Wendy R. Williams' Theatre Column

Greetings Theater Lovers,

This month I saw three plays: Iris Bahr's Dai (enough) at the Culture Project: the revival of Amiri Baraka’s (aka LeRoi Jones) Dutchman at the Cherry Lane Theatre; and Richard Nelson’s Frank’s Home at Playwrights Horizons. The first two plays were definitely political dramas, but all three plays dealt with social issues: staying alive in Tel Aviv (Dai,(enough)); racial animosity in 1960’s New York (Dutchman); and sins of the father vesting on the child (Frank’s Home).

First Iris Bahr's Dai (enough), a one-woman show set in a Tel Aviv café moments before a suicide bomber sets off a bomb, killing off all the many characters that Ms. Bahr portrays. Here is a quote from their press release: “Iris Bahr's Dai (enough) is a solo performance that deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It takes place at a Tel Aviv café only minutes before a suicide bomber enters. Here we are allowed entry into the lives of numerous inhabitants from all strata of Israeli society, as well as its observers and critics: eccentric, lost, hilarious souls whose lives, quirks, and neuroses are channeled through Bahr’s remarkable characterizations and ability to bring humor to even the most dire and tragic of circumstances.”

I had seen the talented Ms. Bahr before on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. She played an Orthodox Jewish acquaintance of Larry David’s (Larry may not have friends) who gets stuck with him on a ski lift moments before the sun goes down. After unsuccessfully trying to convince him to be chivalrous and jump off the lift so she would not be alone after sundown with a man to whom she was not married, she jumped. Hysterical!

Dai, however, was necessarily dark, even though there were many comic moments; Ms. Bahr is an amazing mimic. And it was pro Israeli (Ms. Bahr was raised in Israel) but by showing so many voices (including the bomber and his mother), the play was a poignant snapshot into the lives of present day Israelis, who always live in fear like we did in the weeks and months after 9/11.

The Culture Project has made a commitment “Culture first then politics”, and Dai is another jewel in their repertory. See my January Theater Column for more on The Culture Project.

Dai (enough) has an open run at the Culture Project-SoHo at their new home at 55 Mercer St. New York, NY 10013. Tickets are $35.00-$55.00 at 212-352-3101
and http://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/4081.

Dutchman Photo Credit Gabe Evans

Next I saw Amiri Baraka’s (aka LeRoi Jones) Dutchman at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Dutchman was LeRoi Jones last play under the name of LeRoi Jones; he subsequently changed his name to Amiri Baraka.

Here is a blurb from the play’s press release: “In Amiri Baraka’s Obie-Award Winning last play as LeRoi Jones, a white woman seduces a naïve bourgeois black man on the train with terrifying results. The themes and issues of this play are just as relevant today as the day it premiered, if not more.”

The Dutchman was first produced in 1964 (at the Cherry Lane Theatre) and with its theme of interracial sexual attraction and violence was surely quite shocking at that time. The play is set on a subway car: a (slightly tipsy?) white woman named Lulu (Jennifer Mudge) enters a train car and proceeds to seduce Clay, a young professional black man played by the West Wing’s Dulé Hill.

After the show there was a talk back with the playwright, director and cast. Mr. Baraka said that he named the play Dutchman after the myth of the Flying Dutchman which according to wikepedia.org is a “ghost ship that can never go home, but is doomed to sail "the seven seas" forever.” The subway car did contain the action and the subway car set and the subway scenes projected on the stage and wall were visually exciting. But with other actors entering and leaving the car, it did seem a little improbable that no one would have been yelling, “Get a room,” or tried to intervene when the seduction turned violent. And the anger that Clay spews at the audience when he has finally had enough and erupts in a long furious monologue, seems a little out of place today for a successful black professional, but this is definitely an issue about which I am not qualified to speak

But the Dutchman is well worth seeing. It is skillfully directed (Bill Duke) and beautifully acted by Mr. Hill and Ms. Mudge. Ms. Mudge was a relevation. She basically stole the show, a hard thing to do when you are sharing a stage with Dulé Hill. And this play is a stark reminder of the long pent up anger that propelled the Civil Rights movement.

Tickets for Dutchman are $40 on Friday & Saturday at 8pm ; all other performances are $35 (except Students with valid ID - $10) and can be purchased by visiting Cherry Lane's box office or go to www.telecharge.com: 212-239-6200. For more information please visit www.cherrylanetheatre.org. The Cherry Lane Theatre is located at 38 Commerce Street, off of 7th Ave.

Frank's Home
Photo Credit Michael Brosilo

The last play I saw was Richard Nelson’s Frank’s Home. Here is a quote from the press release: “Robert Falls directs the world premiere of Frank's Home, by Richard Nelson. It is summer, 1923, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright has recently left Chicago for California, determined to embrace Hollywood's youthful zest and mend broken relationships with his adult children. He has recently completed his latest "wonder of the world" -- Tokyo's Imperial Hotel -- and is poised to settle down and embrace his new home. But his splintered family still holds deep-seeded resentments. Then news arrives of an earthquake in Japan that has leveled his prized hotel. Or has it?”

Frank’s Home deals with a difficult subject, the attempted reconciliation of an absent and neglectful father with his under whelmed adult children; a famed architect who created homes for so many is unable to create a home for himself. From everything I have read about Frank Lloyd Wright, he would have been a difficult father to have even if he had attempted to do everything right. But Wright was a womanizer and had left his children’s mother and pretty much vanished from their lives. And there is also the theme of how do children have pride in their own professional ambitions when everything they do appears minuscule compared to the massive achievements of their father? Childhood is much easier if the child feels that he will do better in the world than his parents and with Frank Lloyd Wright as a father, that goal would have been impossible.

The play is also difficult to stage. It is a “talker” and there is very little action on the barren stage, basically a desert back yard. The characters fight about grievances of the past and a perilous situation that exists a thousand of miles away. No real action takes place to answer the Passover question of, “Why is this night different from all other nights?" With Wright’s stubborn selfishness, he must have encountered many such “nights.” And at an hour and forty five minutes with no intermission, it is a long “night.”

But Frank’s Home still works as a play because Mr. Nelson has written a witty thoughtful script and it has been skillfully brought to the stage by director Robert Falls. The play also boasts a very talented cast: Chris Henry Coffey; Holley Fain; Mary Beth Fisher; Maggie Siff; Jeremy Strong; Peter Weller; Jay Whittaker; Harris Yulin. Mr. Weller as Wright and Mr. Yulin his fellow architect Louis Sullivan were an absolute joy to watch – two superb craftsmen at the top of their game.

Frank’s Home runs at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street) until February 18, 2007. Tickets are $75 at 212-279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com. For more information: www.playwrightshorizons.org

Rock on!

Wendy