THE HANGOVER REPORT – David Cale’s SANDRA is a standard thriller with flashes of genuine insight into the human psyche

Marjan Neshat in the Vineyard Theatre’s production of “Sandra” by David Cale (photo by Carol Rosegg).

Last night just off of Union Square, David Cale’s new one-woman thriller Sandra opened Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre. The production reunites Mr. Cale and director Leigh Silverman, who scored a success a few years ago – also at the Vineyard – with Harry Clarke, another solo thriller starring Billy Crudup. In their latest collaboration, they tell the story of one Sandra Jones, a woman who embarks on a life-changing trip to Puerto Vallarta to investigate the disappearance of her soulmate, a gay pianist who himself was undergoing existential strife prior to dropping off the grid.

Like Harry Clarke, Mr. Cale’s latest operates on two levels – firstly as a standard psychological thriller (complete with steamy sex scenes, a stock villain, and the requisite courtroom scenes) and secondly as a thoughtful portrait of a woman whose life is unmoored upon the surfacing of the mysterious circumstances surrounding her close friend’s disappearance. In terms of the former, Mr. Cale does a solid job of keeping the audience on the hook, if only to engage them as a Law & Order episode would. But in terms of the former, the playwright/actor offers some genuine, delicate insight into the workings of a human mind in deep distress, which is especially afforded by the solo show format.

The Off-Broadway production stars the great Marjan Neshat, a wonderful actress who was so memorable in two plays last season – Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul at Playwrights Horizons and Sanaz Toossi’s English at Atlantic Theater Company. Used to playing strong ethnic women, Ms. Neshat here effectively (and almost unrecognizably) plays against type by portraying a sort of every-woman who is unsure of her footing at every step of her journey. Ms. Silverman’s somber, stylish staging for the Vineyard Theatre production – which features an elegant original piano score by Matthew Dean Marsh – does well to mask the more pedestrian aspects of the play and highlight its subtle strengths.

RECOMMENDED

SANDRA
Off-Broadway, Play
Vineyard Theatre
1 hour, 20 minutes (with no intermission)
Through December 11

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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