ASP’s Impressive ‘King Hedley II’ Is a Requiem to a Dream

James Ricardo Milord and Omar Robinson in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of August Wilson’s *King Hedley II*. Photo by Maggie Hall Photography.

By Shelley A. Sackett

August Wilson’s King Hedley II, the Pulitzer Prize nominated play, is set in 1985 in the same Pittsburgh Hill District backyard where Wilson set his previous work, Seven Guitars (which received a knock out production in 2023 by Actor’s Shakespeare Project). Jon Savage’s same terrific set (and Anshuman Bhatia’s spot-on lighting) adds continuity and interest.

It’s now 40 years and several generations later, and the upbeat, soulful guitar blues arias soundtrack of Seven Guitars has been replaced by a thrumming funeral march set in a minor key.

Hill District is a poster child for its era: the promised trickle-down effect of Reaganomics has instead trickled up, and Black communities, always hampered, are now in a keyless lockbox.

Murder and crime are bit players in this tragedy of dreams confused and deferred, lurking behind every door and hiding under every unturned stone. Yet, as always, Wilson manages, through sheer artistic genius, to find a glimmer of light in this dark place. As with all ten of his Century Cycle plays (also called The Pittsburgh Cycle, a collection of ten plays that span across decades to document African American experiences in the 20th century), it is family and community that are Wilson’s main focus.

And it is through their words — brilliantly crafted dialogues, monologues and epistles — that he brings his characters to life and prevents the play from spiraling into a bottomless abyss of sorrow and gloom.

Which is a good thing, because King Hedley II’s backstory has already taken place when it begins. Much of its 90-minute first act is characters talking about what has already happened or what is happening offstage. Telling rather than showing rarely makes for thrilling theater.

Luckily, Wilson can create whole worlds through his dialogue.

King Hedley II fast forwards from where Seven Guitars ended. King (an outstanding James Ricardo Milord), last “seen” in utero, is now in his late thirties. He has just returned from a seven-year stint in prison and has a huge scar on the left side of his face, a reminder that he killed a man and a source of his unease and insecurity.

“Anyone who killed someone has no right to God. Living without God is the ultimate punishment,” a character says.

He is desperate to restart his life. His to do list includes resuming his relationship with his second wife Tonya (Karimah Williams) and getting $10,000 so he and boyhood best friend Mister (an effectively under-stated Omar Robinson) can open a video store.

King and Mister have amassed a pool of cash by selling refrigerators with suspicious chains of ownership to their Black neighbors and supplementing that with recreational crimes like a midday jewelry heist. Despite pressing immediate needs for the money — Mister’s wife left him and took all the furniture; King wants to move from the Hill District to give him, Tonya and their expected baby a fresh start — they tamp down these immediate gratification urges in favor of the patience needed to achieve their American dream.

Ruby, (Patrice Jean-Baptiste, in a role and under direction that, after the disappointing Trouble in Mind, thankfully allows her to strut her acting chops) a sixty-something former blues singer who recently moved back to Pittsburgh, is King’s biological mother. When we last saw her, she was a 20-something spitfire visiting her Aunt Louise. Pregnant by one of her two lovers (Leroy Slater or Elmore), she ended up leaving King with Louise and her boyfriend, King Hedley, who assumed the role of the boy’s father. The two raised King, although Hedley I died when he was three.

Aunt Louise recently died and Ruby is back to claim her rightful property inheritance. She also wants to take a stab at establishing a mother-son relationship with King. Still hot on her trail is Elmore (a best-in-show Naheem Garcia), the unapologetic, charismatic snake-oil salesman who blows with the wind as long as that wind involves a con and carries Ruby’s scent. The two are moths drawn to each other’s flames, and it’s with a comparatively light heart that the audience watches their pas de deux, wondering how close they can dance before singeing their wings and retreating.

Stool Pigeon (Brandon G. Green) rounds out the cast, and as Greek chorus and narrator, his role is crucial. Through him, Wilson permeates his script with Black folklore, scripture, societal observation and bigger picture commentary. He picks up where King’s titular father, Hedley I, left off.

In Seven Guitars, Hedley I is an old man, not altogether right in the head, who has turned his back on the white world he loathes. He’s a Caribbean islander, a believer in saints, spirits, prophets and the ghost of Charles (Buddy) Bolden, the legendary New Orleans trumpeter who died in an insane asylum. More than anything else, Hedley would like to sire a messiah. (Throughout King Hedley II, King asks, “Is there a halo around my head?”)

Stool Pigeon’s opening prologue (the first time Wilson used this device in a Cycle play) gives context and content while firmly establishing his position as Hill elder spokesman, conduit to the outside world, and spiritual and practical truthsayer.

As the play opens, he has just learned Aunt Ester, who lived nearby, has died at age 366. (Interesting sidenote: that would mean she was born in 1619, the first year a documented African arrived in the continental US and a year before the Puritans landed. Throughout the Cycle plays, she has been the embodiment of African wisdom and tradition.)

Her death devastates the Hill District community. Stool Pigeon warns, “Lock your doors! Close your windows! Turn your lamp down! We in trouble now.”

He worries that without Aunt Esther to guide them, they will be lost and future generations of the Black community are at risk of never knowing where they came from.

“The people need to know the story. See what part they play,” he says. “God has already written the script, and man’s role is to play his part as written. Period.”

Their fates may be in God’s hands, but as for the ability to understand the meaning of it all and make the lack of free will bearable, well that’s another story altogether. “(God) said, ‘Let he who has wisdom understand.’ Aunt Esther got the wisdom. All that’s left now is the playing out,” Stool Pigeon says.

And for over three hours (plus one 20-minute intermission), the outstanding cast of King Hedley II does just that. Under Summer L. Williams’s crisp-paced and compassionate direction, the ensemble plays it out as both a single collective and a collection of individuals.

Notwithstanding their flaws, violent streaks and knuckleheaded moves, the men are at heart decent, caring and wanting to do the right thing. They can be whimsical and curious, undaunted by repeated set-backs. “Life is funny,” one says. “I keep trying to figure it out.”

