Actors Cut The Scene
By Tom Meglio
It is increasingly apparent to all who are drawn to the art of theatre-making in New York City that the current industry model on Broadway, and at the professional level has been sold to corporate interests and tourism. The trickle down effects of this bargain with capital motives extends not only to the egregious ticket prices for performances, but to the skin deep, if at all, content of what is being shown. The hollowing out of the work on American stages directly impacts the writers and actors who find themselves at odds with a culture of clout that has no place for their pursuit of ambitious and commercially unconcerned work seeking a deeper level of engagement from its audiences. It is in this wake that a fledgling community of young theatre artists assume center stage…or well, lofts, basements, and even a supermarket in Brooklyn.
It is an enlivening prospect for any industry on the verge of total sellout to find defectors in it’s ranks who, in their abdication, maintain a reverence for the lineage of craft that preceded it’s foreclosure.The artists squarely positioned toward this reimagining are voraciously putting their work up on its feet, and filling its coterie with sharp, eager talent. The whole picture is at times messy, contemplative, earnest while acerbic, tropical, but self effacing, and shifts with the restless agitation of a culture coming into being. They are a loyal meliu of hip, fresh armatures, ebullient to have found an eclectic theatre haven at last. The performances frequently sellout, and their post-show crowds culminate in a sidewalk salon of sorts where audiences and performers can be heard sparring over the evenings spectacle in an affected self-actualizing commerce.
This summer alone I attended performances of over a dozen new plays, all of which had affordable ticket prices under thirty dollars, many of which graciously included discount codes, and alcohol. In no particular order, I have listed four plays that commanded our reception, and proposed some hope for a new way forward.
Joan Of Arc In A Supermarket In California
By Chloe Xtina, at E & S Wholesome Foods, directed by Kaycie Sweeney.
Between the shelves of an actual supermarket on the edge of Prospect Park the lives of four young women are upended by their omniscient store manager, and the revelation of a prophet conjured by the smoke and ash of the encroaching California wildfires. Xtina, and Sweeney place the zeitgeist of the summers revival of Barbie-Swiftdom-girlhood under an ultraviolet microscope through the happenings of the plays pubescent characters that simmer in the uncertainty of their own becoming, and the horrors of world positioned to burn them at the stake. Special mention to the market’s resident feline, who never missed an entrance. @joanofarcplay.
Zoomers,
By Matthew Gasda, at the Brooklyn Center For Theatre Research.
Now well into its official run, with a newly announced extension through mid-November, Zoomer’s soft-launched over the course of three readings this summer to reach its current iteration. In his most comic play yet, Gasda (as playwright and director) invites us into the living room of of three roommates navigating the twilight years of their twenties, combating a morass of intimacies, wayward nihilism, and more pressingly, a never ending game of Super Smash Bros. Peppered with zingers, and astute observations on the eccentricities of post-millennial culture, Zoomers offers a wry window into the all too familiar pangs that ring through a tournament of wins and losses that come with second adolescence. @bkcentertheatreresearch.
Galatea 2.0,
By Sophie Dushko, at the Brooklyn Art Haus, directed by C.C. Kellogg.
In the most ambitious and articulate playwriting feat of the season, Sophie Dushko revisits the world of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion in the modern echo chamber of voyeurism and the intricacies of validation through desire. The play charts the relationship between Henry and Eliza, a sex-worker who is called upon to substitute for Henry’s “love doll” that has mysteriously stopped performing. As the layers of intimacy, and clothing are stripped away the ghosts of Shaw’s Pygmalion intercede upon the unfolding action to lift the veil on the man himself, and the incongruous history of the distorted Galatea myth. @bk_arthaus.
Smuta,
By Jacob Wasson, at the Gymnopedie, directed by Gabrielle Carruba.
Aptly underneath the Bushwick United Methodist Church is the cavernous Gymnopeide, a performance space that might otherwise appear as though it were the victim of hard times. At the performance I attended however, it was at capacity to a buzzing crowd of fashionable playgoers that easily might have been out for a night on the town. The appearance of Smuta’s patrons was especially fitting as the play oscillates between the recollection of queer rave in Moscow, after which two fated souls find themselves imprisoned in a gay-bash basement under the surveillance of a sinister homophobic regime. Deftly directed by Carruba, the play tracks the uneasy precipice of nationalist horror, and identity that holds a bold mirror to the great question of the ever illusive idea of progress. @gymnopedie_nyc.