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.

Weekly Margin 2024, W44: Other, Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God, The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire, Dreadful Episodes, Queens

10/27/25: Other

What: Ari'el Stachel's solo play about navigating his identity as a half-Ashkenazi, half-Yemeni Israeli with his lifelong struggles with anxiety and OCD.

And? He's truly a fantastic storyteller, and it's a gift to see him onstage again. He's unafraid to share some of the worst things he's done while trying to stave off his OCD and fit in with whichever community he's found. It's a story that's both familiar and different. Knowing the backlash that Stachel faced after trying to share his truth as a bridge across Arab and Jewish identities, it was validating to see this with such a full audience of a fairly wide demographic.

Ari'el Stachel. Photo by Ogata.

10/28/25: Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God

What: Playwrights Horizons presents Jen Tullock's solo play, co-written with Frank Winters, about an ex-vangelical lesbian whose newest memoir incites controversy in her hometown as people dispute their portrayals in her book--including the woman she cites as her first love. 

And? When I saw this was a solo show utilizing some onstage cameras, I thought it might be an attempt to copy (on a downsized level) the recent Broadway run of Dorian Gray. However, the video projections serve a different function here, freezing moments to highlight strange micro-expressions, or show an angle hidden from the audience across the proscenium's fourth wall. Frances's interactions with the people in her life--her literary agent, her brother, her mother, representatives of the church, and the first love in question--are performed against the overhead sound of a book launch interview, underlining moments when the contents of her book contradict what the other characters remember, leaving us wondering who is telling the truth and who is rewriting history. And the truth is that memory is always unreliable, changeable, and one-sided. A moment that can stay forever in someone's memory as an indelible life-changing moment, can for others, as M. Bison memorably said, only be Tuesday. As a performer, Tullock navigates the many characters with deceptive ease, slipping from one to the other with subtle shifts in posture and expression and more pronounce vocal variations. And as a playwright, she and Frank Winters craft a delicate piece: powerful and profound, charting what it is to try to process trauma to find truth, and what gets left behind of yourself when you have to leave. Frances herself, in intense closeup with her eyes wet but not letting the tears fall, reflects that in leaving the church, she escaped abuse but she also lost the joy of God. She lost her community.

Jen Tullock. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Weekly Margin 2025, W43: Punch, Truman vs. Israel, Theater in Quarantine: Phantom of the Opera

10/22/25: Punch

What: Manhattan Theatre Club hosts the Broadway transfer of James Graham's adaptation of Jacob Dunne's Right From Wrong, about a young man whose punch in a brawl inadvertently causes the death of the man hit, and the aftermath of the asault, his time in prison, and the time afterward.

And? Due to a combination of jetlag and insomnia the previous night, I had a great deal of difficulty taking in this production and unfortunately can't do a write up of it. I'm sorry; the show deserves better and I wish I could have given it that.

The company of Punch. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

10/24/25: Truman vs. Israel

What: A fictionalized encounter between Bella Abzug and Harry S. Truman as Truman contemplates a libel lawsuit against journalist David Rosenfeld.

And? full review here.

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

Streaming Theater Content

• Theater in Quarantine's Phantom of the Opera.

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.

Weekly Margin 2025, W40: Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees (Part 2, Act 1)

10/04/25: Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees (Part 2, Act 1)

What: Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo presents this full-length play in three parts across the month of October. Each part has two acts. We bought a ticket to see the first act of part two (they sell day-of single-act tickets for seats in the fourth tier)

And? One of my big Must Needs for my recent visit to Japan with some friends was that I got to see some classic Japanese theater. We ended up seeing this on our first day, which was both good (made sure it happened) and bad (hooboy, the jetlag). So I can't tell you precisely what the story was that we saw (especially as I opted not to use the subtitle tablet), but it was still a cool experience to see all the elements of Kabuki on display: the elaborate makeup and vocal stylings, the Reciter and musicians to the side of the stage, the hanamichi leading to the front of the stage from the left. Also interesting were what the audience applauded, even when we didn't know why: particular character entrances, or sequences. I couldn't follow the plot especially in scenes where the performers stayed very still (and were so far away I couldn't see who was speaking), but I very much enjoyed the extended battle sequence, which had impressive and elaborate choreography.