It’s a moment that captures the travails of the covid-era theater artist with the expressive precision of a daguerreotype tinted with blood. It’s like finding at the bottom of a shoebox full of yellowed newspaper clippings a dog-eared photograph of distant relatives in which we recognize–ourselves.

The resemblance to our current plight is no accident. “These words also capture the complicated journey of coming back to the stage in the IRC’s first in-person stage show post-pandemic,” writes Artistic Director Tina Brock in the program notes. As it happens, this review also marks the return of Reviews from Underground. Like survivors stepping out of a cellar and blinking in the footlights, we survey the ruins of our industry with a range of emotions: anger, a sense of incalculable loss, futility, an urge to retreat behind screens, but above all, a desire to rebuild.

And if The Two-Character Play is any indicator, there is reason to hope. Everyone was welcome, regardless of vaccine status. The house was full, the stage lavishly dressed, the acting impassioned, unabashedly theatrical. After all, this is a play about theater by a master of the theatrical gesture. And in the hands of a poet like Tennessee Williams, the play-within-a-play becomes far more than a clever framing device. It serves to sift the actors like wheat and arrive at rare moments of naked truth amid a cloud of chaff.

Not that chaff is a bad thing. It’s entertaining. And part of the process. It protects the kernel of the self and allows it to grow. It clothes the characters in amusing conceits. Tina Brock’s Clare and John Zak’s Felice shed it with each thrust and parry as they circle each other in a death match of the soul, choking on the echoes of their own absurdities.

And their commitment to these roles-within-roles is total. After nearly three years on a steady diet of carefully curated onscreen acting, what a relief to see actors splurge, chew scenery, yet remain fully within the bounds of believability. Their mastery of a difficult and sonorous text without the benefit of ten takes, an editor, and ADR reminded me why I fell in love with cinema’s poor relation in the first place. And Tennessee’s tale of a brother and sister on an underfunded tour of half-empty theaters reminded me of the cost. Now more than ever.

That said, I did feel the production could have benefited from a clearer distinction between narrative levels. Lighting shifts or differences in acting styles or dialects would have helped the audience distinguish play from meta-play, which in turn would have increased the impact when the two worlds ultimately converge. But that final convergence is so powerful that the occasional moments of confusion preceding it are easily forgiven as the characters’ own.

As mentioned earlier, the show’s impact derives in part from a resemblance to life under covid. While we may have been locked out of the theater rather than in, the hopeless isolation that settles over Clare and Felice as the lights fade to black still feels achingly familiar, especially for those of us whose exile from the stage lasted twice as long due to an absurd and unscientific prejudice against natural immunity.

So, hats off to Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium for making theater of the absurd a stylistic choice rather than an enforced reality, for unearthing this buried treasure, and for giving us something timely and moving to live through and write about.

It’s good to be home.

“The Two Character Play” ran from September 7-25 at The Bluver Theatre at The Drake as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. For more information visit idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org.

The post Confining Nature: A Review of “The Two-Character Play” appeared first on Reviews from Underground.

That’s not a line from “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.” It’s a quote from public interest lawyer and civil rights activist Bryan Stevenson. But it could serve as a tagline for John DeSotelle’s deeply affecting production of John Patrick Shanley’s modern classic, running at the NuBox Theater through December 22nd.

Danny (Jacob Saxton) may have killed a man yesterday in a fight over ten dollars. When we meet him at a dive bar in the Bronx, he’s a bruised and bloodied sociopath with a chip on his shoulder the size of East Tremont. Across the bare stage on a desert island of her own sits Roberta (Maggie Alexander), to all appearances a drunken barfly looking to score with a local bad boy. Part of what makes this play so potent is how Shanley has these two characters chip away at their first impressions of each other (and our first impressions of them) to reveal two vulnerable, wounded souls starving for love and redemption. It’s a difficult, painful transformation, and one that Saxton and Alexander make believable and real.

The challenge to playing Danny is twofold. On the one hand, we—and Roberta—have to believe Danny is dangerous. If he comes across as a paper tiger, Roberta merely calls his bluff. But everything about Saxton signals a clear and present danger—his build and bearing, gruff voice, tribal tattoos, realistic wounds on face and hands, and above all his cold-blooded intensity. So when Roberta pushes him too far, she does it to punish herself, not to expose him for the wounded lamb he turns out to be. And this makes her surprise at his tenderness all the more real—so real that the tables turn the next morning when she finds him ready to follow her to the altar.

