Margin Notes: Belly

Belly

Seen on: Friday, 7/24/26.

Plot and Background

In advance of its run in Edinburgh, Reilly O'Shaughnessy's one woman show Belly runs briefly at 59E59. Belly tells the interwoven narratives of Ellie, a teenager on the swim team whose coach advises her to follow a strict (starvation) diet and exercise routine in order to win a scholarship; Katie, Ellie's aunt, currently expecting her first child and worried she will somehow ruin her fetus's health by eating the wrong food or gaining too much weight; and Susan, Katie's mother and Ellie's grandmother, a grieving widow who keeps to a very strict diet and unconsciously reinforces unhealthy attitudes toward body size and dieting on her descendants. Playwright/performer O'Shaughnessy periodically breaks the fourth wall as herself throughout the narrative of these three women as they struggle with body image issues, grief, and eating disorders, to discuss her own personal experience with them herself.

Thoughts:

"Is there a food that makes you feel safe?" Reilly asks the audience and answers for herself: while in recovery for her eating disorder, Honey Nut Cheerios felt safe to eat. Even as O'Shaughnessy's play tells three specific stories -- and a bit of her own -- it also easily opens the door for the audience to contemplate their own history with body dysmorphia, fear of weight gain, fear of failure, fatphobia in the medical field and in schools, generational diet culture, and the overwhelming sensation in society that one must make oneself as small as possible in order to be considered worthy. It's all profoundly relatable. The euphoria of seeing the number on the scale go down, of feeling proud of sticking to a diet, but always chased so quickly by intrusive thoughts of being "bad" for craving or even consuming sugar, of failure when the number on the scale goes up. Throughout the seventy-minute show I could hear people crying and sniffling, not only for the grief of the characters onstage but also for their own history. While Ellie struggles with her declining health, she remembers "I used to be able to feel my edges in the pool. Like, be able to feel where I was, where I started, where I stopped ... And now? I can't feel anything."

Margin Notes: American, Italian

American, Italian

Seen on: Monday, 5/11/26.

Donovan Counts as Gio and
Dante Palminteri as Vin.
Photo by Grace Romanello.

Plot and Background

SOOP Theatre presents the world premiere of Anthony P. Pennino's new play, as part of The Chain Theatre's 2026 The Factory Series. Pennino's play follows a family of second- and third-generation Italians in the 1980s, focusing on teenager cousins Gio and Vin navigating the expectations of their fathers and their own inner demons. As Vin descends into addiction, Gio tries to keep him from drowning.

Thoughts:

Pennino's play feels deeply personal: a study of an Italian family who still very much feel the invisible wall between "white" America and their relatively new status, not yet allowed past their conditional stage. This is a family afraid of failure but taking pride in the success of Italian Americans like Frank Sinatra and Mayor LaGuardia. While 17-year-old Gio is supported in his academic ambitions by his father Frank, 19-year-old Vin is regularly abused, both verbally and physically, by Frank's older brother Vincenzo. White collar Frank creates space for autistic Gio to exist safely; blue collar Vincenzo refuses to even consider the idea that Vin's academic struggles might be chalked up to dyslexia. Despite their disparate upbringings and support, Gio and Vin remain fiercely close, each thinking they're the one looking out for their "younger brother." But as the play goes on and Vin's addition to heroin worsens, he finds his support structures slip away one by one: a father who turns him out, a sister who won't--or can't--help him, an ex-girlfriend who needs distance, and an absent uncle. Gio tries to be all that Vin needs, but even Vin can see that's not enough, if he is unable to save himself.

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?

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.

Margin Notes: Echoes of My Silence

Echoes of My Silence

Seen on: Thursday, 4/09/26.

Azadeh Kangarani. Photo by Nathan Zhe.

Plot and Background

As part of the Frigid/New York City Fringe Festival, Azadeh Kangarini's autobiographical one-woman show plays at the Chain Theatre. Her piece follows the path of her silence in the face of externalized and internalized misogyny through the various men whose molestations through the years of her life have made her question herself and her own relationship with her body.

