Weekly Margin 2026, W19: The Emporium, The Fear of 13, The Censorship of Dreams, The Totality of All Things

5/05/26: The Emporium

What: Classic Stage Company presents Thornton Wilder's unfinished final play about a young orphaned man who dreams of working at an enigmatic department store called The Emporium. Everything is profoundly metatheatrical and self-aware.

And? It's pretty slow, and requires patience for the way in which the story is told. A number of people left at intermission, so it's definitely not for everyone, but I was interested enough to stick around for the whole show. Some of the self-awareness gets a bit twee, and I do wish we could have had Wilder's full intended version of the play, rather than this combination of his drafts and notes and Kirk Lynn's completion of the script. It's a bittersweet exploration of idealism and compromise, and the eternal promise of trying again, and maybe getting it right next time. It lands a bit unsatisfactorily at the end, but I'm still glad I saw the show.

Eva Kaminsky, Derek Smith, Candy Buckley, 
and Mahira Kakkar. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.

5/06/26: The Fear of 13

What: Based on David Sington's documentary, Lindsey Ferrentino's play traces volunteer Jacki Miles's series of visits to Nick Yarris, a man on death row for a murder he claims he didn't commit. Through their conversations, both in person and later over the phone, the play offers a non-linear lookback on the tumultuous youth of Yarris and the poor decisions that led him to spending two decades in prison.

And? David Cromer truly is an excellent director, consistently crafting ensembles into one beautifully cohesive entity, all telling the same story and in the same world (this may sound like a "duh Zelda, that's what directing is," but the last time I saw Tessa Thompson on stage, she and her costars were all awful and because they were all awful in the same way, I blame that director). Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson do excellent work leading the cast, both performers offering quietly understated but deeply felt portrayals of Nick and Jacki. There's one scene in particular, as they're both struggling to keep that stiff upper lip in the face of a new devastation, that just broke my heart. It's also always a treat to see Ephraim Sykes and Eddie Cooper onstage, albeit in small roles, especially when they're able to let their voices fly. Arnulfo Maldonado's scenic design, especially under Heather Gilbert's precise lighting, is evocating and haunting without overwhelming the story being told (but goddamn, that one stool ... the final moment with that stool kind of wrecked me). The play itself inside these strong storytelling elements is fine, though some moments feel shoehorned in to achieve faithful adherence to the narrative of the documentary, rather than taking narrative liberties that come with any adaptation, to tell a coherent story.

The  cast of The Fear of 13. Photo by Emilio Madrid.

Margin Notes: The Censorship of Dreams

The Censorship of Dreams

Seen on: Thursday, 5/07/26.

Jess Dugger as Ellie and Kat Warnusz-Steckel
as Professional. Photo by Marina Levitskaya.

Plot

In a time not too far from now, society exists under an increasingly restricted vocabulary: citizens, with no memory of the time before the Restart, go to the "Post Office" to sell their dreams, and receive daily words on little slips of paper, to eat and immediately forget. The stated goal is the erasure of conflict and dissatisfaction, but the central couple, Thomas and Ellie, struggle to navigate their relationship with each other and with the world, when they have fewer and fewer words with which to do so.

Thoughts:

As the audience enters the space we see an uncanny valley display of a couple at home in spartan domesticity: two school desks face each other, and a young woman in a mint green cardigan (a sweet and nervy Jess Dugger) sits in one, sipping from a clear square glass of water. A young man in an autumn polo (an earnest and bewildered Bryce Michael Wood) paces in slow motion the inner perimeter of their white-painted floor. Encasing them both, like bars on a cage at the zoo, are plastic strips covered in lines of text, the most notable reading in large font "DON'T LET THE PRINTER EAT YOU." Further surrounding the couple's cage are low barriers, as if to prevent the audience from getting too close to an art piece in a museum. And there, against one side of the space, the stepped platforms normally used for audience seating now display pair after pair of used shoes, low-lit as if they are rare books at the Morgan Library. Scenic and lighting designer Christopher Annas-Lee has built a mysterious puzzle box, a display case of humanity preserved by a docent who doesn't quite remember the meaning behind the moment. Is this a place from which the characters can escape to a life more like the one we know now? Or is this all that's left of a dying society, struggling through the last gasps before extinction?

Weekly Margin 2026, W18: The Lost Boys, You & Me, Bat Out of Hell, Merrily We Roll Along

4/28/26: The Lost Boys

What: A new musical adaptation of the classic 80s film about vampires.

And? Honestly? I had a great time. Is it a great show for the ages? Debatable. Did I stop listening to lyrics half the time? Maybe. Are the central couple strong actors or can they just sing really well? Very much the second option. Did the final moment annoy me deeply, only to be chased by a post-bow moment that annoyed me even more? Yeah you betcha yeah.

