Weekly Margin 2023, W9: Crumbs from the Table of Joy, The Coast Starlight, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, Phèdre, Kiss, The Gondoliers

2/22/23: Crumbs from the Table of Joy

What: Keen Company presents a revival of Lynn Nottage's memory play about two young Black teenage sisters in the 1950s whose born-again father relocates them from Pensacola to Brooklyn.

And? Perhaps not my favorite Lynn Nottage play, but her writing is always worth my time. Shanel Bailey and Malika Samuel are especially good as the two sisters, Ernestine and Ermina.

Shanel Bailey and Malika Samuel as Ernestine Crump and Ermina Crump.
Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

2/24/23: The Coast Starlight

What: Lincoln Center presents a new play by Keith Bunin, about six strangers on an overnight train to Seattle, and their imagined interactions as they wrestle with what to do with their lives.

And? I loved it. I don't want to get too much into plot, because spoilers but also because part of the treat of this play is the slow unpacking of each character. I love when theater plays with liminal space, the heartbreak of the what-if moments that never happened, the endless possible futures spiraling out. With each beat I found myself investing more. The cast is a bit uneven, but not enough that it detracts from the performance itself. The lighting design doesn't always offer the full coverage the show needs (if you're going to have actors address all angles of the curving thrust stage, you need to light their faces when you do it), but still makes some compelling and affecting choices. If I had one bigger complaint about the play, it would be that for all that we have a diverse cast, at the end it is the white male's story and its outcome that are held as the central focus for the rest of the characters. It's still a really cool play and it's the first new-to-me show I've seen since the new year that I've fallen hard for.

The company of The Coast Starlight. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

2/25/23: The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window

What: BAM revives Lorraine Hansberry's final Broadway play, about misguided idealism and the importance of self-knowledge. Sidney Brustein, a bohemian in 1960s New York with failed enterprise after failed enterprise, has acquired a small newspaper and is persuaded to use it to support the campaign of a reform politician. All the while his verbal sparring with his aspiring actress wife Iris grows sharper and more cruel as they both start to realize that neither is who they intended to be.

And? With the big reminder that everything I write on this here blog is subjective, I think I loved it. This is a play I've known for a long time, having stage managed a university production of it almost twenty years ago (in fact, Anne Kaufman, who directs this production, was the faculty mentor on that one). So I went in already knowing the story, the arc, the discoveries, but I was here to see it told again. Oscar Isaac is a damn gift. Everyone knows what a fine film actor he is, but he is truly alive onstage in a way that many seasoned theater actors are not. He is so completely the character that you forget he isn't always like this, until you take the time to remember Ex Machina or Agora or, well, Moon Knight. Rachel Brosnahan also acquits herself well as Iris, particularly in her act two monologues. Other treats include Miriam Silverman as Iris's uptown sister Mavis (a sneakily good role that no one notices until an actor knocks it out of the park; we had a really good Mavis in our production too), and Andy Grotelueschen as politician Wally. I started this write up by reminding us all that what I write here is subjective. That's because, despite the 3hr runtime (and my current physical discomfort with sitting), I was engrossed and invested and so grateful to be seeing this show--I think I will always be won over by a story about someone discovering their best self; however, I heard a number of people around me complaining about the length or about why they should care about the characters onstage. I can't answer that for them, and it's too bad this show isn't for everyone. But considering I'm seeing it again in a week when my mom visits, I'm glad it was for me.

Streaming Theater Related Content I Watched

• Red Bull Theater's reading of Phèdre.
• Wilma Theater's filmed production of Kiss.
• NYGASP's 2022 production of The Gondoliers.