Tonya and Ruby are voices of logic and healing, reality checks in a world where murder is a male rite of passage and a single slight can rip a dream to shreds.

King Hedley II tackles some meaty issues, both concrete and existential. Guns are everywhere, as are the consequences of their use and misuse. Poverty and conflict go hand in hand, as do death and deceit. Life is a gritty game where the white man makes the rules and those rules are in constant flux.

Yet the overarching question — how can a Black person survive, let alone thrive, in racist country? — is treated with thoughtfulness and introspection. King embodies and epitomizes the agony of trying to raise a family when all the odds are stacked against his success. “How do you build a better future when everything around you is going to shit?” he asks.

Nonetheless, his destiny is to try. When Tonya advocates for abortion over bringing a child into a world where motherhood is reduced to trying to keep that child alive, King chides her for having the baby buried before he’s born. He needs this baby both as a legacy (he already refers to him as King Hedley III) to redeem himself and as a way to prove that he has the ability to do something right.

This blind optimism is epitomized by King’s determination to force seeds to grow in a dried up patch of ground in the backyard in the middle of a slum. The image of him on his knees, tenderly tilling the dirt and rejoicing at the first signs of life, are heartbreaking and exhilarating. While the play ends on a disturbing note, this is the image remains: the extraordinariness that this ordinary man can do an ordinary thing on an ordinary day.

‘King Hedley II’ – Written by August Wilson; Directed by Summer L. Williams; Scenic Designer: Jon Savage; Costume Designer: Becca Jewett; Lighting Designer: Anshuman Bhatia; Sound Designer: Caroline Eng. Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley St, Roxbury, through April 7, 2024

For tickets and information, go to: https://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/

P. Carl Invites the Audience on His Gender Transition Journey in the A.R.T.’s ‘Becoming a Man’

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

Stacey Raymond, Petey Gibson in A.R.T.’s ‘Becoming a Man’
Photos by Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall

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By Shelley A. Sackett

P. Carl, an acclaimed educator, dramaturg, and writer, lived for 49 years as Polly, a woman who believed she had been born into the wrong body. The last 20 years were spent as a lesbian in a queer marriage to Lynette D’Amico, a writer and editor. Lynette had no idea the queer woman who was her wife suffered gender dysphoria, a condition that can — and in Polly’s case, did — lead to depression and anxiety and have a harmful impact on daily life.

So when, at age 50 and against the backdrop of America’s changing LGBTQ+ political and cultural backdrop, Polly decided to undergo gender transition and become Carl, it came as quite a surprise.

In 2020, P. Carl published a memoir, “Becoming A Man,” that detailed his life before, during, and after his transition, sharing details of what it was like to grow up in the Midwest as a girl, become a queer wife and successful career woman, and then transition to life as a man at the height of the Trump era.

A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus had read an early draft of the book and thought it would translate well as a play. P. Carl agreed. A commission of this new work for the A.R.T. and a several-years-long developmental process resulted in the dramatic version of “Becoming a Man,” in its world premiere production at Loeb Drama Center through March 10.

Act II, a facilitated conversation with the audience about the play and its themes, immediately follows the play. Facilitators are chosen from a roster of local leaders, artists, or medical professionals, and activists who explore the production’s essential question, “When we change, can the people we love come with us?”

“Becoming a Man” functions largely as a non-linear narrative of P. Carl’s journey and female-to-male transition from Polly Carl to Carl. It opens with a bearded Carl (Petey Gibson) catapulting onto a minimalist stage, declaring that his decision to transition from female to male was the best move of his 50-year-old life.

“The world shifted,” he explains. “I finally learned to swim,” a metaphor that pops up frequently for the euphoric freedom of finally feeling comfortable enough in one’s own skin to risk exposing it to others in very public places.

Carl also admits that now he is a man, he has become a bit of an uber-male. He enjoys men-only spaces, like sports bars, where he yells at the television and refers to his wife as the little woman. He hires a personal trainer and practically swoons in the men’s locker room. He even develops a sneaker fetish.

He also is clueless and blindsided when his lesbian wife Lynette (Elena Hurst) doesn’t react to his transition as the enthusiastic cheerleader he had assumed she would be. Myopic and self-reflective and -involved to a fault, Carl honestly doesn’t get it that Lynette could be traumatized by her female wife becoming a male and by hearing that during the entirety of their marriage, that wife felt like she was living in a body that was a lie.

Lynette, after all, fell in love with Polly and embraced their female queer personal and political status. She liked every aspect of being in a female-female marriage. Suddenly, to remain married to the person she loves, she has to do a 180 and adjust to the new reality that they will now present to the world as any other conventional heterosexual couple.

“What’s my part in your new life?” she asks. “I don’t know who you are. You obliterated my past,” she says, adding for emphasis, “I did not accidentally omit men from my life.”

“Transitioning for me was a breeze,” Carl says blithely. “She’s grieving and I’m celebrating.”

To his great credit and the audience’s edification and enjoyment, Carl presents his personal story in an honest, no-holds-barred way that is deeply touching in the level of trust and introspection it shares.

His pre-transition self, Polly (Stacey Raymond), is her own character, often shadowing Carl and reminding him of who he was as he navigates who he is. The moments when Polly, horrified by Carl’s macho behavior, scolds him are among the play’s best.

Raised in Elkhart, Indiana by an abusive father (Christopher Liam Moore) and loving but passive mother (Susan Rome), Polly is proof that the internal pain and trauma of a childhood spent in a small-minded Midwestern town as a girl feeling like she was a guy who was attracted to girls is as difficult to shed as the external signs of gender assignment.

Polly’s difficult relationship with her family is no less difficult as Carl, and the scenes when both visit their father in his waning years spotlight the point that inside, Carl really is also Polly, with all her assets and all her baggage.