Thoughts:

Azadeh Kangarani stands onstage in slacks and a burnt orange blouse. She is calm, warm, collected. A woman who knows who she is and loves who she is. Behind her are six vertical mirrors: some single pieces, some a column of smaller mirrors. She lifts the seventh mirror, a horizontal one leaning at her side, and walks through the audience, asking us "How often do you look at your face?" As she tells her story, a mix of memories from the most recent--an encounter with a female pilot whose sight forces Kangarani to reckon with her own internal biases--to the most distant--a memory of a man exposing himself to her when she was only nine years old. For each story she tells, she wrestles with her guilt over how many times she held her tongue as men took advantage of her. Why was she silent each time? Why didn't she let the world know about yet another violation? Silence after silence, echoing through her life. For each memory, one of the vertical mirrors behind her is assigned an identity and an initial for his name. Though each represents a man who tried to steal her autonomy, who pressured her to quash her own sense of her worth and voice, they are all still each a mirror. She has named them, but if she turns to look at them dead on, she will see only herself. Even this, the performance of her wrestling with her self-imposed guilt, has her seeing her own face as the perpetrator of her trauma. She's not being fair to herself. But it's an honest examination of how survivors of this sort of assault do not know how to be fair to themselves. Her piece brings her face to face with her own shames, but also her survival of each of them. And she invites the audience to do the same: face that in ourselves which we are most afraid to see, and discover that in ourselves that we most love to see. The silence doesn't have to echo on, once we are able to speak.

Margin Notes: Monte Cristo

Monte Cristo

Seen on: Wednesday, 3/18/26.

Adam Jacobs as Edmund and Sierra Boggess
as Mercedes. Photo by Shawn Salley.

Plot and Background

The York Theatre presents the world premiere of Peter Kellogg and Stephen Weiner's new musical adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmund, an honest sailor, is framed for treason on the eve of his wedding, and sent to prison for eighteen years. His fiancée Mercedes, believing him dead, marries his rival Fernand to cover her pregnancy. While in prison, Edmund is educated by fellow prisoner Abbe in languages, arts, and swordcraft, as well as the location of a hidden fortune; when he escapes, he uncovers the treasure on Monte Cristo, then uses his newfound wealth and knowledge to build his new persona as the mysterious titular count, and wreak revenge on the three men who wronged him.

Thoughts:

Originally released in serialized form before its publication as a novel, The Count of Monte Cristo is a complex web of treachery, revenge, and a twisted quest for justice, stuffed with a large cast of characters tracing morally ambiguous journeys. A two hours and change musical can't manage all that and still be coherent. Peter Kellogg and Stephen Weiner's musical adaptation seeks coherency by condensing and combining a number of auxiliary characters while cleaning up some of their acts: Edmund's allies, though played for laughs, stand on the side of right without treachery. Edmund doesn't teach someone how to poison her family. He also doesn't help rescue a number of past allies from financial ruin, but there's a lot going on in the novel, and it's better to narrow things down to the core parts of his arc. This is the correct move, but unfortunately in execution the reader's digest version of events, while following story beats, fails to thrill beyond what now seem like a very pedestrian narrative. Sweeney Todd this is not. (They also, incidentally, change the ending of the story, but they're not the first adaptation to make this change.)

That doesn't mean they're not trying. Stephen Weiner's score aspires toward the lushness of a tortured romance, but struggles to balance that against the more traditional sidekick character numbers, which indulge in an earthier old-fashioned musical comedy style. I think that tension might be the real struggle within the show at the moment: whether or not this is an old-fashioned musical comedy with a soupçon of camp, or a sweeping and ballad-full romantic musical drama, a la other pop musical writers like Webber and Wildhorn (incidentally, Wildhorn has also penned an adaptation of the novel, though it's played more internationally than domestically). If you go in expecting the latter, you'll be disappointed; however, if you go in open to the comic stylings, particularly of Danny Rutigliano, doing double duty as both Edmund's mentor (Abbe) and sidekick (Caderousse) and making a meal out of both, you might fare better. This is especially evident in Kellogg's lyrics. In the more romantic numbers, his lyrics tend toward a looser pop sensibility of songs that could be easily removed from context and played elsewhere; however, for the more comedic numbers, the lyrics must be specific to be funny, and are thus much more grounded in the circumstances of character and moment. 

Margin Notes: Dust of Egypt

Dust of Egypt

Seen on: Friday, 3/06/26.

Jade Cayne as Bell. Photo by Rainer DeLalio.

Plot and Background

The Real Artists LLC presents Karin Abarbanel's new play about legendary activist Sojourner Truth. An adult Truth looks back on her youth, when she was newly emancipated from enslavement and fighting in court to rescue and liberate her son Peter, who was illegally sold across state lines from New York to Alabama.

Thoughts:

Over an empty stage, a man and a woman stand on mirrored balconies running the perimeter of the space, trilling a birdsong and waving their arms, gently flying. As this prologue, a gentle dream of escape and freedom, gives way, Sojourner Truth walks onstage. Bonneted and white shawled, she tells us the story, not of how she became renowned activist and speaker, but of how she accomplished another unusual task: she was one of the first Black woman to win a case against a white man of an enslaved person being sold illegally across state lines. She introduces her younger self, a woman named Bell (played by Jade Cayne with a sweet vulnerability that transforms over the course of the story into a spine of steel and a unswerving sense of self). What follows is a mix of narration by the elder Truth (a stentorian Desi Waters) that lends itself easily into crowd-speaking as she stands behind a podium), re-enactment of Bell's struggle, and that liminal space where Truth and Bell both wrestle with her betrayal of her son, a lingering question of whether forgiveness is ever possible.

Margin Notes: Destination

Destination

Seen on: Thursday, 3/05/26.

Plot and Background

4 Girls Film Productions in association with Jarrott Productions's four-day presentation of George Ayres's new play, as part of Chain Theatre's 2026 The Factory Series. Howard Wright, a retired architect in an assisted living facility, facing only a year left of his life, embarks on a journey to declare his love for "the one that got away" after her engagement is published in the local newspaper. Meanwhile, his daughter wrestles with the what-ifs of her own lost love amidst a struggling marriage.

Thoughts:

Play: Over the course of one day, Howard Wright learns that the woman who got away--a coworker with whom he was infatuated years ago, even while both of them were married--is getting remarried, and he resolves to drive out and offer himself to her instead. His daughter spends this same day meeting with her lover--another one who got away, her high school sweetheart--and finally confronting him about why they broke up so many years ago, only to return to her life just as her father does, a little more weathered but definitely wiser. The theme overall here is missed chances and second chances: can you reclaim what you've lost, or can you at least heal an old scar before moving on? Playwright George Ayres finds a variety of ways to explore this across his band of characters: Howard and his pining for Caroline (and the reveal of her reciprocal pining); Howard's neighbor Gigi and her pining for him; Howard's daughter Jennifer and her lover Robert, each reaching back to an uncapturable past; and Howard's longtime housekeeper Alma, advising from her own experience of letting her true love die without knowing she returned his love, warning Howard not to let his chance go by too. I do feel that the pacing and structure need some reworking: Howard's reunion with Caroline is touchingly bittersweet with a killer final line to the scene, but it's such a satisfying moment that it's almost jarring to realize there are still several scenes to go before everything wraps up, and the final moments of the play don't manage to land with the same satisfy beat of a journey completed.

Margin Notes: Try/Step/Trip

Try/Step/Trip

Seen on: Monday, 1/12/26.

The Los Angeles cast of Try/Step/Trip.
Photo by MarKing IV Photography.

Plot and Background

The Living Word Project presents Dahlak Brathwaite's non-linear interrogation of a young Black man's experience within a court-mandated rehab program, utilizing the language of hip hop, step, and spoken word, as part of the 2026 Under the Radar Festival. As "Anonymous" navigates rehab and the systemic external expectations placed on him by society for the intersectional parts of his identity, he must also navigate his own sense of self, independent of these markers.

Thoughts:

Brathwaite's work is instantly kinetic, rhythmic, and engaging as he summons the ensemble from his place at the Conductor's station (a setup including keyboard, soundboard, and microphone). They jog out in perfect percussive synchronicity to the beat he's built, chased by the Conductor's spoken word introduction of the cyclical nature of his story and this performance, and it becomes clear to the audience that we're in the hands of a confident, polished, and virtuosic writer/composer/star. Anonymous, the younger version of the Conductor, lands himself in group rehab with the charismatic Samples, always on the verge of relapse; the self-possessed Mary, acknowledging her indulgences but committed to staying clean; Steve, a recovering cocaine addict and lone white character, whose frantic energy is maintained with a new fixation of espressos; and Pastor, the group's leader and a firm advocate of religion as salvation from addiction.

Anonymous, after delineating a series of police aggression--stop and frisks over the years that yielded nothing--finds himself in rehab after finally being stopped while in possession of mushrooms. Though apparently not an actual addict, he enters the program to avoid prison because "we been locked up since the day we arrived" anyway. But what he learns is that his inescapable identity as a Black man in America subjects him to systemic proscriptions of that very identity, regardless of his actions. As he says, he "seems to be stuck in the same role/No one wondered why [he] was there./[He] was just playing the role." And in this framework, he is volleyed from law enforcement prejudices to the criminal court with a seedy public defender, to a group rehab where he encounters two men vying for the position of his mentor: Pastor, who wields his religion like a cudgel against a young man who never felt at home in the church; and Samples, who encourages him to embrace hip hop as a liberation, to embrace the tradition of being an American Black man descended from enslaved people. The sticky part of either of these conflicting credos is that Anonymous himself is the child of immigrants and a first-generation American. So any identity offered to him--be it a Baptist church, a hip hop artist articulating his generational pain, or a criminal waiting to be caught--does not truly speak to who he is, even as he tries on different identities in search of a truer understanding of himself.

Margin Notes: Gotta Dance! with American Dance Machine

Gotta Dance! with American Dance Machine

Seen on: Tuesday, 12/02/25.

Anthony Cannarella and Samantha 
Siegel with the ensemble in "Sing, Sing, Sing."
Photo by Bjorn Bolinder.

Plot and Background

A tribute to iconic musical theater choreography ranging from Bob Fosse to Jerome Robbins to Gene Kelly to Michael Bennet to Susan Stroman to Billy Wilson.

Thoughts:

What an absolute delight of an evening! This is an excellent showcase, not only of the varied visual voices of these choreographers, but also of the dancers performing them. While watching, I was struck over and over by how many different styles a musical theater dancer must master. There's the precise and sinuous body isolation of Bob Fosse, the flair of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, the exuberance of Susan Stroman, the gestural and explosive athleticism of Jerome Robbins, the joy of Lynne Taylor-Corbett, the loose-limbed fluidity of Billy Wilson, the romantic grace of Christopher Wheeldon, the classic showmanship of Michael Bennett and Bob Avian. And, well, the shimmy of Joey McNeely. It's such a glorious tasting menu--a feast, really--of choreographers at the height of their game.

Margin Notes: Broken Images

Broken Images

Seen on: Friday, 11/07/25.

Neeraja Ramjee as Manjula Nayak. Photo by Kat DuPont Vecchio.

Plot and Background

Tea and Pickle Productions LLC presents Girish Karnad's psychological thriller about a newly bestselling novelist introducing a film adaptation of her debut novel, who then suddenly finds herself interrogated by what seems to be an alternate persona wearing her face.

