THE HANGOVER REPORT – Hansol Jung’s WOLF PLAY continues Soho Rep’s winning streak of presenting provocative, cutting-edge theater

Nicole Villamil, Esco Jouléy, and Mitchell Winter in Soho Rep and Ma-Yi Theater Company’s co-production of “Wolf Play” by Hansol Jung at Walkerspace. (photo by Julieta Cervantes).

Despite its pocket-sized performance space (i.e., the intimate and flexible Walkerspace), I’ve maintained for a while now that Soho Rep is one of the most important theater companies in the city. Over the years, it has presented a vital body of work that constitutes some of the most cutting-edge and consistently provocative theater I’ve come across. Indeed, plays like Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon, and Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is have seared themselves in my memory. Happily, Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play – which Soho Rep is co-presenting with Ma-Yi Theater Company – continues the winning streak.

Ms. Jung’s new play tells the story of a traumatized six-year-old Korean American boy who believes he is a wolf (!). When he’s literally (and sketchily) sold over the internet by his parents to another family, the play’s dramatic gears start churning, spewing out a series of intensely dramatic scenes that kept me glued to the proceedings. Although essentially a domestic family drama, Wolf Play also has loftier things on its mind. Namely, it makes the case for the potency and “realness” of the worlds we create for ourselves and extends that notion to the very act of theater-making. By blurring reality and storytelling, we’re aggressively brought down the rabbit hole of Ms. Jung’s vividly theatrical imagination, fully buying into the dramatic stakes of her play.

The production has been dynamically and playfully staged by Dustin Wills, who takes full advantage of the Walkerspaces’s physical dimensions. He gives Wolf Play a deceptively scrappy aesthetic, which stealthily belies its layered ambitions. The cast is sensational across the board, particularly Brandon Mendez Homer and Esco Jouléy, both of whom give impassioned, uncompromising performances that struck me with their force and restless, volatile energy. As “Wolf”, Mitchell Winter is at once feral and charismatic; he even skillfully incorporates puppetry into his high octane performance.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

WOLF PLAY
Off-Broadway, Play
Soho Rep
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 20

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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