“Becoming a Man” tries to cover a LOT of ground (to varying degrees of success), including friendship, gender, power, sexual identity, and inequality in America. Perhaps the most interesting and poignant topic is how the person who transitions and those with whom they shared relationships deal with all the memories and experiences that happened during pre-transition life.

Ironically, it’s the two women in Carl’s life who remind him that his actions have consequences that extend beyond his body.

“You don’t get to choose what to remember and what to forget,” Polly chides Carl. “I don’t know what to do with our history,” adds Lynette.

Becoming A Man’ — Written by P. Carl. Co-directed by Dianne Paulus and P. Carl. Scenic Design by Emmie Finckel; Costume Design by Qween Jean; Lighting Design by Cha See; Music and Sound Design by Paul James Prendergast; Video Design by Brittany Bland. Presented by the A.R.T. at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., through March 10.

For tickets go to https://americanrepertorytheater.org/

The Huntington’s Must-See ‘John Proctor Is the Villain’ Conjures Pure Theatrical Magic

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

Isabel Van Natta, Jules Talbot, Victoria Omoregie, Haley Wong in ‘John Proctor is the Villain’ at The Huntington. Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

By Shelley A. Sackett

In 1692, a witchcraft panic in Salem, Massachusetts, led to the conviction and execution of 19 innocent people (14 women and five men) for a crime that not only was never committed but that never happened in the first place.

A mixture of irrational fear, unchecked religious and patriarchal power, and a persecuting mentality led to the emergence of witch hunts and subsequent witch trials.

Arthur Miller fictionalized and immortalized this historical event in 1953 with The Crucible, a mainstay of most high school English Literature curricula. He intended it as an allegory for and indictment of the rabid McCarthyism of the 1950s, when the U. S. government blithely persecuted citizens accused of being communists based, often, on nothing more than innuendo and hearsay.

Fast forward to 2018 and an 11th-grade honors English literature class in rural Georgia, the time and place where “John Proctor Is the Villain,” Kimberly Belflower’s razor-sharp and timely play, is set. The opening scene finds Carter Smith (played by Japhet Balaban), the laid-back, I-could-be-your-buddy teacher, standing in front of a group of bored teenagers, each with their textbook open.

“Sex,” he says. In unison, the students robotically recite the administration and school board approved definition.

We get an inkling of the seven students’ (five girls and two boys) personalities and styles through the intimate banter that ensues. Beth (Jules Talbot), an eager, smart student, complains about squandering lit time for the ten minutes of sex education that the curriculum demands of each class.

Nell (Victoria Omoregie), a new transplant from Atlanta, says she had sex ed in fifth grade. Ivy (Brianna Martinez) is all business and practicality (“Doesn’t it make sense for sex ed to actually come like before people know about sex?”). Raelynn (Haley Wong) is a cheerleader type, scowling one minute and vamping the next. Lee (Benjamin Izaak) is the quintessential poster boy for teenage testosterone, and Mason (Maanav Aryan Goyal) is the class loafer.

We also get a glimpse of Carter and the adoration he culls and basks in. “I know it seems really lame, guys. Believe me, I remember being exactly where you are and feeling like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ but this is the curriculum. These are the facts.”

He is the teacher we all wanted to have in high school — smart, a little goofy, and universally appealing. He culls his students’ trust.

He also has a laundry list of issues, including ones respecting boundaries. Caught in the netherworld between being a teenager himself and entering the adult world of his student’s parents, he evokes both our affection and suspicion.

Following several more excruciatingly boring call-and-response sex ed definitions, Carter explains that the class’s next assignment will be to read and critique “The Crucible.” He teaches it in a fairly traditional way and proclaims John Proctor as the hero of the play.

Proctor, as a reminder for those who don’t remember the details of The Crucible, is the 35-year-old married man who has an affair with Abigail, a teenage girl in his employ. To save his honor, he lies about the affair up until the moment he is about to be hanged and only confesses because he thinks it will literally save his own neck.

Carter deems Abigail, who is disgraced and fired from her job, as the play’s true villainess because she starts the witch hunt that leads to the Salem Witch Trials. “Abigail is like really determined to get revenge. She becomes kind of a ringleader to everyone making these accusations and it gets pre-tty crazy,” Carter explains.

His five #MeToo generation female students don’t quite see it that way. After all, Proctor committed adultery with a teenager, lied about it, and let her take the blame for the affair. They maintain that Abigail’s acts of “revenge” — accusing citizens of consorting with the devil — was the only way for her to achieve empowerment in a theocratic, Puritanical patriarchal society that marginalized and demonized her.

Victoria Omoregie, Jules Talbot, Haley Wong

Shelby (Isabel Van Natta), who has returned to school after an unexplained absence, is particularly incensed. Where is the goodness, she asks, in a man who seduces a teenage girl and then throws her out when his wife finds out? A man who only had to lie to be able to put the whole mess behind him?

Adding to the caldron of budding feminism these five students are stirring is the fact that their request to start a Feminist Club (to “spread awareness, foster dialogue, and ignite change”) has been rejected by the school board. Their guidance counselor, Miss Gallagher (Olivia Hebert), delivers the bad news. When Carter steps up and offers to be its faculty advisor so it can go forward, the pieces are all in place for playwright Belflower to conjure her dramaturgical magic.

And make no mistake. Bridging eras of 17th-century Calvinist Puritanism, 20th-century McCarthyism, and the 21st-century #MeToo movement to create a cogent, insightful, accessible, and – most of all – funny commentary on the issues of male power and female vulnerability and agency is nothing short of miraculous.

The plot of John Proctor Is the Villain is so integral to its message and enjoyment that it would be a spoiler to detail what happens next in this theatrical gem. Suffice it to say that there are enough surprises, twists, and turns to make 100 intermission-less minutes fly by and a climactic finale that is guaranteed to leave you clapping furiously during a standing ovation.

Director Margot Bordelon squeezes every drop of theatrical juice out of this fast-paced, fabulous, must-see play. Under its comic overtones lie deep issues such as female friendship, gender dynamics, speaking truth to power, and patriarchal autocracy. Kudos to Bordelon for aiming equal beams on the light and dark elements of the play’s messages.