Which brings me to the second challenge to playing Danny: He has to be dangerous and vulnerable. It’s a rare actor who can do both, and Saxton burrows so deeply into his character’s psychosis that he seems genuinely surprised at the gentle words coming out of his own mouth when Roberta asks him to say nice things about her.

That post-coital exchange of primitive poetry is in many ways the turning point of the play. With it, Roberta gets what she thought she wanted from Danny: a pipe dream of happiness to lull her to sleep. In the harsh light of morning she awakes to find that dream a real possibility. And her efforts to reject it out of guilt for committing incest with her father are what make her a complex character, rather than a masochistic dream girl with a Bronx twang.

This last stage of their life-in-death match or “Apache dance” is Alexander’s time to shine. Pinned down by Saxton’s Danny, she shape-shifts rapidly from cruel cynic to guilt-ridden Catholic to abused daughter like Proteus caught in the grip of Odysseus, until at last she reveals her true form: a single mother with a glimmer of hope for a better life. Alexander commits truthfully to each false identity, and like Saxton she seems genuinely surprised to discover who she really is.

Director and acting teacher John DeSotelle could hardly have chosen a better play to showcase the strengths of the Meisner technique. His casting choices are excellent and his direction of the actors exemplary. Set and lighting designer Matt Imhoff makes outstanding use of the limited space, staging the bar scene against a curtain with the tables spaced widely apart and lighting from both sides to emphasize the horizontal axis, then drawing the curtains to create a vertical axis defined by a bed, high window, and artificial moon.

Only in two brief sequences where the staging departs from naturalism did the show feel slightly adrift: the sex scene with just a single formalized pose and the opening tableau with a verse from a pop song that explains the story a little too clearly. The former could be clarified and taken further, and the latter would benefit from layering and diffusion.

This is an outstanding production of a seminal American play, and I highly recommend it. Whether or not you believe in the redemptive power of love, in the power of people to change for the better, whether or not you agree with Stevenson that our worst deeds don’t define us, Shanley’s play and DeSotelle’s production make a strong case for hope in a time of cynicism and despair. And that alone makes this a show worth watching.

“Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” is playing at the Nubox Theater through December 22. For tickets and information visit desotellestudio.com. For more on Bryan Stevenson check out the trailer for HBO doc True Justice.

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Kirill: Duck.

Max: Bitte?

Kirill: That’s the word that came to me when Emily Cass McDonnell’s Hilda tried to speak telepathically with the audience member.

Max: You mean you actually thought that was an audience member? And you tried listening with the part of your brain just a little above your eyes? Really, Kirill, there is suspension of disbelief, and there is gullibility.

Kirill: Laugh it up, Max. But when I was little, I tell you I could find any card in a face-down pile. My sister would say “queen of hearts,” for example, and I would let my hand wander over the pile like this and find the right card every time. It scared us both.

Max: You Russians. It is one of history’s great paradoxes that the first country to make materialism the state religion also gave the world Madame Blavatsky.

Kirill: In this case the medium comes from England by way of West Indies. The play is about a woman who goes to a psychic after her mother’s disappearance—I know you know this, Max. It’s a review, remember?

Max: I know it’s a review. I raised an eyebrow because the playwright’s note said [takes Kirill’s program and leafs through it] “Best to watch it with a blank mind. The less you know, the better.” By the way, what catalog is Hnath posing for here? Is there an endorsement deal with Peek & Cloppenburg?

Kirill [snatches back the program]: Stay on task, Max, or I’ll have Chris cut you off. Randy Danson was excellent in the role of Linda, don’t you think? A true grande dame of the theatre.

Max: They were all good. But Kelly McAndrew’s Sylvia is what brought out Linda’s complexity. With Hilda, Linda was a little predictable. And Triney Sandoval played a bit too much to the audience for my taste, though he had some fine moments as Jerry. No, McDonnell is the one who deserves special mention. For building a character so original and understated. It takes clear intentions to play unintentionally comical, and confidence to play someone so awkward. And she never lost the thread or played for laughs. It was such a tight, focused performance, the way she shifted from listening to Linda to addressing the audience. Really one of the best things I’ve seen in some time.

