New York Theater ’26

The Fear of 13 came with a middling review and poor word-of-mouth but wasn’t that bad. The burgeoning relationship between the condemned prisoner (Adrien Brody) and the visiting volunteer (Tessa Thompson) was credible and charming and scenes with the company were engaging and fun. The legal story, however, didn’t make sense, and the play’s wrap-up final 15 minutes, accordingly, fell flat. As often happens when dealing with a true story, the writer/director thinks the facts speak for themselves even when, dramatically, they don’t.  7

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone was a wonderful evocation of a time, place and culture; we thoroughly enjoyed it, even when we couldn’t understand the dialogue–who was “Joe Turner”? Cedric the Entertainer was missing for our performance, which perhaps diminished the heft of the lead, but Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s featured role as Bynum was seemingly more crucial, and he received a Tony nomination. August Wilson’s play, set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in the 1910s, is a classic, and it was played as such. (And anyone who thinks there isn’t a Black audience for Broadway should see this crowd!)  8.5

The Balusters refers to an item of architecture, not a dysfunctional family, but the setup is the same, only this time it’s a neighborhood association that cracks at every joint. The ten individuals cover every contemporary interest group, and their barbs and slights are unfailingly hilarious. As is the play. Once again we saw an understudy, and this time for the Tony nominee (Marylouise Burke), but her part was so small and the understudy so good we hardly noticed. The only cast member less than perfect–or maybe it was her role as written–was the nominal lead, Anika Noni Rose. There was plenty of timely acerb without her hard edge.  9

Fallen Angels is an acting tour-de-force by Rose Byrne and, exceptionally, Kelli O’Hara in an exquisitely engineered drawing-room comedy by Noel Coward. It shows its age–i.e., not relevant like The Balusters–but that adds to its charm. The setting took us back to our recent week in London, while the costume changes, sophisticate wit and pratfalls kept us glued to the action for an intermission-less almost two hours.  8

Becky Shaw is a well constructed roundelay of witty one-liners and stinging barbs in the dysfunctional-family genre. The problem for me was there was no way in to the world on stage, and the co-lead “Suzanna” (Lauren Patten) was the most annoying character I’ve come across this season. I don’t like whiners, but more to the point I couldn’t fathom why anyone else liked her either. “Max” (Alden Ehrenreich) was more interesting, but neither noble nor likable. In short, I could see the points made about relationship, but it wasn’t that great a time.