To be fair, Bordelon has a lot to work with. Belflower has an uncanny ear for dialogue, and she has penned spectacular characters. Her teenagers are articulate and insightful. They are also silly, petty, and childish. In short, they are believable adolescents, and the cast wears their roles as if they were made to order.

Isabel Van Natta, Jules Talbot, Victoria Omoregie, Haley Wong

Carter, as the John Proctor stand-in, is appropriately smarmy and endearing. He is like jello. He presents as solid but, in truth, is an eely mass of spineless gelatin, and Balaban taps into this duplicity with subtlety and self-assurance.

John Proctor Is the Villain is what good theater is all about. Its storyline is a dynamo of action and intrigue, of pathos and laugh-out-loud humor. Engaging and thought-provoking, its message is one that rings loud and true today. As Carter explains in his introductory lesson on The Crucible, “Later we found out that all those accusations were untrue. Innocent people died, and why? Largely mass hysteria, spurred on by … a bunch of people saying untrue things that could become dangerous if left unchecked.”

Highly recommended.

‘John Proctor Is the Villain’ — Written by Kimberly Belflower. Directed by Margot Bordelon. Scenic Design by Kristen Robinson; Costume Design by Zöe Sundra; Lighting Design by Aja M. Jackson; Sound Design by Sinan Reflik Zafar. Presented by The Huntington at Performing at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through March 10, 2024.

For tickets and information, go to https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/

Local Co-editors Trumpet Global Diversity with Stories of 100 Jewish Brides From 83 Countries

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

At their wedding, David Winer breaks the glass as Adena and her mother look on./INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

By SHELLEY A. SACKETT

In Costa Rica, where it is customary to hand-deliver wedding invitations, most of San Jose’s Jewish community was invited to Karen and Michael Bourne’s 2003 wedding. Over 350 attended.

In Nicaragua, Veronica and Kurt Preiss married three times: first, in a civil ceremony, second in a Jewish ceremony not recognized by religious law, and third in conjunction with a conversion organized by Kulanu (“all of us” in Hebrew), an organization that supports isolated, returning and emerging Jewish communities all over the world.

Diana and Lev Pershtein-Lapkis were married by a reform rabbi in Latvia because traditional Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism don’t consider her to be Jewish. Hédi and Michael Fried survived Auschwitz and, despite all odds and an 18-year age difference, married in 1947 in Sweden.

And in Egypt, Esther and Léon Abécassis, the Chief Rabbi of Alexandria and their witnesses had to sign a “single status affidavit” (proof of celibacy) before their wedding at the Great Synagogue of Alexandria in 1934.

These are but five of the 100 stories in local co-editors Barbara Vinick’s and Shulamit Reinharz’s “100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World.” Released on Feb. 6, the book features the first-hand stories of Jewish weddings from six continents that span almost a century.

Written by brides, their relatives, clergy and friends, this collection of personal stories from around the world offers readers a peek through the keyhole at the surprising variety of ways in which the Jewish wedding process can unfold, from the first meeting to the wedding ceremony and beyond.

“100 Brides” is the third cultural project celebrating Jewish womanhood that Vinick and Reinharz have co-edited. “Esther’s Legacy: Celebrating Purim around the World” (2002) examined how Queen Esther’s courage in saving the Jews is observed in different communities. “I Am a Woman: Stories of Bat Mitzvah around the World” (2012) looked at the wide range of ways in which a Jewish girl’s coming of age is marked.

With “100 Brides,” the co-editors turned their attention to Jewish weddings from the bride’s point of view in an effort to learn about how Jewish life was and is actually lived throughout the world. What they discovered was that although Jewish weddings may differ in detail depending on the era and international community, they share many commonalities too.

They found that some features of Jewish weddings – the ketubah (Jewish marriage contract), chuppah (wedding canopy), wine, rings and breaking of the glass – are almost universal. Others, such as a henna ceremony where groups of women apply temporary tattoos on the bride, are unique to Mizrahi (Sephardic Jews from the Middle East and North Africa), Indian and Pakistani weddings.

“Every religious community develops a culture over time,” Reinharz told the Journal. Even though Judaism has central texts which define “this is the way we do things,” everything has changed in the modern era where individualism prevails and the bride and her partner can decide how they want to structure their ceremony.

As a longtime board member and the current secretary of Kulanu, Vinick has had access to and knowledge about many far-flung and little known communities. She was part of the Kulanu group that traveled to Madagascar with a bet din (rabbinic court of three rabbis) to convert more than 100 people to Judaism. There, she attended the post-conversion remarriages of 12 couples, including Ahava, one of the brides whose story is in the book.

As engaging as these short narratives from different countries are, the last chapters give the book more heft, delving into the meatier, more macro- issues of arranged and forced marriages, intermarriage and interethnic Jewish marriage, and contemporary marriage issues in Israel. “One of my passions in life is using a sociological framework to understand things better,” Reinharz explained. “The Israel stories in particular are very important.”

She hopes readers will realize that there are alternatives to what they assume a Jewish wedding should look like. In America, for example, a particular emphasis has evolved to give the bride as much of a voice as the groom. “If I had had this book when I got married in 1967, I would have added all sorts of things that were not available at the time,” she said.

Reinharz and Vinick, who both have doctorates in sociology, have been friends for decades. In 1997, Reinharz founded the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI), a research center whose purpose is to develop new ideas about Jews and gender worldwide. Her HBI and Vinick’s Kulanu connections created a large network of Jewish scholars, rabbis and activists from across the globe for the co-editors to plumb.

Both acknowledge that their biggest challenge was not accumulating stories, but rather figuring out how to organize them into a coherent narrative. They toyed with the ideas of time-period or geography, but ultimately settled on the stages of marriages.