Kirill: Hmm. You will admit she was helped by a text that was more subtext than text. A rare thing in American writing. And that bare stage with two armchairs and an end table. Nothing to distract from voice and gesture. That to me is the essence of theater: an actor and a text. It’s refreshing to see theatre stripped to its essentials at the off-Broadway level.

Max: Yes, what our colleagues wrote about A Strange Loop and especially Heroes of the Fourth Turning made Playwrights Horizons sound rather conventional. But then this was the smaller stage on the fourth floor. Was that done for the sake of intimacy, I wonder, or was “A Thin Place” considered too experimental for the main stage?

Kirill: I wouldn’t say it was especially experimental. The narrative device is as American as “Our Town.” What struck me was the faith in the power of the word over image and spectacle. Very un-American. Which is perhaps why the end disappointed me, with its reliance on red light and silence and a woman draped in a sheet.

Max: The end disappointed me too, though for different reasons. It was the obligatory rebunking after the debunking.

Kirill: Rebunking? Explain.

Max: It’s what writers do when they don’t know where they stand. They debunk and then rebunk. For example: “Of course spiritualism is bunk. But…” pause for sign from beyond “….maybe there’s something to it.”

Kirill: That’s just good writing. Not taking sides. A writer should referee his characters. Not coach the winning team. Your East German weakness for agitprop is showing.

Max: And your weakness for Slavic ambiguity is hanging out. And spiritualism with a capital dollar-sign “S”. To think you actually tried to hear the word…

Kirill [to bartender]: Chris! Is there a deck of cards? [to Max] Do what the Americans say. Put your money where your mouth is. I bet a hundred dollars to your hundred.

Max: You Russians again. I won’t let you gamble away your inheritance like some Dostoevsky novel. The odds are 1 in 52. 54 unless you take out the jokers.

Kirill [spreads out the deck face down on the bar]: Tell me a card. [Max shakes his head] Tell me! [Grabs Max by the lapels].

Max: Ok, ok. The ten of diamonds.

Chris stops the music. By now a crowd has gathered. Dead silence. Kirill closes his eyes and moves his hand over the pile. He picks a card and flips it over. Shouting, laughter, music again.

Kirill: It worked when I was younger.

Max: The ten of diamonds wouldn’t have proved anything, Kirill. Any more than Rosenkranz flipping a coin and getting heads again. It’s just a coincidence. Like my guessing the word.

Kirill: What do you mean? What word?

Max: Staircase. That’s what I was thinking of when Hilda spoke to the audience.

Kirill: What?! But that’s the word she wrote down! Max, don’t you see what this means?!

Max: It means the play was almost over and I was thinking we should take the stairs instead of the elevator. To beat the crowd. It’s a coincidence, Kirill.

Kirill: No, it’s a sign! A sign for you to believe! You can’t ignore it!

Max: Of course I can. Can and will. Chris: Noch eins, bitte!

“The Thin Place” is running at Playwrights Horizons through January 5th. For more information visit playwrightshorizons.org.

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First impressions are important, and co-directors Ivette Dumeng and Lori Kee know how to set the right tone. The atmosphere alone prepares us for the post-apocalypse. The set by Raye Levine makes full use of the unique space, even incorporating the building’s massive columns into the design. There are walls of salvaged crates, military-style bunk beds, inaccurate maps of the cosmos, analog devices bristling with wires and diodes—all of it glowing menacingly beneath a subterranean sky by lighting designer Gilbert Lucky Pearto. The thoughtful play of light and form creates an appropriate sense of clutter without overwhelming the eye or hemming in the actors.

And the actors are a lively, gifted lot. Sara Rahman is utterly convincing as Squeak, a blind girl who traverses the desert in a quest to join the Listeners, a band of youths tasked with scanning the sky for radio transmissions from beyond. Their ranks include Matthew Carrasco’s sceptical yet idealistic Fayette, who reluctantly shows Squeak the ropes, and Rouke and Lanolin, played by Taylor Petracek and Alex Chernin with the kind of love-hate chemistry that makes for a good buddy cop movie. But the highlight is their fearless leader Marcus, played by an English actor who, as the Yanks say, knocks it out of the park.

