WELCOME BACK! A consideration of the start of the 2021-22 New York theater season.

 It's been a while!

New York theaters are nervously moving forward with a new season that everyone hoped we could call "post-pandemic," or at least "pandemic-under-control."

Alas, neither of these defines the current state of things.  So, let's call it "nervously moving forward anyway, with fingers crossed and hoping for the best."  

It's hard to believe, but I have already seen seven shows on and off Broadway.  So let's chat a bit about them.

Things began for me in April, when I saw a production of Blindness at Off Broadway's Daryl Roth Theatre. The theater is named for the producer Daryl Roth, to whom I give a lot of credit for taking this early leap into the unknown.  

Blindness at the Daryl Roth Theatre

Photo by Helen Maybanks

Wisely or foolishly, I felt perfectly safe attending.  Given all that was at stake, I know that everything that could be done to ensure the health and well-being of all in attendance would be taken care of.  Indeed, the theater was super scrubbed, the audience was seated in a socially-distanced space, we were escorted individually to our seats, and everyone was masked.  

A little about the play itself:  Blindness was adapted by Simon Stephens from José Saramago's 1995 novel of the same title, It is a gripping tale about a plague of sightlessness that spreads rampantly among the inhabitants of an unspecified city and brings social order to its knees.  

So, not exactly a fun topic, but it was very well done nonetheless.  If you want to know more, here is a link to my review:  

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/04_06_21.html

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Next up for me was another Off Broadway show, this one at the Cell Theatre.  Now we are into July.  Protocol for admission was proof of vaccination -- though after admission, seating was not socially distanced, and masks were not required.

This one was a seriocomic play called Fruma Sarah (Waiting in the Wings).  If the name "Fruma Sarah" rings a bell, it's the character of the deceased wife of the butcher Lazar Wolf in Fiddler on the Roof.  We never actually meet the real Fruma Sarah in Fiddler;   instead, she appears in an imaginary dream cooked up by Tevye in order to convince his wife that they should break the agreement with Lazar Wolf to let him marry their daughter.  Remember?  Good.

Jackie Hoffman and Kelly Kinsella

 Fruma Sarah (Waiting in the Wings) at the Cell 

Photo by Hunter Canning

Fruma Sarah (Waiting in the Wings) is a two-character play about a community theater actress waiting backstage to go on in the role of the dream version of Fruma Sarah. The part was performed with great élan by the comic actress Jackie Hoffman.  

Written by E. Dale Smith, the play gives us a woman whose own life is on the skids, but who lives for those moments when she can figuratively and literally soar as an actress.  If you want to know more, here is a link to my review:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/07_08_21.html 

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Third show, taking me into August.  This one marked the re-opening of the Delacorte Theatre, aka Shakespeare in the Park, the Public Theater's stadium-like open-air performance space in Central Park.  

Covid protocol: proof of vaccination and photo IDs to get in.  Masks required until and unless seated.  Special section set aside, socially distanced, for the unvaccinated and masked.

Before we get into the show itself, a comic romp titled Merry Wives, I want to take a moment to recognize all of the hard work by everyone involved to pull it off.  From the start, the production was plagued by a string of delays, canceled performances, an injured lead actor, and storm washouts -- not to mention the nerve-jangling specter lurking in the shadows.  And yet, the show prevailed and successfully ran until just last week when it closed on schedule.  

 

The Cast of Merry Wives at the Delacorte

Photo by Joan Marcus

Merry Wives is a modern take of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, adapted by playwright Jocelyn Bioh and   removed from England to Harlem among a population of African immigrants.  If you want to know more, here's a link to my review:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/08_09_21.html

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Then later in August, Broadway saw its first show of the season, and, yes, I was there.  It was Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's play Pass Over, transferred from its previous Off Broadway production, with a revised ending, still on view at the August Wilson Theatre,  with masks, vaccinations, and IDs all around.  Now might also be a good time for me to mention that, thus far, audiences I've encountered have been compliant and well-behaved and considerate of one another.  

Namir Smallwood and Jon Michael Hill

in Pass Over at the August Wilson Theatre

Photo by Joan Marcus

Pass Over borrows imagery from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and from the Old Testament Book of Exodus to relate the story of two young Black men who are trapped in a stretch of urban space.  If you want to know more, here's a link to my review:

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/index.html

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Lenny Grossman and Francesca Ravera 

in Blackbird at the New Ohio Theatre

Photo by Bjorn Bolinder

September saw an off Broadway production at the New Ohio Theatre of David Harrower's disturbing play, Blackbird, which deals with the toxic fallout from a heinous act of pedophilia, a three-month-long sexual relationship between a 40-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl that took place 15 years before the play opens.  If you want to know more, here's a link to my review: 

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/ob/09_16_21.html

 

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There are two other plays I have seen since, Sanctuary City at Off Broadway's Lucille Lortel Theatre and Lackawanna Blues, on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.  But I have not yet written those reviews, so you'll have to wait.