Vinick hopes the book might inspire readers to write the story of their own wedding. “These are really mini autobiographies and biographies,” she said. “A marriage is a good place to start.” Θ

Reinharz and Vinick will speak about “100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World” at Congregation Shirat Hayam on Saturday, March 2 at 10 a.m.

Tone-Perfect ‘A Case for the Existence of God’ Finds the Sacred in the Profane

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

Jesse Hinson and De’Lon Grant in Speakeasy Stage’s *“A Case for the Existence of God”.*
Photos: Nile Scott Studios

“A Case for the Existence of God” — Written by Samuel D. Hunter. Directed by Melinda Lopez. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through February 17.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Once upon a time, there were two men who seemed to have little in common except their geographic histories in Twin Falls, Idaho, and the fact that their toddler daughters attend the same daycare.

Keith, a Black, gay mortgage broker, grew up living in a “nice house” in an intact family. His father, a lawyer, shared his love of travel with his children, exposing them to exotic places like Estonia at a young age. Keith is clearly in Twin Falls by choice. He even went away to college, earning a dual degree in Early Music and English, and returned. To Twin Falls. To be a mortgage broker.

Ryan, one of the popular kids in high school, grew up the son of two addicts with mental health issues who needed more parenting than they could offer. The only trip he remembers his father taking him on was to the edge of a cliff, where he literally told his young son he wanted to catapult them both off the edge to their deaths. He has never been out of the country, not even to Canada, which is a day’s round-trip car ride away. He barely ekes out a blue-collar existence working at the town’s yogurt factory.

The two strike up a conversation when picking up their daughters at daycare, and Ryan ends up in Keith’s office, a soulless cubicle, seeking his professional help in securing a loan to buy twelve acres of land that his grandfather originally homesteaded. He wants to build a house so he can have something of significance to leave his daughter, Krista.

It is in this claustrophobic yet intimate cubicle, mid-conversation, that playwright Samuel D. Hunter brings up the house lights on his tone-perfect two-hander and New York Drama Critics’ Circle 2021-22 Best Play, “A Case for the Existence of God.”

Keith, literally buttoned up in a collared and pressed Oxford shirt, is on a monologue roll explaining the difference between a mortgage broker and lender. Ryan, in a hoodie and work boots, is trying to wade through the papers he holds in his hands.

It’s as if they are protagonists in different plays. Yet, as the audience will discover over 90 delicious minutes of theatrical tour-de-force, these two not only share more common ground than not; they are actually the key to each other’s spiritual awakening and redemption.

Slowly and cautiously, they reveal details about their personal lives. Keith, after several false starts at adoption, is fostering Willa in the hope of adopting her when she turns 2 years old. He has raised her since infancy and is just two months shy of the finish line. He has just heard from his social worker that Willa’s aunt has suddenly surfaced as Willa’s next of kin and, upon learning he is both gay and Black, has voiced some concerns about the adoption.

Ryan is in the throes of a divorce and lives in a crummy cold water flat where his refrigerator is on the blink. He has terrible credit, no assets, and a delusionary dream of buying land and building a house so his 15-month-old daughter Krista will have the legacy and family home he so sorely missed out on.

Both are members of the marginalized class — Keith, by virtue of his race and sexual orientation, and Ryan, because of his poverty and lack of education. They are isolated, lonely, and deeply disoriented by a complex system that threatens to drown them in despair. All they want is what everyone wants — a home and a family — yet the stumbling blocks they face are as systemically engrained as they are emotionally debilitating.

Though they come from different worlds, they bond over their terror of the future and their helplessness in the face of such odds. As they connect over their reverence for fatherhood, a beautiful and genuine friendship evolves.

It turns out they attended the same high school, although the only time they interacted was when Ryan made fun of Keith’s T-shirt. Over time, they share much more — including a bottle of Johnnie Walker — peeling back the layers at the core of their dashed hopes and deferred dreams.

They are truly each other’s missing pieces.

Hunter’s masterful script and pitch-perfect direction by Melinda Lopez are solid arrows in this production’s quiver, but a two-hander is only as strong its actors, and in De’Lon Grant (Keith) and Jesse Hinson (Ryan), SpeakEasy Stage has hit the jackpot.

Grant brings a sweet openness to Keith, a quiet vulnerability and optimism. He is a bundle of nervous energy, a compulsive talker who wears his heart on his sleeve. Ryan is equally hopeful despite the insurmountable odds he has faced all his life. He, too, struggles to keep his head above the despair that threatens to drown him.

As this platonic male friendship blossoms, so does the duo’s conviction that they will, in the end, be OK. Whether they would have been able to embrace this positive outlook without each other’s support is an open question.

The play’s ending (no spoilers!) solidifies and elevates Hunter’s theme that the key to happiness and the point of God’s creating more than one human lies in the plan that they would find comfort and meaning in their relationships with one another. We need each other. What links us is what it’s all about. What separates us is a red herring meant to be overcome and ultimately ignored.

Ryan and Keith’s friendship is hard-won and deeply sowed, their true legacy to those who will follow in their footsteps. If that isn’t a case for the existence of God, then what is?

For tickets and more information, go to https://speakeasystage.com/

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

‘Liv at Sea’ Navigates Emotional Tsunamis in a Pitch Perfect Production

“Liv at Sea” — Written and directed by Robert Kropf. Presented by Harbor Stage Company at Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St., Boston, through January 28.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Who among us has never wondered about what our lives might have been like if, like Robert Frost’s famous protagonist, we had chosen the road less traveled when our path diverged into two? Did we choose wisely? Given the chance to relive that pivotal moment, would we again choose the security and comfort of the path we know or risk all on the thrill of the other, the unknown?

Liv (a remarkably lithe and captivating Paige O’Connor), the title character in Robert Kropf’s dazzling “Liv at Sea,” is at just such a crossroad in her young but disappointing life. She lives with Nick, her longtime boyfriend. The play opens mid-conversation in their apartment, as Liv tries to articulate that she is unhappy with her monotonous, monogamous life. Her demeanor is emotionless, her pale skin shiny in an eerie, extra-terrestrial way. Her heart is heavy, she tells Nick. She is so thirsty. She needs water, a lot of water, so much water that she can set herself adrift and let the sea deposit her onto a beach where she can finally breathe.