Now I’m hardly impartial where things British are concerned, but fervent political rhetoric and an English accent simply go well together. Perhaps I’ve spent one too many Sundays at Speaker’s Corner. Or perhaps Tim Palmer is just that good. All I can say for certain is that his rhetoric raises goosebumps. And when word arrives of his impending trial before the council, his transformation from smirking, self-assured revolutionary to scared little boy is entirely believable.

But the cast list would be incomplete without mentioning Sound, a crucial sixth character in a play about listening. Sound designer Bryan James Hamilton has an ear for subtle, layered effects. He draws on his background as an actor as well as advice from veteran sound designer Andy Evan Cohen to create an aural presence that settles around the characters like Stephen King’s “The Mist”, ultimately tearing them apart.

Nor is the violence in “The Listening Room” purely auditory. Extended, expertly choreographed fight sequences by former Airborne Ranger Randall Rodriguez spill across the stage and overflow into the wings. Personally I’m no fan of stage combat, not for reasons of pacifism (Speaker’s Corner again), but because it releases tension rather than letting it build. And because it never feels quite real. Even when it’s disturbingly realistic, as in this case, I find myself worrying more about the actors than about the characters, which takes me out of the story.

So much for fisticuffs. For the rest, directors Kee and Dumeng do a fine job of combining disparate elements into something coherent, entertaining and sometimes moving. They put a wealth of ideas to work for the text. And it was really only the text that left me with mild reservations.

It may have been a matter of subverted expectations. The synopsis promises a story about a group that listens to old Earth transmissions rebounding off stars—a picturesque premise suggesting all kinds of possibilities. Yet there is not a single historic broadcast, old advert or radio show to prompt speculation among the Listeners as to who we were and why our civilisation collapsed. Instead they spend much of their time debating the actions of a council we never meet nor have any reason to care about, save as it relates allegorically to our current government.

Which brings me to my second reservation. The joy of allegory is the joy of discovery. Having everything explained to us deprives us of that joy and makes us feel talked down to from a soapbox (Speaker’s Corner a third and final time). It also weakens the characters by reducing them to mouthpieces for the author’s ideas. And worst all—unless estrangement is the goal—it takes us out of the story.

Which isn’t to say “The Listening Room” is guilty on both counts. The infractions were minor and largely a matter of personal preference. The script as a whole is very well written. The characters are clearly drawn and distinctive, the dialogue pops and crackles and there are some fine poetic passages and rousing speeches. I strongly suggest visiting the old vault of The New Ohio this December to form your own opinion. You won’t regret you came.

And while you’re waiting in the lobby, why not try your ear at cracking the vault? By my reckoning, the odds are 1×10^8 or one in a hundred million. Don’t you wonder what’s inside?

“The Listening Room” is running at The New Ohio Theatre through December 21. For more information visit nylonfusion.org.

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It was literally cocaine that brought Joe and Nora together in 1910s New York. Six years his senior, she took the strapping young boxer under her wing and now walks the streets to keep the two of them and their habit fed. Or she did until a sore on her lip sent the Johns running. The rent hasn’t been paid in weeks, and the landlady is demanding sexual favors from Joe in exchange for dope. Drug addiction, male and female prostitution—edgy stuff for a play written in 1916. Even Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera” a decade later leaves drugs out of the equation when describing a similar arrangement in The Pimp’s Song.

We meet Joe and Nora in their garret, artfully suggested by a slanted wall of irregular planks and authentic period furniture. But rather than start the play naturalistically, director Judith Feingold treats us to an intriguing prelude of expressionist physical theater. Against the roar of the elevated train and music from old radio broadcasts, the couple writhe in each others’ arms like tortured fornicators in Dante’s Inferno, caught in limbo between agony and ecstasy.

The ensuing dialogue relies on street slang from the period, making it hard to follow in parts. But the gist of the story is clear: The situation is hopeless, and Nora wants Joe to commit suicide with her. Maria Swisher delivers a fierce performance as Nora, half femme fatale, half prostitute with a heart of gold, driven by an excess of love. André Vauthey’s broken Joe puts up a bewildered fight for his life and hers until Nora wounds his pride, the one thing he has left. What happens next is better seen than told.

