The Other Place (c) Maria Baranova
Theater: The Other Place
At The Shed
When playwright Alexander Zeldin states that his new play, The Other Place, is loosely based on Antigone, he isn’t kidding. While the major characters are still here, the modern update has decided to take liberties with the plot while keeping the Greek tragedy mood intact. Creon, the uncle king of Antigone and Ismene, is now Chris (Tobias Menzies), and his nieces are the artist Issy (Ruby Stokes) and the black sheep of the family Annie (Emma D’Arcy), who was sent away to boarding school after the death of her father led to a mental break. Years later, Annie has returned to her father’s home where Chris and his new family, wife Erica (Nina Sosanya), Eurydice in the original, and her child Leni (Lee Braithwaite), are now living. Annie is against spreading her father’s ashes on a memorial in the town park, hoping to keep them either in the house or buried on the estate. (In Antigone, it is her brother she wants to bury honorably, even though Creon believed he was a traitor.) Chris wants to move on with his life with new family and just leave the past behind. It’s funny to note that for a week, New York audiences could watch Robert Icke’s Oedipus revival on Broadway (recently closed) and hop the 7 train to the Shed to see Oedipus’ daughter Antigone’s story. The changes Zeldin makes to Antigone’s story (as Icke did with Oedipus) will be sort of a shock to purists, but he does put some 21st-century themes of past trauma into the motivation of some of these characters that will keep the audience glued to the soapy nature of this family drama.
The Other Place (c) Maria Baranova
Zeldin, who also directed the play, has his creative collaborators ramp up the haunted house aura with Josh Anio Grigg’s sound design and the spooky droning noise on the unfinished house set by Rosanna Vize, and the flickering lighting by James Farncombe. At one point, the focal point of the set switches to a blue tent set up in the backyard of the house that is full of portentous meaning (analogous to the prison cell that Antigone is sent to after defying Creon). Trying to keep the modern story interesting without being swallowed by the whole Greek tragedy of it all is the wonderful cast. Many of the actors are from the 2024 London production, most essential being D’Arcy and Menzies as the warring niece and uncle. Their battle of the urn holding Oedipus’ ashes sometimes verges on farcical (a zip-loc bag becoming important), but once we get to the heart of their animosity, which is not even hinted in the original Sophocles play, the actors really dig in. D’Arcy is primarily known for House of the Dragon so it’s nice to see them in modern dress. Menzies was in The Crown, but I know him as Julia-Louise Dreyfuss’ unsupportive husband in You Hurt My Feelings, plays Chris as obstinate as King Creon, with a new shocking revelation in this revision that makes his motives still unlikeable but a bit more understandable. The Other Place is sometimes frustrating but ultimately rewarding.
Data (c) T. Charles Erickson
Theater: Data
At the Lucille Lortel Theatre
I hope playwright Matthew Libby bought a lottery ticket when his new play Data opened the same week as the horrible events unfolding in Minneapolis with ICE agents in January. Not that it’s good kismet, but the themes of his play and the unbearable optics of federal agents’ abuse of power are so eerie that even Libby couldn’t have foretold this coincidence when the play premiered in November of 2024 at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. At that time, Donald Trump won the electoral college count (but not the popular vote) to become president for a second term, but who knew the fascist policies to come? Libby’s play sort of does. Like the Data’s plot itself, the spoiler of the play is the project that low-on-the-totem pole data programmer Maneesh (Karan Bray, the only actor from the Arena production) is asked to work on if he accepts a promotion from the head of Athena Technology, Alex (Justin H. Min). Maneesh took this original job for its low stress, mindless qualities, including a couple of rounds of ping pong with his dim-bulb colleague Jonah (Brandon Flynn) every day. But then he runs into a former schoolmate Riley (Sophia Lillis), who is working on the project, which has been falling behind in its deadlines and goals, and realizes that Maneesh would be a big asset. It turns out that both Alex and Riley want to work with Maneesh, but for different reasons, and when he agrees to the promotion (the play would have been really short if he didn’t), it turns out he took the metaphorical red pill from The Matrix where he can’t unsee what he didn’t want to know.
Data (c) T. Charles Erickson
I’ll leave the story there, but the moral implications are stronger than the actual project, which requires a rather complex algorithm that verges more on science fiction. While the plot itself becomes a sort of predictable thriller of negotiations and motives, the actors in Tyne Rafaeli’s confident production make the story work. Bray has the hardest role as his character has to think fast of his feet as the company’s insidious project and its implications become clearer to him. Lillas (from the It movies) and Min (who was so great in After Yang) effectively represent the two sides of the dilemma, while Flynn, who is becoming a reliable and welcomed actor off-Broadway, is the comic relief, which he provides admirably, all while playing ping pong. If you wanted to see a play to divert yourself from the realities of some of this administration’s immigration policies, Data may not be for you, but it brings up interesting topic of conversation around lofty ideas and real-world implementation.
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The Porch on Windy Hill (c) Ben Hider
Theater: The Porch on Windy Hill
At Urban Stages
After a successful run in the fall, Urban Stages’ production of the musical play The Porch on Windy Hill has returned for an extended run this winter, and if anything can melt the NYC deep freeze, it’s the trio of Tora Nogami Alexander, Morgan Morse and David M. Lutken performing traditional American folk songs between family dramas. Mira (Alexander), a young violinist in New York City, unexpectedly reunites with her estranged grandfather Edgar (Lutken) during an East Coast road trip through folk music landmarks with her historian boyfriend Beck (Morse). When she was a child, Mira had a loving relationship with her grandparents until an incident surrounding the fact that she’s biracial (her white mother is Edgar’s daughter, and her father is Korean) caused a family rift. So, at this uneasy reunion, which takes place during the COVID pandemic, Edgar’s olive branch arrives in the form of folk music, picking at his guitar, banjo and anything else he can find on the titular porch on Windy Hill, North Carolina. This pleases Beck who gets to ask Edgar about all the legendary musicians he had worked with and starts to jam with him on songs like “Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” and “Bill Cheatham.” Soon enough, Mira enters the hootenanny, trying to classical up the joint with her violin, which turns into a fiddle with each new song Edgar plays, including a sea shanty (remember those popular pandemic-era memes). This is just pure fun. Lutkin and Morse are also the co-authors of the play with Lisa Helmi Johanson (the original Mira) and director Sherry Stregack. Their script surrounds the pre-existing music and sort of follows predictable narrative beats, with resentment bubbling up at the moment when the music stops and drama is needed. There’s even a drunken evening where lips are loosened and secrets are told. But the themes of racism and otherness is cleverly woven in with the Americana of the music. The actors are also all expert musicians, and they provide a toe-tapping, infectious good night at the theater.
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