But really, I had a great time. Fantastic stagecraft, especially as it takes advantage of how damn tall the Palace is, both from an audience perspective and the stage itself. We were midway up the mezzanine and still had a great view, with the staging and design utilizing to great advantage three different levels of their scaffolded set. The flying looked fantastic and not even silly. David (the blond Kiefer Sutherland vampire) was properly threatening and charismatic--Ali Louis Bourzgui can do no wrong, as far as I can tell. The show leans into the campier aspects unapologetically, especially in the ridiculous Act Two opener (no spoilers). The Frog Brothers (Jennifer Duka and Miguel Gil) are delightful, younger brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) is adorakable, Paul Alexander Nolan perfectly walks the subtle line of video store owner Max, and the always-excellent Shoshana Bean belts to the ceiling and back again. I don't remember the film well enough to speak to the musical's faithfulness to the source material, but Sax Guy is there, and they successfully translate a film's three-act structure into a musical's two-act structure.

So, a few nits to pick, mentioned above, but still fun theater.

LJ Benet as Michael and Ali Louis Bourzgui as David, with
the cast of The Lost Boys. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

4/29/26: You & Me

What: A year after college student Delilah opened fire on campus, killing eleven people before killing herself, friends of both the murderer and the deceased gather for a memorial at their local diner. Attendees include Delilah's twin sister Chloe, her ex-girlfriend Mac, and a movie star in town to research an upcoming role. Over the course of one day, Chloe continues her pursuit to uncover why her sister did what she did, and friends and enemies alike reveal damning truths along the way.

And? full review here.

Courtnie Keaton as Mac and Brianne Buishas as Chloe.
Photo by Filip Rucewicz.

Margin Notes: You & Me

You & Me

Courtnie Keaton as Mac and Brianne
Buishas as Chloe. Photo by Filip Rucewicz.

Seen on: Wednesday, 4/29/26.

Plot Summary

A year after college student Delilah opened fire on campus, killing eleven people before killing herself, friends of both the murderer and the deceased gather for a memorial at their local diner. Attendees include Delilah's twin sister Chloe, her ex-girlfriend Mac, and a movie star in town to research an upcoming role. Over the course of one day, Chloe continues her pursuit to uncover why her sister did what she did, and friends and enemies alike reveal damning truths along the way.

Thoughts:

I'll be honest, I wish I didn't have a visceral sense memory of watching the news about a mass shooting in my hometown, frantically calling my mom and friends to see if they were alive. I wish I didn't have a more recent memory of the same trauma with coworkers at my office last year. Horribly, I'm sure I'm not the only audience member reliving a memory like that while watching the characters onstage live through it, too. What's awful about an incident like this is not just that your world changes completely, irrevocably -- the solid ground you thought you knew now an unsteady raft in a churning ocean -- but how the world keeps going anyway. Life keeps going. You keep going. You may be frozen inside, but you're still breathing and eating and your eyes blink and your feet move you from place to place. Playwright and director Anthony M. Laura's work wrestles with that internal division: Chloe is unable to move on from the moment her sister destroyed the world, thinking if she can only pause that moment, or even rewind, she could find a way to, if not undo, at least understand what happened. But she's surrounded by people attempting to move forward with their lives, to find new paths and meaning beyond the worst thing that ever happened to them. Mac is leaving town, Leighton wants to go into politics, Paris is selling her family diner, Ellie is going to RADA, and Aurora has already left town and gotten engaged. And Theo, the man who gave Delilah the guns, is nowhere to be found. They're not all in the acceptance stage of their grief by any means, but Chloe is the only one perpetually lost in the bargaining stage.

Weekly Margin 2026, W17: What Happened Was ..., Every Brilliant Thing, Becky Shaw, The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington

4/21/26: What Happened Was ...

What: Audible's Minetta Lane Theatre presents a revival of Tom Noonan's two-hander about an awkward first date between two coworkers who both feel a bit at sea in a life that hasn't turned out how they thought it would.

And? Great performances from both Corey Stoll and Cecily Strong, particularly Strong's reading of her character's grim and explicit "children's story." I appreciate that the play doesn't attempt to land on a sweet button that has not been earned by the preceding moments. Instead, it chooses to highlight the persisting loneliness of both characters, whether or not they will ultimately be able to cross their divide to find companionship in each other.

Corey Stoll as Michael and Cecily Strong as Jackie.
Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

4/22/26: Every Brilliant Thing

What: Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's one-person interactive show, currently starring Daniel Radcliffe (but soon to be starring Mariska Hargitay), about a young man's attempt to reckon with his mother's recurring uncompleted suicides and his own depression, by making a list of "every brilliant thing" that makes life better. A number of audience members are drafted, to either read out individually numbered brilliant things (number one is ice cream), or to play characters in the young man's life, including father, spouse, and a nice couple in a hospital who give him a juice box (which he promptly returns because he doesn't like it).

And? Radcliffe is everything charming, a ball of energy whose battery never seems to peter out, even when getting into the heavier parts of the story. But in all honesty, even with its purportedly heavy topic, the play itself never feels that heavy. The concept/conceit of the show is exciting, but suffers in execution (it's often hard to hear the brilliant things being called out by audience members, and the audience-character-stand ins are, of course, inconsistent). And the whole thing just lacks a certain heft for it to really follow me home. I'm not saying I needed the gut punch of Macmillan's other work, People, Places and Things, but PPT knew how to land satisfyingly. EBT has a lighter heart than PPT, but it should still be able to land satisfyingly. It was a fine time, but not a great time.

Daniel Radcliffe. Photo by Matthew Murphy.