Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Soho Rep’s vividly theatrical, dynamic staging of Hansol Jung’s explosive WOLF PLAY returns Off-Broadway courtesy of MCC Theater

• By drediman
• February 15, 2023
• No Comments

Last night, Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play returned Off-Broadway courtesy of MCC Theater. The production previously played New York at Soho Rep (in a co-presentation by Ma-Yi Theater Company), that tiny but indispensable incubator of important and adventurous new works. Luckily, theater fans who had missed that sold out run now have the opportunity to see what the fuss was all about. In short, Jung’s play tells the story of a six-year-old Korean American boy who is (sketchily) sold over the internet by his step parents to another couple, which sets off the dramatic trajectory of the piece.

In once sense, the play is an exploration of the fierce instincts of parenthood, especially when the stability and safety of the parent-offspring bond is threatened. In this regard, Wolf Play calls Erica Schmidt’s Lucy, another play currently running Off-Broadway (Schmidt’s work depicts the disintegrating relationship between a rigid doctor and her carefree nanny). But the Jung’s play is much more than that. It’s also a commentary on self-preservation via the imagination (the boy’s survival mechanism is believing that he is literally a wolf), and by extension the act of theater-making.

Where to go with such a specific and fascinating premise? Smartly, the piece defiantly eschews naturalism (e.g., the compelling use of puppetry), looking to Dusting Wills’ deceptively scrappy and endlessly inventive staging to generate much of the excitement. Dynamic and vividly theatrical, the production unfolds in a series of visceral, highly physical, and tightly choreographed scenes that pop in MCC Theater’s intimate black box space, nicely mirroring the explosive emotional content of Jung’s play. As before, the acting by the ensemble cast is sensational, delivering performances that exhibit as much charisma as bite.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

WOLF PLAY
Off-Broadway, Play
MCC Theater
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 19