Nick (an excellent Nick Wilson) has no idea what she’s talking about. A teddy bear of a guy, Nick is a whirl of physical and verbal kinetic energy that makes Richard Dreyfuss look mellow by comparison. He is terrified of losing Liv. He can change. He will change. He loves her. He does not need adventure and the thrill of the unknown. He needs what he knows. He needs Liv not to rock the moored boat and to remain where she is.

He is also overbearing and needy in a way that is both heartbreaking and suffocating. It’s not hard to understand Liv’s agitation and desire to break free of her situation.

Finally, at his wit’s end and as if reading the audience’s mind, Nick asks if Liv has met someone. Turns out she has. His name is Jack (Jack Aschenbach), he is in a longtime relationship, and he, too, is ready to embark on the path untravelled.

Kropf stages Liv and Jack’s first encounter as a flashback. A year earlier, they glimpsed each other on the street. This was followed by a second encounter, conversation, and a splendid afternoon spent on an untethered, playful journey.

They share an ease and rapport that seems unforced and comforting. Yet, is it enough to warrant such an impulsive, radical change? Is THIS “it?” Does it matter?

O’Connor brings a chameleon-like radiance to the transformed Liv. With Nick, she is earthbound and hollow-eyed. When with Jack, she smiles with her entire being. Her eyes glitter and there is music in her voice.

They are two peas in a pod, each wondering whether their current domestic couplings are “it” or whether they are settling out of fear or laziness. Aschenbach brings a laissez-faire to Jack that is so intoxicating Liv doesn’t question why he won’t tell her his last name. It is all part of his infectious not-Nick charm.

Kropf doesn’t just shine as a playwright, with inciteful, thought-provoking, and moving dialogue. He is also a gifted director, and he brings a special vitality and cinematic creativity to this 90-minute intermission-less production. The first-rate minimalist set (Sara C. Walsh), excellent lighting (John Malinowski), video (Adam Foster), and sound (Joe Kenehan) designs create a breathtaking theatrical synergy.

Yet the real shining stars are the trio of actors who both ground and catapult the show. O’Connor is flawless as Liv, navigating her through choppy waters of guilt, uncertainty, anxiety, infatuation, and delight. Her slightest gestures pack a well-aimed, emotional wallop. Her eyes are right out of an Italian Renaissance painting, keyholes to her soul. Wilson (Nick) and Auerbach (Jack) are her perfect romantic foils: yin and yang, overbearing and tenuous, obvious and intangible. The choreography of artistry and empathy among these three is a rare pleasure to witness.

At the end of the day, whether Liv runs off with Jack or not (no spoilers here!) is not as important as the questions Kropf asks his characters and their audience. Is it enough just to be loved, or is that settling? Is the risk of the unknown worth it? Can you live with that risk? Are you truly alive without it? What is real and, perhaps most importantly, what does it matter?

For tickets, go to https://www.livatseabca.com/

Huntington, SpeakEasy’s Co-Production “The Band’s Visit” Serves Up A Sublime Slice of Life

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

The cast of “The Band’s Visit” at the Huntington. Photo by T Charles Erickson

By Shelley A. Sackett

The delightful musical “The Band’s Visit” is a welcome breath of air in the current asphyxiating climate surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas. Its focus is a single night in Bet Hatikva, a tiny Israeli town that feels more like a pit stop on the way to someplace more important than a destination.

“You probably didn’t hear about it,” says Dina (played by a magnificent Jennifer Apple in a star-making performance), the proprietor of Bet Hatikva’s only café and its resident narrator and cynic. “It wasn’t very important.”

As she goes about her business at the café, lamenting her plight in this Podunk town in the middle of nowhere, her fellow residents, workers and perpetual customers join in witty song to echo her sentiments.

Everyone is waiting for something to happen. Everyone is bored. Everyone is “looking off out into the distance/Even though you know the view is never gonna change.”

And then, suddenly, an entire band of Egyptians clad in gaudy, bright powder-blue uniforms shows up as if beamed down from heaven in answer to their unspoken prayer. It is as disorienting as it is exciting.

It’s as if the cast from Wes Andersen’s “Budapest Hotel” showed up en masse dressed as bellhops.

The members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Band, led by its uptight, by-the-book conductor, Tewfiq (played with a hint of vulnerability and compassion by Brian Thomas Abraham), seem to be unwitting victims of confusion and ineptness. They are due at the Arab Cultural Center in the thriving city of Petah Tikva. Instead, they have landed in the motheaten town of Bet Hatikva, where they are truly strangers in a strange land.

Making matters worse, there is no bus until the next morning. There are also no hotels. The Egyptians are as stuck as the residents. Not to worry, Dina says. The locals will be happy to host the Egyptians for the night.

And for the next 90 intermission-less minutes, these two very different groups of individuals who do not share the same language or culture will bond in ways that reveal gossamer layers of tenderness, humanity and hope. The ice breaker, it turns out, is music, the universal language of the soul.

Which is lucky for us. With songs by David Yazbek and a script by Itamar Moses, “The Band’s Visit” is as satisfying a musical as it gets. The ballads and character songs blend wisps of haunting Middle Eastern and klezmer melodies and rhythms with poignant, funny Sondheim-quality lyrics. Icing atop this sumptuous cake is the fact that each syllable is crystal clear thanks to perfect enunciation and expert sound.

The action, as it were, takes place as vignettes of intimate interactions between the Israelis and their guests. In the process, we get to glimpse the similarities of sadness, regret, dashed dreams and promises unfulfilled that they all share. These seemingly disparate people, Egyptians and Israelis, learn there is more that joins than separates them when politics are ignored.

The salve of that message alone is reason enough to see this show. The pitch-perfect production under Paul Daigneault’s direction and stand-out acting and musicianship raise the bar to a sublime level.