Thoughts:

Play: Manjula Nayak paints a pretty if implausible picture: while up to now her writing has been non-fiction and in her native language, she has chosen for her first fiction venture to write and publish her novel, The River Has No Memories, in English. Being a bestseller, it has of course been subsequently translated, but author Manjula must now contend with the accusation that she cannot tell an authentic Indian story in another--particularly a colonizing--language. Which of her voices is the true voice? Along with this critique she's also running up against the question asked by #OwnVoices: how can she, an able-bodied woman, write the story of a disabled person? She has an answer of course: as caretaker of her disabled sister after the death of their parents, she was able to witness her own sister's struggles leading up to her death.

Having an answer for every challenge, though, does not make the story around the story true. This is what the late playwright Girish Karnad interrogates. What stories are we allowed to tell, what stories do we tell others about ourselves, and what are the stories others tell about us? Without digging too deeply into spoiler territory, as Manjula's onscreen alter-ego prods at the plot holes behind the novel's existence, all of Manjula's facades crumble, her delusion and deceit eventually fall away, leaving a gnarled pit of bitterness resentment and envy.

I don't feel that the play fully executes its intent when it comes to dismantling Manjula, or in any case I don't know that I found any of the revelations that revelatory. While it's well performed, I don't have a true sense of the purpose of the alter-ego or her objective. If she's truly trying to drive Manjula to admit the truth, I'd like to see a more aggressive hounding, such that neither the protagonist nor we can quite get our bearings enough to push back. Still, I do always have a soft spot for explorations of when protagonists and writers are unreliable narrators of what should be their own basic truths.

Margin Notes: Truman vs. Israel

Truman vs. Israel:

Abzug and the Undressing of Truman

Seen on: Friday, 10/24/25.

Helen Laser and Willy Falk as Bella Abzug and
Harry S. Truman. Photo by Darin Chumbley.

Plot and Background

Greenhouse Theater Center presents the world premiere of William Spatz's play, a fictionalized encounter of President Truman and Bella Abzug as Truman contemplates a libel lawsuit against journalist David Rosenfeld.

What I Knew Beforehand

Very very loosely that it had something to do with Truman's relationship with the then-new sovereign state of Israel.

Thoughts:

The play begins with Bella Abzug in the late 1980s having her portrait painted. As she and the unnamed Painter discuss the current state of affairs in the Middle East, she flashes back thirty years to the time she met with Truman to persuade him out of his attempted lawsuit against a journalist who accused him of antisemitism. As Abzug, her associate Don Muller, and Truman himself unpack the evidence it becomes clear that while the president may not be a torch-bearing antisemite and indeed does brag of having a Jewish Friend (TM)--who isn't allowed in the house--there is enough evidence dating back years to show a stark bias that might have fueled his refusal to help arm Israel during its 1948 war with all its surrounding Arab neighbors (also known as Israel's War of Independence). Things come to a violent head when ulterior motives for the meeting are revealed, but don't worry, it sticks to history and everyone survives the play.

Margin Notes: let's talk about anything else

let's talk about anything else

Seen on: Friday, 9/12/25.

Gabriella O'Fallon, Sadithi De Zilva, Ry Albinus, and
Caroline Portante as Beck, Charley, Enda, and Meg.
Photo by Mikiodo.

Plot and Background

The Other Side of Silence presents Anthony Anello's new play about a group of friends gathering at a remote cabin a year after their friend Abby's sudden death. But when strange visions and visitations awaken dormant guilt, things take a turn.

What I Knew Beforehand

I knew that it was billed as one of TOSOS's queer horror stories.

Thoughts:

I loved it. This production was a true pleasure, even when it was deeply and viscerally upsetting. Full of plot twists that feel both earned and startling, Anello's writing takes us on a journey full of broken and unreliable memories, struggles toward healing and wholeness, and the utter uselessness of trying to recreate something--or someone--dead and gone. Rosalie begins the play recounting a hallucination she suffered in the wake of Abby's death, as her anxiety gets the better of her. As the rest of the friends arrive, it becomes clear that, although they are ostensibly gathering in honor of Abby, Abby remains top of the list for topics not open for discussion, with Charley (who found her body) holding final veto power. Full of overlapping dialogue (is there a word for seven people talking at once?), pointed looks, and defiant dives into pleasure and oblivion, the characters process their individual griefs and guilts through ultimately less than successful methods. It is only when an outsider, Wes, arrives that the carefully crafted stories each character tells themself begin to collapse like a house of cards. And under all of this is the ghost at the feast: Abby isn't onstage but the gap she leaves behind is palpable, as she seemed to have somehow been the emotional support for each of her friends. My scribbled notes include such gems as "found Chekhov's gun!" and "The Men Are A Problem [with a box drawn around it]" (in my defense, the men in this play are absolutely a Problem). This play is hilarious and honest and upsetting and messy and gorgeous. I love when I get to review something this good.

Margin Notes: Circle Festival 2025: Between Us and Close Encounters

Circle Festival 2025:

Between Us and Close Encounters

Seen on: Saturday and Sunday, 9/06/25 and 9/07/25.

Plot and Background

RJ Theatre Company, in partnership with The Actor Launchpad, presents Circle Festival 2025 at AMT Theater. I was able to attend four of the twelve pieces presented:

Between Us combines two works: Into Your Hands, Nick Navari's solo show on loss and letting go; and Caity Ladda's Enmeshment, a monologue/duologue/movement piece about identity.

Close Encounters is another pairing: Elise Wilkes's Packed, a comedy about two strangers packing up the apartment of another couple who have just broken up; and Don't Push the Red Button by Zachary Mailhot, a comedy about the end of the world. 

Thoughts:

Overall: I've always had a fondness for unfinished portraits and earlier painted drafts. Like the handwritten corrections in the archived papers of a writer, it's a secret passage into the thought process of artistic creation. What's rather exciting about this festival--or at least the pieces I saw--is it feels like the same secret passage. These all feel like works in progress: explorations and iterations, dancing around the idea that will be the lodestone of the piece, but is not quite articulated into its final polished form. Some feel like spaghetti drafts, some feel like only the first half or third of a story, but they each have a core strength that can only get stronger with more time and depth.

See below for individual pieces.

Margin Notes: A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Seen on: Friday, 7/25/25.

Plot and Background

Ensemble Shakespeare Company presents Shakespeare's comedy of love spells, forest sprites, and an amateur theater troupe.

What I Knew Beforehand

I know Midsummer very well, having acted in it multiple times in various roles.

Thoughts:

This was an absolute delight of a show. I'll admit to being worried: after many years of overexposure to this play, I wasn't sure if I wanted to see another production, but I'm so glad I did. Dylan Diehl (who also, aptly, plays Oberon) directs this production with a deft hand, guiding the cast through the intricate hoops of the overlapping hijinks in the forest as surely as her Oberon puppets both humans and his fairy queen alike to do his bidding. That phrasing makes it seem like I'm not giving the cast enough credit for their work, and I don't mean to: the consistently strong text work, as well as the synergy among all the players, makes it clear this is a united ensemble, joyously performing this fairy tale.

The visual landscape of the production, particularly that of Lauren Helpern's evocative scenic design and Kate Hartigan's stunning costume design, draws homage to Peter Brook's white box version of Athens, while not directly copying it. What becomes clear here is that the pristine white of Theseus's court allows for little joy and even less love. It is only when we venture into the forest that streams of fabric festoon the space with color and possibility, and Oberon and Puck clap powdered dye to the wandering Athenians, until they too are as multihued as their surroundings. Here in the forest they are free to indulge, to escape, to imagine. Here in the forest the "rude mechanicals" come to rehearse and here their rehearsal is dispelled by Puck's manipulations. Bottom, his face painted with enchantment and ass ears on his head becomes the paramour of Queen Titania (her own face painted with Oberon's enchantment). And here it is the complicated love quadrangle of Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena may finally sort itself out, with a little help from the unseen fairies watching them. And so when all return to Athens the next day, these bright colors are allowed to follow them, even influencing Duke Theseus himself to break with his pure white suit to add tapestried belt, tie, and pocket square, to better match his new bride and her hybrid wedding dress.