As a faithful revival of a forgotten play, “Cocaine” delivers. Swisher and Vauthey have palpable chemistry, and Feingold choreographs their Danse Macabre with real feeling. Personally, I would have liked to see the expressionist elements from the prelude woven into the fabric of the play. Or, since the play ends (spoiler alert) with the characters in the same situation as at the beginning, why not have the play end as it began? Otherwise we leave the theater thinking something has been resolved, when in fact the couple’s position is as desperate as ever.

After the show, “Joe” and I walked around Hell’s Kitchen and tried to imagine how this story would play out today. We realized that the people and problems are basically the same. Only the clothes and cars are different. Addiction, poverty, exploitation, prostitution are all around us and always have been. How many people in New York alone are peering over the edge today and saying, as Joe does, “We weren’t anybody much. I expect they’ve forgotten about us”?

With its emphasis on big gestures and big emotions, “Cocaine” offers little in the way of insight into the social problems it dramatizes. But it does something equally, if not more, important: It reminds us of their human cost.

“Cocaine” ran from November 22 – 24 at the Nubox in Hell’s Kitchen. For more information visit show’s Facebook events page.

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So begins “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” a gripping new play by Will Arbery, at Playwright’s Horizons through November 17. It’s a brilliant opening for many reasons: It waves guns and dead animals in the faces of enlightened New Yorkers; it effectively introduces the laconic Justin, played with grim determination by Jeb Kreager (the rare actor whose real name is probably a better fit for his character); it lends symbolic weight to the story; and it provides a nonverbal counterpoint to the ensuing flood of words.

And flood is no exaggeration. The torrent of borrowed, coked-up eloquence that pours from Zoe Winters’ Teresa requires every inch of concentration to follow. It’s worth following, too, because unless you’ve read Strauss and Howe and their popularizer Steve Bannon, chances are you’ve never heard its like before. Their Fourth Turning theory gives the play its name and Teresa her mission: to make the world safe for Catholic conservatism.

She and two other alumni of a tiny college in Wyoming have gathered at Justin’s house to toast their mentor’s appointment as college president. Together they make up a representative sample of an obscure milieu known intimately to the playwright, the son of two Catholic conservative academics. Justin stands for quietism posing as pragmatism, Zoe for revolutionary heroics/histrionics. Julie McDermott’s chronically ill Emily embodies doubt and the moderation it engenders. And John Zdrojewski’s self-loathing onanist Kevin is Catholic guilt personified.

What really sets Arbery’s writing apart is his ability to breathe life into schematic types. Playwrights tend to excel at one or the other­—big ideas or big characters—but Arbery delivers both. He does this by creating characters who live and die by big ideas, who each have their cross to bear. Whining, cowering, begging, weeping, vomiting, but never boring—Kevin is a distant American cousin of Dostoyevsky’s underground man. Justin’s suffering is less flamboyant, but no less evident. Emily quietly stores up the agony of Lyme disease for a final outburst. Only Teresa seems impervious to pain—at least until her mentor appears, slightly tipsy from her fêting.

Played with the casual dominance of someone accustomed to power, Michele Pawk’s Gina drops by only to knock down Teresa’s house of cards and reduce her to a trembling freshman. It’s a fascinating scene, as it illustrates just how monolithic Catholic conservatism is not.

And that may be the main takeaway for those who picture the Christian right as a united front. How ever repugnant some of their views may strike those on the left (and there were gasps and groans aplenty from the audience, especially during the abortion debate) there is little agreement within the community. Recognizing this is the first step towards opening a much-needed dialog between the camps. For it reveals the true nature of the other side: a group of individuals to be approached individually, not a faceless mob of fanatics that can’t be reasoned with.

As pure theatre, “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” triumphs. It never drags, despite a two hour runtime. Director Danya Taymor ratchets up the tension gradually, like an inquisitor tightening the rack. And the actors never stumble, unless on cue. My only objections were to Emily’s closing rant and the heavy-handed symbolism of the generator. Both of these merely virtue-signal what we already know full well: that the playwright has distanced himself from this community. How else could he have written such an honest play?

“Heroes of the Fourth Turning” is running at Playwrights Horizons through November 17. For more information visit playwrightshorizons.org.

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I mention it not only because it pops up for analysis in Douglas Lackey’s new play ‘Ludwig and Bertie’, but because it sums up the problem of translation and interpretation inherent to staging the life of the Austrian philosopher. For make no mistake, this is a show about Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bertrand Russell may share top billing, but his main function here is to marvel at the volatile young genius and be struck dumb by his non-sequiturs.

