Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Julia May Jonas’s beguiling A WOMAN AMONG WOMEN engages in a fascinating dialogue with an Arthur Miller warhorse

• By drediman
• October 24, 2024
• No Comments

This week, I ventured out to East Williamsburg to catch the Bushwick Starr’s production of A Woman Among Women by Julia May Jonas. The mounting — a co-presentation with New Georges — christens the adventurous Brooklyn theater company’s unadorned yet comfortable new venue, which is located three stops farther east in Bushwick than its grungy former home. In short, Jonas’s new play is a loose adaptation of Arthur Miller’s classic 1946 play All My Sons, at first glance notable for swapping genders (this time around, the morals of a family/community matriarch come into question) and updating the play’s setting (present day in a small liberal town in Massachusetts) and cast of characters.

But look more closely, and you’ll find that there are far more interesting things brewing in A Woman Among Women, allowing the play to engage in a truly fascinating dialogue with the Miller warhorse. Specifically, the moral dilemma at the core of the play has shifted (no spoilers here!), propelling the characters into far murkier territory than in Miller’s largely black-and-white world view, which ends in a hard Greek tragedy-like fall from grace. In Jonas’s play, audiences are asked to more critically mull things in their heads, resulting in a more robust and telling dissection of its gender switch. Throughout, Jonas meticulously articulates fully-realized characters and relationships — so pregnant with subtext — often times requiring that viewers lean in and actively process each moment. Indeed, the lack of exposition (which I suspect is intentional) often makes it seem like you’re being dropped in the midst of a much larger tapestry of human stories. As you piece things together, tensions — many of them non-verbal — become increasingly evident, for the most part without having to be telegraphed in histrionic confrontations.

Director Sarah Hughes has given A Woman Among Women a laid back, communal staging that harkens back to David Cromer’s revelatory 2009 revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Altogether, the play registers more Chekhovian than Arthur Miller — only reinforced by the production’s deceptively light touch, which organically incorporates song and underscoring, often to beguiling effect (kudos to Brian Cavanagh-Strong for his instinctive music and music direction). Less successful, however, is its confounding incorporation of choreography, a decision that left me scratching my head. Across the board, the cast is fantastic. Invariably, they give pointed, beautifully shaped performances that come across both heightened yet deeply rooted in each character’s respective truths.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

A WOMEN AMONG WOMEN
Off-Broadway, Play
The Bushwick Starr
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through November 10