives on land that is up for auction. The work digs into territorialism and the violence that can occur over land disputes.
Bent Through Glass, written and performed by Alex Koltchak, transforms unimaginable loss into a work of emotional clarity, as a grieving father traces the aftershocks of his daughter’s suicide with unflinching honesty. Under the sensitive direction of Michael Sladek, this deeply personal solo piece becomes not only a testament to anguish, but a quietly radiant affirmation of love’s endurance, shaped by Koltchak’s willingness to bare his soul.
Though apparently popular in its own time, Titus Andronicus (ca. 1592), Shakespeare’s first tragedy, and his bloodiest, hasn’t enjoyed much esteem since. One 17th-century playwright declared it a “heap of rubbish”; T.S. Eliot thought it “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written.” Others conveniently decided that something so barbarous could not have been written by Shakespeare (although it likely contains some material by the dramatist George Peele, there is no doubt of Shakespeare’s authorship of the bulk of the play). It’s a good thing, then, that Red Bull Theater, led by Jesse Berger, was undeterred: Berger directs a harrowing, and funny, production of the play, featuring a ferocious Patrick Page in the title role.
Just what is John Patrick Shanley, a major playwright and screenwriter, doing at the Chain Theatre, a black box on the third floor of a dowdy Garment District office building? Premiering a lesser work, that’s what. Much lesser. The Pushover, his frenetic new drama, might generously be described as an exploration of good vs. evil, a character study of troubled individuals struggling to wriggle free of the personas they’ve created for themselves, or a noirish crime caper. Mostly, what’s on the small Chain stage is three romantically entangled women, arguing, acting out, and pulling power plays on one another. It’s very loud, even without miking, and while there are intimate moments and the occasional arresting snatch of Shanley dialogue, the tone seldom varies from harsh and antagonistic.
On the tiny stage of Irish Rep’s basement Studio Theatre, two women sit at a cafe table catching up on their lives. The Approach has a cast of three, and the pairing of women changes for each scene. This Dublin-set play centered solely on women talking with one another is written and directed by men (Mark O’Rowe and Conor Bagley, respectively)—and, alas, for a good portion of its 70-minute run time, it fails the Bechdel test.