I mention the quote for yet another reason. As a critic, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma: Should I speak, or be silent? Here is a play whose very existence inspires hope for the future of intellectually engaging American theatre. Its scope is vast, its aims admirable. Yet I left the theatre feeling its reach had exceeded its grasp. If I criticise, I discourage others from attending; is this not an act of sabotage directed against precisely the sort of theatre I wish to encourage? However, if I praise, do I not betray my vocation and my readers, sending them off to the theatre to have their hopes disappointed? Worse still, do I not foster complacency in the artists themselves?

The alternative, of course, is to be silent.

Yet there is much to praise in ‘Ludwig and Bertie’: the intriguing set by Jon DeGaetano with its walls like de Chirico arcades and its ever-shifting phalanx of chalkboards, Stan Buturla’s stately yet humane performance as Bertrand Russell, Daniel Yaiullo’s charming, all-too-brief turn as Wittgenstein’s lover, Lackey’s thought-provoking, occasionally moving script.

And besides, as G.E. Moore points out in Lackey’s text, Wittgenstein hardly practiced what he preached; he spoke when logic counselled silence. Indeed, Philosophical Investigations represents a radical departure from the laconic rigour of the Tractatus.

So it is in the spirit of the former, of unfettered inquiry, that I submit to the reader these modest ‘Theatrical Investigations’:

1. The world may indeed be everything that is the case, but the world of the play need not contain everything that was the case. A few key events explored in greater depth.

1a. Case in point: A student (W) presents a professor (R) with a notebook containing the Tractatus in germinal form. A lucky glance at two now-famous quotes instantly convinces the latter of the former’s brilliance. Alternative: A heated, protracted debate. W pursues R, is rebuffed, eventually embraced. Literary precedent: Wagner’s visit to Faust/Mephistopheles.

2. The linear, episodic style of the Tractatus, translated into narrative structure, each scene following logically from the one preceding it, each with a clear point like the third term of a syllogism. But: Does this structure mirror W’s life, or only the manacles he forged to restrain the Dionysian chaos within? Where should the Dionysian be sought? Not merely in petulant outbursts, but in the structure itself, demolished, overturned.

3. In the blinding footlights of posthumous fame, the Great Man loses in humanity what he gains in stature. How was he actually seen by fellow students, for whom the name Wittgenstein meant nothing? Who were his enemies? Where is his equal and opposite, his antagonist? Why does he wield the poker against Russell, and not, as in reality, against the far less patient Popper?

3a. Parallel: In Orson Welles’s Napoleon, schoolchildren line up instinctively to welcome a new classmate, the young Bonaparte. Reality: the new pupil is shoved in the mud, and from mud is born imperial ambition.

4. The problem of didactic theatre (DT) as a special case of the problem of allegorical theatre (AT). In (DT), the moment a character begins to teach the audience, he ceases to be a character and becomes a mouthpiece for the author. The same occurs in (AT) when the audience perceives the character’s actions to be guided by the author’s message and not the character’s inner state. In both cases, the audience feels it has been tricked.

4a. The subproblem of philosophico-didactic theatre (PDT): Conclusions are static, premises dynamic. Philosophers, with few exceptions, present us with conclusions and, at best, the illusion of premises, like gifted pupils forced to ‘show their work’ on maths problems. The actual work of philosophy is emotive, intuitive, dialectical, dramatic. The presentation of conclusions, by contrast, is undramatic⁠—even when wielding a poker.

4b. The possibility of philosophico-dramatic theatre (PDT) as an alternative to philosophico-didactic theatre (PDT) lies in the fact that the same set of symbols can represent multiple meanings. Rather than presenting static conclusions, as in (PDT), (PDT) involves the audience in the dynamic interpretative process.

4b1. ‘Ludwig and Bertie’ tends more towards (PDT) than (PDT), but there are some fine moments of (PDT) in which one witnesses a creator struggling dramatically with the birth of a BI (Big Idea).

5. No play (P) or review of a play (RP) about men who sit around discussing P and not-P should take itself too seriously. Thankfully, ‘Ludwig and Bertie’ for the most part does not.

