Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Majkin Holmquist’s STARGAZERS: A haunting new play whose parts are more than their sum

• By drediman
• April 30, 2024
• No Comments

One of the pleasures of seeing the works of relatively unknown playwrights is catching them on their ascent. One of those talents is Makin Holmquist, whose world premiere play Stargazers can currently be seen Off-Broadway at the Connelly Theater in the East Village. Presented by Page 73 — a theater company whose invaluable mandate is to develop new, up-and-coming playwrights — the Kansas-set play tells the story of a mother deeply grieving the death of her teenage daughter.

There’s a lot going on underneath the hood in Stargazers. Indeed, there are haunting elements abound, particularly with respect to Holmquist’s musings on grief and the notion of home. Although many of the play’s scenes crackle individually, they typically register in discrete genres/tones — satiric, ghostly, melodramatic, dark comedy, etc. — that don’t quite coalesce when taken together as a whole. This is not to say that these characteristics can’t co-exist within a single piece of theater. As it currently stands, however, the play pits them against each other instead of allowing them to percolate into a brew all its own.

Director Colette Robert tries her best to hold it all together with a relatively well-formed staging. The most impressive aspect of the production is Lawrence E. Moten III’s atmospheric set design, which effectively recreates the exterior of a barn on a Midwestern farm. Similarly, the cast attempt to shape their performances to bridge some of the gaps left by the text. In summary, despite my misgivings about the play, I’d like to see how Holmquist further develops as a playwright, particularly given her uncanny sense of the theatrical possibilities contained with a given premise.

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STARGAZERS
Off-Broadway, Play
Page 73 at the Connelly Theater
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through May 10