Margin Notes: Sacco & Vanzetti are Dead!

Sacco & Vanzietti are Dead!

Matt Ferrara as Bartolomeo Vanzetti and
Joey DeFilippis as Nicola Sacco. Photo by
Bay One Entertainment and Kevin Mora.

Seen on: Wednesday, 7/23/25.

Plot and Background

Good Crack Productions presents a satirical bent on the 1921 trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Following a robbery turned murder, two anarchist Italian immigrants are arrested and charged with the crime. Though they proclaim their innocence until the end, the combination of an incompetent showboating defense attorney and a biased judicial and law enforcement system railroads them through their trial and subsequent appeals.

What I Knew Beforehand

Very little, though I did some subsequent reading up on Sacco and Vanzetti's trial.

Thoughts:

Joey DeFilippis and Matt Ferrera, wrote, directed, and star in this production. Clearly a passion project dedicated to redeeming the names of Sacco and Vanzetti, it portrays two victims of a corrupt judicial system (regardless of their guilt or innocence, it is clear that the trial was handled badly). In creating this work, DeFilippis and Ferrara join the ranks of a long-standing advocacy to demand justice: at the time of Sacco and Vanzetti's trial and following, there were global protests--and bombings--as well as celebrities weighing in. Even after the execution of these two men, advocates continued to fight for justice against their persecution. As the Scottsboro Boys would later become a beacon for the Civil Rights Movement, Sacco and Vanzetti were an earlier rallying cry against persecution of political radicals.

The work itself is perhaps a bit uneven: it bills itself as a satire but has yet to develop its point of view beyond the starting point that bigotry is evil. Even so, it plays with humor in an interesting way, mixing anachronistic jokes with over the top clowning. I think the production would be better served by leaning into this angle more aggressively, along the lines of Urinetown or other Brechtian pieces critiquing the status quo. Each moment needs to be sharp and clear for the humor to land, and that in turn will make the pathos, the tragedy of what befell these men, all the more poignant in contrast.

Margin Notes: Nine Moons

Nine Moons

Sophia Marilyn Nelson and Robert Manning, Jr. as
Desdemona and Ot'Teo. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Seen on: Monday, 6/02/25.

Plot and Background

Blessed Unrest Theatre Company, The Untitled Othello Project, and Sacred Heart University present Keith Hamilton Cobb's new prequel to Othello. Cobb, known for his 2019 play American Moor, which explored the complications of playing Othello but having to deal with having the character repeatedly explained to him by white directors. This marks a further exploration of the problem of Othello by visiting the characters prior to the tragedy set in motion by Iago's manipulations.

What I Knew Beforehand

I really appreciated Cobb's earlier play, and was excited to see what he's got next.

Thoughts:

Play: Once again, very striking work from Cobb: reading the script it is clear he has a very intentional sense of space and society. The play, beautiful and haunting, is both a love story and the opening threads of a Greek tragedy. Even as we see the slow and gentle courtship of Ot'Teo and Desdemona, we note every mention of Iago, Ot'Teo's seemingly honest friend who feeds him addicting pills and laughs at Ot'Teo's gullibility (and has most certainly stolen his diary). And when Desdemona unwraps her engagement gift from Ot'Teo and we see it is a stunning kerchief with strawberries on its design, we know too the fate of that kerchief and its owner. But perhaps, amidst the politics and war, amidst the too much drinking and the abusive father, amidst the grief for those loved ones lost and the fear of more to come, we can have this, in this moment. Here, if only here, in Nine Moons, we can have Desdemona and Ot'Teo, in love and happy and looking toward a bright and long future ahead of them. Ot'Teo knows how dark life can be--he tells of his difficulty in communicating his understanding of war to the pampered men of Verona: how "to explain child soldiers to men who have never missed a meal." But he also sees that perhaps, with Desdemona by his side, she who sees all of him and loves him for all his parts, perhaps he can find the light as well.

