Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Beyond the proscenium: BABY, IN MANY HANDS, THE COURTROOM & THE TROJAN WOMEN prove to be profoundly compelling immersive theatrical experiences

• By drediman
• December 17, 2019
• No Comments

In the last week or so, I coincidently encountered quite the lineup of immersive theatrical productions. Interestingly, each proved to be compelling yet very different experiences despite their fourth wall-breaking commonalities.

Alice Ripley, Christina Sajous, and Elizabeth Flemming in Out of the Box Theatrics’ production of “Baby” by Maltby & Shire. Photo by Michael Kushner.

Perhaps the most conventional of the bunch is the intimate, slightly updated revival of Maltby & Shire’s Baby (RECOMMENDED), the 1983 musical (featuring a book by Sybille Pearson) that tells the loosely interlinked stories of three couples who are expecting. Intimate just may be an overstatement in this case, given that Out of the Box Theatrics’ production has been been literally staged in a Midtown studio apartment, where the actors essentially perform on the audience’s laps. Kudos to director Ethan Paulini for maneuvering a cast of nine around such a tiny space, and even more kudos for being able to execute a decent amount of kinetic blocking and choreography. Although some performers are stronger than others, most of the principals are quite good, including intense Tony-winner Alice Ripley (what an experience to observe her special brand of intensity in such close proximity!), the gorgeous and gorgeously-voiced Christina Sajous, and the irrepressibly charming Evan Ruggerio. Another benefit of this uncommonly small-scaled staging is the ability to hear every single word of Maltby & Shire’s joyous, tuneful score – sans amplification. It’s a treat that should be savored.

Kate McIntosh’s “In Many Hands”, an offering of the Next Wave Festival, at BAM Fisher. Photo by Ed Lefkowicz.

My final production of BAM’s 2019 Next Wave Festival – Kate McIntosh’s In Many Hands (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) – truly lived up to the festival’s namesake. Indeed, for as many performances I see, I can safely say that I have never experienced anything quite like Ms. McIntosh’s “show”. In Many Hands is the kind of out-of-the-box theatrical experiment that I’m always on the lookout for but very rarely find. It’s even rarer to come across an experience as intellectually captivating and artistically successful as this one is. The plotless show is one of the more interactive and truly exploratory experiences I’ve attended. Whereas most immersive theater ironically discourage full-out exploration, this one pushes you to use your tactile sense as much as possible. The setup is this: at each performance, a relatively small group is gathered and asked to hone in on their sense of touch by each feeling what seems like an endless parade of disparate objects. Although it’s hard to do it justice in writing, the experience is profoundly meditative – part ritual, part experiment, part performance art, part art installation. The shared experience left me at once disoriented and contemplatively aware of the wonders of these human bodies we inhabit.

Kathleen Chalfant (center) in a scene from Waterwell’s production of “The Courtroom: A Re-Enactment of Deportation Proceedings”.

Then over at the Cooper Union’s Great Hall, I caught the one-night-only remounting of Waterwell’s production of The Courtroom: A Re-Enactment of Deportation Proceedings (RECOMMENDED), Arian Moayed’s assemblage of verbatim court transcripts that re-enact the series of deportation proceedings involving Philippine immigrant Elizabeth Keathley. The piece follows Ms. Keathley’s poignant case as it travels from the Immigration Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Director Lee Sunday Evans has nakedly staged the show as if were in an actual courtroom, eliciting frank, unadorned performances from her rotating company of actors (the cast I saw was headlined by the magnificent Kathleen Chalfant). What makes The Courtroom ultimately so powerful is its ability to attain empathy from its audiences without begging for it. The transcripts themselves do the talking. The production’s coda – the show’s masterstroke – takes its text from the transcript of Ms. Keathley’s naturalization ceremony. During this incredibly moving scene, the audience is asked to role play as immigrants undergoing the naturalization process. Empathy, indeed.

The company of Andrei Serban and Elizabeth Swados’s “The Trojan Women” at La MaMa. Photo by Theo Cote.

Last but not least is La MaMa’s remount of its legendary 1974 production of The Trojan Women (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), directed by Andrei Serban and featuring a score by the late, great Elizabeth Swados. After having recently toured the production around the globe, La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company returns it to its birthplace after having been influenced by the cultures and communities it has come in contact with. The result is a recast version of the original The Trojan Women that layers urgent, acutely contemporary political perspectives and issues on top of its timeless mythology. It’s a credit to the writing and narrative structure of the piece that it’s able to accommodate this more nuanced set of priorities (thanks largely to the unique but universal verbal and musical language concocted by the show’s creators). Overall, I’m hard-pressed to think of a more arresting, viscerally-charged production – on or off-Broadway – currently in town (only Bedlam’s arresting revival of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible a few blocks away comes to mind right now) than Mr. Serban and Ms. Swados’s devastating, terribly exciting promenade staging. I was left speechless by the scale, spectacle, and overwhelmingly communal emotional impact of it all.

BABY
Off-Broadway, Musical
Out of the Box Theatrics
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through December 21

IN MANY HANDS
Off-Broadway, Performance Art
Next Wave Festival / BAM Fisher
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

THE COURTROOM: A RE-ENACTMENT OF DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS
Off-Broadway, Play
The Great Hall / The Cooper Union
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

THE TROJAN WOMEN
Off-Broadway, Music Theater
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
1 hour, 25 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed