Paranormal Activity (c) Matthew Murphy
Broadway: Paranormal Activity
At the August Wilson Theatre
It is serendipitous that Paranormal Activity, the first Broadway play ever based on a horror film franchise, is playing at the August Wilson Theatre. First of all, Wilson’s famous 10-play cycle is full of supernatural spirits in post-slavery 20th century America, but the theater was also the host of one of the most infamous horror movie adaptations for Broadway, with 1988’s musical version of Carrie (“God has seen your sinning, just beginning…”). Since then, there have been many attempts to reinvent spookiness from the big screen to the Great White Way, including intellectual horror in the plays of Conor McPherson (Shining City still has my favorite scare moment on Broadway) and recent productions like Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Grey House. The author of the latter, Levi Holloway, wrote Paranormal Activity, which is less an adaptation than in the spirit of. Gone is the hook of showing the spooky happenings on video as the lead couple sleeps. Now we’re following a new couple, James and Lou (Travis A. Knight and Cher Alvarez), recently married, and newly transplanted to suburban England for a fresh start, mainly for Lou’s mental health. But from the beginning, Fly Davis’ beautifully dilapidated two-level, old house does the heavy lifting on the portentous scale that audience members hoping to get jump-scared are looking for. And jump-scares the play does.
Paranormal Activity (c) Matthew Murphy
Anna Watson’s lighting design in tandem with Garth Fry’s sound design ramps up the creepiness factor whenever the exposition gets too wordy (the ushers have complimentary earplugs, which you should grab if you have any worries). But the real heroes of the evening are director Felix Barrett and illusion designer Chris Fisher, who know how to get the audience’s Spidey sense activated by separating the couple in the house and giving each their own eerie journey. Both actors are making fine Broadway debuts, with Alvarez doing double duty with her psychologically compromised character while also shouldering a lot of the stage magic that makes the audience scream and giggle. Rounding out the cast are Eva Kaminsky and Shannon Cochran, who have effective roles, respectively, as a medium and James’ mother, with the latter making most of the line “…and you should answer the door.” This is a whole lot of fun, but somewhere in the second act, it felt like the production was more interested in the Halloween Horror Nights kind of experience than the plot. Holloway does have a surprise at the end which doesn’t shy away from the darkness of these characters, but it also feels like an easy kind of “the call is coming from inside the house” twisty finale. Once the show is over, the plot logic, you realize, was a bit wonky, but for those who love this kind of stuff, the activity onstage is goofy, paranormal fun.
Disrpution (c) Emilio Madrid
Theater: Disruption
At Pershing Square Signature Center
There seems to be two points playwright Andrew Stein is making in his latest play, Disruption. One, AI (but more specifically, the algorithms that it runs on) is getting dangerously close to knowing us more than we even do; and two, wives are inhibiting their husbands from being truly happy. OK, the second point is a gross generalization, and was probably not in the elevator pitch for the play, but there seems to be a sameness to the three heteronormative New York couples under the microscope of the algorithm that entrepreneur Nick (John David Washington) and his partner Raven (Emma Kikue) are raising funds to launch. And while it does seem like money is the main reason for gathering Nick’s best friends from college for dinner, there does appears to be something more going on. For Barry (Jason Ralph), a former Doctors Without Borders surgeon, and his wife Mia (Irene Sofia Lucio), they are currently looking to buy a house in Brooklyn, which even for a guy with a six-figure salary is financially out of reach. Old school magazine guy Paul (Joe Tippett) and lawyer Jill (Elizabeth Stanley) live a comfortable life out in the burbs with their children, but does comfortable equal satisfying? And then there’s Columbia professor Ben (Conrad Ricamora) and psychologist Suzie (Shaunette Renée Wilson), happy living on the Upper West Side, eschewing stereotypical notions of marriage, but maybe one element they have jointly eliminated should be reconsidered.
Disruption (c) Emilio Madrid
All three men question what they think are fine lives, but could the needs of their wives be stifling what each man and, more importantly, the algorithm is predicting they need to reach their full potential? All this is played out with humor by the wonderful cast, especially Tippett and Stanley, who get more stage time, breathing a fresh spin on the rather tired trope of married couples with kids who are now primarily parents rather than lovers. Wilson is also a stand-out as someone who sees through Nick’s song and dance and questions his motives, but her fate feels unnecessarily cruel. Washington has a good time as the face of the future, even as he has questions about the morality of it all. Hersh Ellis directs this all smoothly, and Stein does a good job making the audience question what we would do if we were ever offered this hypothetical offer. Or have we already crossed the line and Disruption’s warning is already moot.