As Dina, Apple is riveting. She brings fire (think Selma Hayek), ice and a powerful set of pipes to the complicated woman who rages against life’s disappointments while being unable to let go of her lifeline of hope. Her body language is eloquent and articulate. The scenes between her and Tewfiq, where each reveals their most secret secrets, are heartbreaking. In another life, at a different time, these two could have been a match made in heaven.

Everyone benefits from these chance encounters, learning more about themselves in the course of learning more about the “other.” An Egyptian clarinetist and assistant conductor help Itzhak and Iris, a floundering young couple on the brink of losing the thread of their union. A Don Juan hopeful trumpeter (Kareem Elsamadicy) gives the socially awkward Papi (a scene-stealing Jesse Garlick) a lesson in how to approach girls.

There is also laughter, mirth and the delight of cast members who do double duty as musicians. It is pure magic each time the six members of the band break into song on stage.

By morning, when it’s time for the band to depart, things have shifted. There is a new melancholy in the air, yet it is not borne of despair or sadness. Rather, it stems from the experience of how one single night can change a person — and an entire community — in a profound way that leaves hope in its wake.

Marianna Bassham, Andrew Mayer, Robert Saoud, James Rana, Jared Troilo

Dina and Tewfiq face each other for the last time, sharing both the joy of having discovered that there is a comforting home even for their shattered hearts and the pain of knowing that that bed will never be feathered. When Tewfiq raises a palm to Dina and she raises her back, the emotional gravitas of their goodbye ranks right up there with Rick and Ilsa’s embrace on the tarmac in “Casablanca.”

“Nothing is as beautiful as something you don’t expect” is a common refrain. By the play’s end, every character has been transformed in some indelible way by the band’s unexpected visit. And, after experiencing 90 minutes of a music-filled world devoid of ethnic conflict and invectives, where Arabs and Jews connect and share just as regular folks looking out for each other, so have we.

For information and to buy tickets, go to https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/

“The Band’s Visit” — Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Itamar Moses. Based on the Screenplay by Eran Kolirin. Directed by Paul Daigneault; Choreography by Daniel Pelzig. Music Direction by José Delgado. Scenic Design by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs. Costume Design by Miranda Kau Giurleo. Lighting Design by Aja M. Jackson. Sound Design by Joshua Millican. Produced by Huntington Theatre in collaboration with SpeakEasy Stage at 264 Huntington Ave. Boston through December 17.

ASP’s Not-to-Be-Missed “How I Learned to Drive” Explores Abuse and Memory in a Tour de Force Production

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

Dennis Trainor, Jr. and Jennifer Rohn in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s *‘How I Learned to Drive’*
(Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios)

By Shelley A. Sackett

“You and Driver Education — Safety First,” a voice announces as the lights dim. A middle-aged woman steps onto a bare set, composing herself. She turns to face the audience, addressing them as though mid-conversation.

“Sometimes, to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson,” she says. “We’re going to start our lesson tonight on an early, warm summer evening.”

So begins Paula Vogel’s brilliant Pulitzer Prize Award-winning play, “How I Learned to Drive,” in which she examines the complicated ways in which we process the trauma, shame, and blame associated with pedophilia and family complicity. If the topic sounds heart-wrenching and heavy, that’s because it is.

Yet, thanks to superb acting, Elaine Vaan Hogue’s sensitive direction, and Vogel’s candid and non-judgmental script, we grow to care about the characters — all of them, including the predator, Uncle Peck. Although a testament to Vogel’s ability to create a defective character whose humanness prevents us from dismissing him as pure evil, that is perhaps the most disturbing part of the play.

Set in Maryland in the 1960s and ‘70s, the non-chronological scenes are narrated by Li’l Bit (the spectacular Jennifer Rohn), a woman now in her mid-30s who plumbs her memories of the sexual assault she endured beginning at age 11 and continuing until her 18^th birthday. The abuse began as a driving lesson, and Vogel uses titles from a guide to a driving handbook as a device to link the nonlinear episodes.

As “Drive” moves back in time, from when Li’l Bit was 17 to 15 to 13 and, finally, 11, the horror and helplessness of the situation hangs heavy. Endowed from a young age with very large breasts, Li’l Bit is ridiculed and bullied at school and at home. Only Uncle Peck (an equally amazing Dennis Trainor, Jr.), whose playful, empathetic, and supportive relationship is a welcome refuge for the isolated and lonely child/woman, seems to understand and care about her. Their relationship forms the backbone of the play.

We watch as Uncle Peck systematically grooms and desensitizes Li’l Bit, nefariously making her his accomplice instead of his victim. “Have I forced you to do anything?” he asks repeatedly as he unlatches her bra with one hand, joking about how boys her own age probably fumble and need her assistance to accomplish the same feat. “Nothing is going to happen between us until you want it to,” he croons. “You just can’t tell anyone.”

Interspersed between the edgy scenes of seduction are narration and a Greek chorus of three (Amy Griffin, Sarah Newhouse, and Tommy Vines, all superb) who deliver monologues and play many roles in family scenes, driving lessons, restaurants, and the schoolyard. In one scene, our hearts ache for 11-year-old Li’l Bit as her family (mother, aunt Mary, Uncle Peck, cousin BB, Grandma and Grandpa) shrieks derisively as they joke about her breasts. No wonder she takes refuge in the kitchen with Uncle Peck as he washes the dishes and converses with her as if she were his peer.

Their weekly driving lessons start shortly after.

As Li’l Bit plumbs her memory, revealing and reliving episodes of these driving lessons and submission to the accompanying sexual abuse, she also reveals how the years of trauma finally caught up with her, leading to her drinking to excess and getting expelled from college. She relives other memories, too, some so painful she can’t deal with them and, continuing the driving metaphor, changes them “like changing stations on the radio.”

Vogel expertly uses humor and slapstick to lighten the emotional load of the unrelenting manipulation and abuse. “A Mother’s Guide to Social Drinking” and “On Men, Sex and Woman” feature bravura performances by Newhouse as Li’l Bit’s mother and make their points while making the audience laugh.