5a. To P or not to P? If you (Q) have made it this far in RP, then P is probably for Q.

‘Ludwig and Bertie’ is playing at Theater for the New City through October 13. For information and tickets visit: theaterforthenewcity.net

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Everything in The Father is grounds for paranoid suspicion. Even the generic title gains nuance as the story unfolds. What begins as a mundane battle of the sexes—husband and wife fighting over their daughter’s education—quickly mushrooms into doubts over the child’s legitimacy. And the doubts come not through the machinations of some mustache-twirling Iago, but through the wife’s own insinuations, calculated to drive her husband mad with suspicion. It’s the difference between melodrama and psychodrama.

And the wild, psychotic ride runs its course, as Brad Fryman’s terrified Captain vomits up fear and loathing until, exhausted, he reverts to infancy, at which point, in one of the most diabolical scenes in all of literature, his childhood nurse, played by the charming Jo Vetter, sweet-talks him into a straitjacket.

The Captain is a punishing role, physically and mentally, and Fryman does it justice, showing admirable range and clarity of intention. Other cast highlights include his daughter Bertha, played with unerring, playful instinct by Bailey Newman, and Happy, his orderly, whose cheerful indifference to the fate of a maid he may or may not have knocked up sets the roller coaster in motion. Less clear are Toby Miller’s Pastor and Daniel Lugo’s Doctor Östermark, both of whom seem to lack a through line. To be fair, part of the problem lies in the improbable reactions the play demands of them. But even here, a strong choice would work wonders. For example, if the doctor were clearly smitten with the Captain’s wife, it would excuse his blindness to her scheming.

And Laura does little else but scheme. Yet so valiantly does the subtle and suggestive Natalie Menna defend her character that she actually manages to win the audience’s sympathy, even as she drives her husband to suicide and then deprives him of the means to kill himself. Her performance is pitch-perfect, never wantonly cruel, always grounded in an unshakable belief in her right to the daughter she bore and raised.

For all his alleged or admitted misogyny, Strindberg gives Menna the material she needs to defend Laura—up to and including the last word. Her arms wrapped tightly around her daughter, her prize, she declares “My daughter. Mine.” It’s a chilling coda that Ibsen would echo years later at the end of his semi-autobiographical Master Builder, as Hilda, rushing to witness the corpse of a man who literally fell for her, cries: “My master builder. Mine.”

Strindberg, a titan of modern theatre on par with Ibsen, is finally getting his due this side of the pond thanks to Robert Greer, the play’s gifted director and translator. Greer has done an extraordinary service for American theatre, directing eleven Strindberg plays to date. I look forward to more. If Greer is taking requests, the late expressionist works A Dream Play and To Damascus are things devoutly to be wished.

In the meantime, there are still four chances to ride this roller coaster. Like the Cyclone at Coney Island, it’s old and a little rickety, but it will put your heart in your throat. And while you’re at Theater for the New City, check out the other attractions at Dream Up Festival 2019.

The Father is running through September 2 at Theater for the New City. For more information, visit dreamupfestival.org.

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Driven to distraction, they toast with invisible glasses, drive imaginary cars, play tennis in the presence of the Queen, hop around like bunnies to a childish little song. And these manic games, alternately amusing and disturbing, express their desperation far more effectively than the occasional tearful breakdown. Their unseen captors are referred to, even shouted at, but never seen or heard. In a Kafkaesque twist, the reason for their imprisonment can only be guessed at. And in perhaps the most potent symbol of all, the door to the cell stands open.

There is much to recommend in this gritty, visceral production, from the dirty floor and ochre walls of Scott Tedmon Jones’s set, realistic yet bleakly surreal in the manner of de Chirico, to the masterfully orchestrated ebb and flow of speech, action and emotion under director Alan Langdon’s baton. But by and large it is the brutally honest performances of the actors that keep this infernal machine in motion. As the American, Leif Steinert’s Adam ranges from stoic voice of reason to blubbering defeatist. As Michael, the disoriented latecomer and quintessential Englishman, Michael Broadhurst follows the opposite arc, his upper lip gradually stiffening to deliver some of the play’s funniest and most incisive lines. And Jonathan Judge-Russo’s Edward, chained to center stage and just as central to the story, drives the action in ever-tightening circles with controlled intensity and an impeccable Irish brogue.