Russ%20Rowland.jpg)
The Real Ivanov (c) Russ Rowland
Theater: The Real Ivanov
At the Lynn F. Angelson Theater
One can always look at the first work of a writer to find the seeds of themes of their later, and usually more accomplished, works. Case in point, Anton Chekhov’s first play, Ivanov, which in adaptor (and director) Laura Strausfeld’s hands, now called The Real Ivanov, gives us unhappy landowners with money troubles, some missing the city life of Moscow, drinking a lot of vodka, when one character introduces a gun in act one (It isn’t called “Chekhov’s gun” for nothing.) Ivanov (Sam Underwood) is our unhappy landowner, who can’t pay his staff after defaulting on a loan, but he also has a terminally ill wife, Anna (Ivory Aquino), whom he seemingly never loved (there’s a hint of antisemitism). And despite advice as to how he can dig out of his debt by his friend (Sam Adegoke) as well as pleadings from his wife’s doctor (Elijah Guo) to move to a healthier climate, Ivanov ignores them all, seemingly to enjoy wallowing in problems of his own making. Even the prospects of young Sasha (Amelia Mason), who is rich and in love with him, make Ivanov even more determined to check out rather than face his responsibility.
Russ%20Rowland.jpg)
The Real Ivanov (c) Russ Rowland
Ivanov is mostly known in New York from a 1997 Broadway production adapted by David Hare, starring Kevin Kline, and while I didn’t see it, I can imagine Kline at least brought some sort of humor to the role, something Underwood doesn’t tap into in his interpretation, although he does bring a palpable level of anger to the character. The rest of the actors handle their roles admirably, although in this brisk adaptation (less than two hours), a lot of the nuances of the minor characters feel superfluous, although Spencer Aste finds nice moments as Sasha’s much-put-upon father. There’s a clever moment, devised by Strausfeld, when all the elements come together nicely with set and lighting designer Jiyoun Chang’s expertly lit red carpet of a playing area in Act Four, and Ivanov finally realizes what he has to do. That moment is bold, shocking and spot-on to Chekhov’s themes. The Real Ivanov needed a few more of those.
The Winter's Tale (c) Joan Marcus
Theater: The Winter’s Tale
At the Delacorte Theater (Closed)
Before its summer run ended, I was lucky enough to catch Shakespeare in the Park’s The Winter’s Tale, directed by Daniel Sullivan, which, despite its daunting three-and-a-half-hour runtime, was a magical night of theater. The Winter’s Tale has always been a bit schizophrenic with the first half being super serious, that the second half’s whimsy and clowning feel like a different play altogether. The play starts with Sicily’s jealous King Leontes (Raúl Esparza) believing his wife, Queen Hermione (Lily Rabe), is not only having an affair with his friend, Polyxenes (Gilbert Owuor), but is also currently carrying his child. While everyone in his court tries to change his mind, he orders the death of Polyxenes, who escapes back to his kingdom of Bohemia. The king’s unwavering anger then turns to his wife, who is thrown in prison, where she gives birth to a daughter the king mercilessly orders to be left out in the elements for the gods to decide her fate. The baby is found by a farmer (Chuck Cooper) in Bohemia and raised as his own as Perdita (Isabela Ferrer).
The Winter's Tale (c) Joan Marcus
The second half includes a lot of clowning in Bohemia by the shyster Autolycus (Steven Skybell), who somehow gets mixed up in the romance of the now adult Perdita and Polyxenes’ son Florizel (Daniel Kyri) before the play ends up back in Sicily with a now repentant Leontes mourning what he did to his wife and daughter. Sullivan makes a lot of interesting choices with the text, but he is consistent, opting to make what is usually a magical last image of the play into an explainable one. However, even the veteran director couldn’t cover up Shakespeare’s odd dramaturgy, including the obvious kissing cousins icky plot, and making one of the most important moments of the play happen offstage, being relayed to the audience by people who were in the room where it happened (why weren’t we in the room as well?). But the real reason this production works is the acting, especially the two leads and two actors in smaller roles. The best is Rabe, who most people know as Harrison Ford’s daughter in the TV show Shrinking. She has never been this fierce and commanding and I missed her Hermione when she disappeared for most of the second half. Esparza is predictably in his comfort zone, playing the anger of a monarch who can kill people for contradicting him. I also liked Marsha Stephanie Blake as the Queen’s confidant and Teagle F. Bougere as the King’s more sensible advisor. But what of Shakespeare’s famous, “Exit, pursued by bear” stage direction? It is there, but again, we only hear about the outcome from an observer in the forest where it happened. Oh, Will.
If you want to comment on these reviews, please do so on my Instagram account. All reviews have their own post. And please follow to know when new reviews are released.
