Margin Notes: Super Awesome World

Super Awesome World

Playwright/star Amy Conway.

Seen on: Monday, 11/05/18.
My grade: A

Plot and Background

Amy Conway brings her solo show, which has also played in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, to New York's United Solo Theatre Festival. Her interactive one-hour play uses her love of classic video games as a lens to explore her struggles with depression.

What I Knew Beforehand

I knew the premise, and that the play came highly recommended from a good friend of mine who'd seen it in Edinburgh. I will admit to not being a gamer myself (I never did have good hand-eye coordination), but I used to watch when my sister and brother played Nintendo and, later, Super Nintendo, so the game references were not entirely lost on me.

Thoughts:

It's more interactive than I usually prefer my sit-down theater (as opposed to the immersive stuff where you more or less know what you've committed to, going in), and yet I didn't mind that element. The quest to defeat the darkness becomes a joint mission, not just for Amy, but for all of us in the room. We help gather empathy points, heart points; we serve as the negative thoughts for her to defeat; and in one moment during which I held my breath, one audience member helps guide a blinded but trusting Amy across a treacherous lava floor. It was no surprise, at the performance that I saw, that once the show was complete, the entire audience stayed to help clean up the mess we'd made. That's part of healing, too, after all. Conway's piece balances the humor of play, the nostalgic fondness for (wow, those graphics) old video game tech, and the desolate ache of feeling like there's no way out. She doesn't shy from the pain of depression, or from how insurmountable it can seem when one is buried in sadness. Even as the piece gets intensely personal, she also makes her audience feel seen, feel recognized. On top of all those effective #feels, Super Awesome World is also just a really well-built piece of theater with a simultaneously surprising and inevitable conclusion.

Weekly Margin 2018, W44: The Prom, Mike Birbiglia's THE NEW ONE

10/29/18: The Prom
What: A new musical from Drowsy Chaperone scribe/star Bob Martin (and Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar), about a group of narcissistic theater actors desperate to reform their image, who glom onto a manageably-sized social justice battle: a teenage lesbian in Indiana who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom.
And? It's not perfect, and it definitely paints nearly everything with a broad brush, both the pastiche and the earnestness. But it's a funny time, with dynamic Nicholaw choreography, and some stellar work from Brooks Ashmanskas. I saw it on a special Monday night preview where the casts from Nicholaw's other three shows currently running were invited (Aladdin, Mean Girls, and Book of Mormon), so the audience was full of supportive insiders, laughing at all the theater jokes (which means I don't necessarily know how everything will play in front of a civilian audience).

The cast. Photo by Deen van Meer.

11/01/18: Mike Birbiglia's THE NEW ONE
What: It's the new Mike Birbiglia show, you guys.
And? He's such a good storyteller. And I forget what a good storyteller he is, because the non-Mike Birbiglia roles he often plays are ineffectual prats, but he as an actual human is much smarter than that, and it shows in his original work. He's able to synthesize every piece of what seems at first like a disjointed train-of-thought narrative, in a really satisfying way. I'm deliberately not getting into the content here, because it's more fun to discover it as the story goes on.

Weekly Margin 2018, W43: School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play, Travisville

10/25/18: School Girls; or,  the African Mean Girls Play
What: MCC's encore presentation of Jocelyn Bioh's critically acclaimed play about young girls in Ghana's most exclusive boarding school, hoping to compete in the Miss Universe pageant.
And? Totally lived up to the hype. Constantly surprisingly, achingly human, and delightfully funny. Really a marvelous cast, particularly Maameyaa Boafo as the most popular bully, Paulina, Joanna A. Jones as the sweet-tempered newcomer Ericka, and Myra Lucretia Taylor as the sharp and caring Headmistress Francis. (and omg the adorable Mirirai Sithole and Paige Gilbert as Mercy and Gifty)

Abena Mensah-Bonsu, Mirirai Sithole, and Paige Gilbert as Nana, Mercy,
and Gifty. Photo by Joan Marcus.

10/28/18: Travisville
What: EST presents William Jackson Harper's play about a black community in Texas who are about to be displaced for a new commercial development (Travisville), and a newcomer who spurs them to action.
And? Though it could use some tightening, this was a powerful piece of theater with overlapping scenes reflecting the inner conflict of the play's protagonist, Ora Fletcher. The entire cast is truly excellent, honest and vulnerable. Well worth seeing.

Denny Dale Bess, Nathan James, and Bjorn DuPaty as Gillette, Gunn, and
Min. Ora Fletcher. Photo by Jeremy Daniel.

Weekly Margin 2018, W42: Goodbody, The Thanksgiving Play, Oklahoma!, Plot Points in Our Sexual Development, National Theatre Live: King Lear

10/16/18: Goodbody
What: The Crook Theater Company's first original work, about a woman with no memory, a dead body, a bloody beaten man, all in a barn in upstate New York, with a clock to beat before the consequences come knocking.
And? Full review here.

Raife Baker as Spencer. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

10/17/18: The Thanksgiving Play
What: A school theater director, a street artist, a history teacher, and an LA actress gather together to craft a devised play for the school's Thanksgiving observance, determined to be as progressive and virtue-signaling as possible.
And? It felt, in a way, like a sequel to Playwrights Horizons's earlier Miles for Mary (it even played in the same upstairs space). The actors were good, there were funny moments, but a lot of this play indulges in the cringiest aspects of both tacky careless racism and overly-demonstrative privilege-battling. Not bad, but not for me.

Greg Keller, Jennifer Bareilles, Jeffrey Bean, and Margo Seibert as Jaxton,
Logan, Caden, and Alicia. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Margin Notes: Goodbody

Goodbody

Amanda Sykes and Raife Baker as Marla
and Spencer. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Seen on: Tuesday, 10/16/18.
My grade: B-

Plot and Background

In a barn in upstate New York, Marla has just shot and killed a man, and in doing so seems to have wiped out most of her memories of her adult life. Spencer, cowering before her and covered in blood and duct-taped injuries, must convince her to lower her weapon and cooperate with a hasty escape from the crime scene. A tangled web of lies, betrayal, and organized crime spirals into a McDonagh/Tarantino-inspired confrontation. Goodbody marks The Crook Theater Company's first original work, written by co-founder J.C. Ernst.

What I Knew Beforehand

Just the basic premise, of a woman with amnesia standing over a dead body.

Thoughts:

Play: My knee-jerk impulse is to tell everyone this play needs a few trigger warnings; but since the opening tableau is a blood-spattered barn, a dead body, a severely injured man in a chair, and a woman firing a gun, perhaps that's all the trigger warning one needs. But just in case: there's a fair amount of torture, violence, and gore in this play, particularly in the back third. There's also a somewhat problematic (not to say disappointing) treatment of mental illness and the too-common crutch of using it as an explanation for violence. And in all honesty, it's hard for me to look past that. The conclusion feels like lazy storytelling, opting for a simpler absurdist explanation, rather than one rooted in character or even the arc of the players at hand. But to give it a fair shake, playwright J.C. Ernst has a good ear for dialog, for finding the humor in the grotesque, and director Melissa Firlit makes able and dynamic use of the intimate space, never making the physicality of the piece feel crowded or inorganic. The show could use some tightening of its beats, and (in my wish) a re-examination of its conclusion, but if you're out for a bloody weird evening this Halloween season, this is a good bet.