Margin Notes: She Takes Flight

She Takes Flight

The cast of She Takes Flight. Photo by Charles Chessler.

Seen on: Friday, 5/16/25.

Plot and Background

Chrysalis Theatre Company presents the world premier of a devised theatrical piece written and performed by Sora Baek, Cindy Keiter, Gabriela Kohen, Adina Taubman, and Susan Ward, about, per the press release, "reaching middle age and not giving a f&*k."

What I Knew Beforehand

That it was a devised piece by five women about, in part, processing adulthood, middle age, and beyond.

Thoughts:

The stage is a workzone, with caution tape and warning signs. The stage is a playground, with toys and ribbons. The stage is a storage room, with piles of pillows and other forgotten detritus. The stage is a memory box, festooned with strings of photographs and crates of old keepsakes. The stage is a memorial, with the names of women dead due to restrictive anti-abortion laws, hand-drawn in careful, serifed font. The stage is a support group, with five wooden chairs waiting to be filled. The stage, as designed by Yi-Hsuan (Ant) Ma, is all of these and none of these, that glorious and liminal space to allow these five women to tell their stories, to be both here and now, and also many years ago and far away.

Margin Notes: Those Who Remained

Those Who Remained

Sophia Gutchinov. Photo by Rani O'Brien.

Seen on: Friday, 5/09/25.

Plot and Background

La MaMa presents Sophia Gutchinov's solo piece about how to be a living monument to the history of her ancestors and a staunch advocate for her existence here today. The descendants of both Italians and Mongolians, Sophia's family emigrated first from Asia to Europe, then to New Jersey.

What I Knew Beforehand

That it was a solo piece.

Thoughts:

Sophia Gutchinov ably conjures her grandmother, still with the accent of her native land and trying to teach her descendant what she can of the family story. Her people are of the Kalmyk tribe, a tribe which dates back and back but which has scant records due to multiple attempts to wipe them out. Kalmik means "those who remained" and it speaks of Sophia's grandmother, of her family that fled Germany for America after the second world war. And it speaks of Sophia, who remains here, now, carrying the story of her ancestors in her body, her blood. How does she channel that through her existence?

Margin Notes: 七月半遗愿清单 Of Ashes and Souls

七月半遗愿清单 Of Ashes and Souls

Seen on: Friday, 4/25/25.

Plot and Background

Zihe Tian & Shall See Theater present the world premiere of Zijun (Neil) Wang and Zihe Tian's comedic horror story about a group of influences in a haunted house during the Hungry Ghost Festival, attempting to discover what caused the fire that killed eight people twenty-five years earlier. This is the debut production of Shall See Theater.

What I Knew Beforehand

That it would be in Mandarin. I was, as Sondheim said, both excited and scared.

Thoughts:

Play: It feels so rare to see an original story these days, and this one is delightfully original. Nine online influencers (gamers, amateur sleuths, and other personalities) have all gathered during Zhongyuan Festival (Hungry Ghost Festival) at a haunted mansion, determined to discover what caused the gas fire a quarter of a century ago, and find themselves in a time loop, stuck in the last hour of this day when the veil parts, and the spirits of the dead may cross over to inhabit the living. As one by one each influencer is taken over by another spirit, we step closer to the truth and the past, and a reconciliation among the dead for what went wrong that day when all seemed about to finally go right. Playwrights Zijun (Neil) Wang and Zihe Tian have crafted a script that is both tense and funny, and increasingly engaging as the audience comes to understand the story being told (it is, I admit, a bit overwhelming at the top, at least for a non-Mandarin speaker). Moreover, Wang, who also directs the show, crafts a coherent arc across the scene-jumping script. I will say, for future revisions, the countdown to the reset doesn't quite make sense in execution of the story--or at least, it was unclear to me if we were seeing multiple resets or just the one hour; if it's just the one hour, the timestands slated at the top of each scene don't match the flow of time as we or the characters are experiencing it. This is nitpicky, but it was distracting in the moment.