The production could benefit from a sound design that does more to suggest a world offstage, perhaps a few ominous sounds at key points to lend credence to their fear of the unseen captors. And there are moments when the tears flow a little too freely, where an effort to restrain them would be more believable and affecting. Finally, the text itself suffers at times from being overly schematic, as it plays out all the possible permutations of persecutor vs. victim in a cell with precisely three anchor points.

But there is so much life and lyricism and breadth of vision in both the text and the production that minor shortcomings are quickly forgotten. What remains, long after the play has ended, is, to quote the director’s own note, a sense of “the resilience of the human spirit,” even under absurd conditions. And since life itself is arguably absurd, regardless of the political or material circumstances under which it plays out, what could possibly be more timely and relevant?

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A compelling and thought-provoking new play by Jonathan G. Galvez, “Skylar” explores the circumstances and attitudes surrounding the vicious beating of Skylar Daniels, a transgender teenage boy. Played with facility and conviction by Eli Denson, Skylar appears only in scenes recalled by his father, teacher, and girlfriend as they anxiously await his recovery at the hospital. This skillful interweaving of linear and non-linear storylines heightens the tension and allows the playwright to use dramatic events from the past to illustrate what would otherwise be an undramatic debate set in the present. Director Kristen Keim relies on lighting and blocking cues to shift the focus seamlessly between storylines and employs the distance between the waiting area and the nurse’s station to excellent effect as a means of concretizing the antagonism between the individual and the institution.

The nurse, played by the highly talented Dana Scurlock with help from Gladys Hendricks as a sympathetic doctor, does an outstanding job of bridging this divide by striking a balance between representing the institution and revealing her own individuality. Her conversation with Skylar’s girlfriend Pamela (played by Kaitlyn Gill) about the politics of gender and sexuality is one of the highlights of the play. For her part, Gill capably manages the difficult task of playing a high school student without lapsing into parody, a tendency that underlies Ashton Garcia’s amusing but less affecting performance as a fellow student in two smaller roles.

As their teacher, Sam Lopresti portrays the play’s most complex and conflicted character, and he handles it admirably. Whether breaking up a fight, comforting a grieving parent, supporting a cause he feels ambivalent about, or obsessing neurotically over his own teaching career and lack of a personal life, he remains grounded in his character and provides just the right amount of ironic distance from the play’s heavy issues and events. As Skylar’s father, Eric Novak turns in an intense performance that becomes more assured and nuanced as the evening progresses; the impression at first is less of a character too distraught to listen than of an actor too focused on his own performance to listen.

Mark Levy, clearly a talented actor, has the thankless job of portraying the play’s straw men, and unfortunately he does little to flesh them out. Part of the blame lies with the playwright, particularly in the case of the priest, a one-dimensional mouthpiece for catholic bigotry. But even here Levy could defend his role by playing a character that has his reasons, rather than an actor critiquing his character. Brecht’s estrangement effect has it’s place, but when used only on characters whose views we disagree with, it amounts to little more than preaching to the choir–which literally happens at the end of the play when a student delivers a speech expressing the playwright’s message.

Denson’s Skylar serves as a counterpoint to Levy’s characters, not only because he represents the opposite end of the political spectrum, but because he is presented almost uncritically, albeit as a compelling, three-dimensional human being. He falsely claims Native American heritage to win a lawsuit, he seduces a naive girl under the pretext of tutoring her, he accuses his teacher of transphobia with the self-righteous wrath of a Senator McCarthy, and he condescends to everyone. Is the playwright saying that Skylar’s group affiliation justifies his behavior? If not, why don’t the other characters challenge it?

But asking yourself these and other questions is part of the pleasure of watching “Skylar” in particular and plays of ideas in general. The main advantage of theater over film, as Brecht recognized early on, is its ability to distance us from a given situation so that we can consider the underlying causes objectively and rationally. In a country split along a seemingly unbridgeable ideological rift, the play of ideas can heal more than just the theatre. It can heal our country’s divided mind. But only if we write from a place of honest inquiry. Only if we recognize the bad in ourselves and the good in the other. Only if we meet the other halfway. Galvez has gone far in this direction, and I encourage him to go further. In the meantime, do yourself and your country a favor and go see “Skylar.”

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