Vogel turns to a monologue by Aunt Mary (also Newhouse) to answer the question of whether Li’l Bit’s family knew what was going on.

Turns out, they did.

Alone on stage, Aunt Mary defends her husband, claiming he is the victim of Li’l Bit’s manipulation. She can’t wait for Li’l Bit to go off to college, so things can go back to normal. “I’m a very patient woman,” she states with more than a whiff of menace. ”But I’d like my husband back.”

Even more chilling, if that is possible, is the scene titled, “Uncle Peck Teaches Cousin Bobby How to Fish,” during which it becomes clear that Uncle Peck also assaulted his young nephew BB after baiting and trapping him with the same kindness, gifts and you-can-trust-me-banter he used on his niece. The ruthless and deliberate nature of the premeditated attack, stripped naked of the frisky banter of his encounters with Li’l Bit, unmasks Uncle Peck for the cold-blooded pedophile he is.

Eventually, Li’l Bit breaks free of Uncle Peck on her 18^th birthday in a pivotal scene where Uncle Peck exposes how unhinged he has become, and Li’l Bit finally leaves him and their situation for good. The trouble is, the years of trauma have etched an indelible toll on her, one that leaves her reflecting on why Uncle Peck molested her and what responsibility she bears. She ruefully wonders whether she will ever be able to forgive Uncle Peck and, by extension, herself.

As Li’l Bit and Uncle Peck, Rohn and Trainor are spot-on perfection. Trainor captures Uncle Peck’s crushed spirit and underlying aw-shucks grace, his tortured yet thoughtful self. Rohn brings an incandescence to the complex Li’l Bit and the chasms separating her bone-weary adult sadness and giddy little girl appreciation for adult attention and admiration. It is a fine line, and Rohn navigates it effortlessly. A set bare of all but a few chairs, tables, and a bed places the focus squarely where it should be: on the characters.

At the end of the play, Vogel’s script returns to the present. Li’l Bit thinks about her next steps now that she is 35. “That’s getting up there for a woman. I find myself believing in things that a younger self vowed never to believe in. Things like family and forgiveness,” she says.

Despite everything she has been through and the fact that it all began with her sitting in the driver’s seat, she is grateful for the freedom she feels when she drives, the nearest sensation she can muster of “flight in the body.”

As she sits alone in her car, adjusting her rear view mirror, she notices Uncle Peck sitting in the back. After smiling at him, she steps on the gas pedal and drives away.

Although first produced in 1997, it wasn’t until 2020 that Vogel first spoke about the play as autobiographical. “I didn’t go into this concerned with the forgiveness of that person [Peck is based on]. I went into this concerned with the forgiveness of myself. Because the truth is the children always feel culpable. And the structure of this is me getting to a point where I’m like, ‘You know what? You were a kid. That’s all I wanted, to get there and feel that. And to have it be such a basic truth that my childhood self would accept it,” Vogel said in an earlier interview.

‘How I Learned to Drive’ — Written by Paula Vogel. Directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue. Scenic Design by Baron E. Pugh; Lighting Design by Marcella Barbeau; Costume Design by Marissa Wolf; Sound Design by Mackenzie Adamick. Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at the Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont St., Boston through November 25.

For information and tickets, go to https://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/how-i-learned/

ELVIS Is Another NSMT Crowd Pleaser

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

Dan Berry in “Elvis” at the North Shore Music Theatre. Photo © David Costa Photograph

By Shelley A. Sackett

Who can resist the charm, energy and smoldering heat of that hip-swinging, pelvis-grinding consummate crooner and actor known as Elvis? At Bill Hanney’s award-winning North Shore Music Theatre, fans and fans-to-be of the “King of Rock and Roll” can spend a toe-tapping two and one-half hours (one intermission) as over 40 of Elvis’ most famous songs are belted out by talented Dan Berry while a cast of 29 sings and dances their hearts out to a live orchestra of nine.

Throw in the theater-in-the-round setting with its intimacy and excitement, and you’ve got all the ingredients for an evening of sheer entertainment.

The bio-musical picks and chooses pivotal moments of the cultural icon’s life to explore through song, dance, and drama. (For those thinking of taking their children, be forewarned that Elvis and others have a bit of a potty mouth, and the f**k word is frequently bandied about). We learn about Elvis by eavesdropping on those who knew him best, like the kind and maternal record store owner Betty (a standout Altamiece Carolyn Cooper), who teaches 13-year-old Elvis (Asher Stern) about more than Black gospel music. Through her, he gets a hands-on lesson in what a color-blind world might look like and a taste of what it feels like to be taken seriously by an adult.

The loosely woven plot follows Elvis’ ascension from an impoverished but loving childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi to being discovered by recording studio owner Sam Phillips to his having his contract sold to the conniving, heartless Colonel Tom Parker, who treats Elvis like a prized cow to be milked dry and then sold to slaughter. (David Coffee is spot-on perfect as Parker, shedding an even more shameful light on the dreadful miscasting of Tom Hanks in the role in the 2002 movie biopic. Coffee’s Parker is a John Huston-like character, all imposing charm and smarm until he sinks his teeth into your jugular).

Although the song and dance numbers take up a lot of the evening, there is still enough time to weave a Cliff Notes version of the King’s life. We are a fly on the wall when Elvis is drafted and when he first meets Priscilla. We witness the rapid ups and downs of their courtship and marriage and his devastation at the death of his beloved mother. We watch as Elvis’ many appetites spiral out of control and are heartbroken as his career circles the drain with B- films like “Change of Habit.”

Writers Abbinati and Cercone may have sacrificed a smoothly scripted biographical timeline in favor of including a challenging number of musical and dance numbers, but they nonetheless managed to put enough dramatic meat on its bones to flesh out Elvis as a nuanced and complicated individual. That is no small feat.

Kudos to director and choreographer Kevin P. Hill for keeping the ball rolling with a lively pace and varied dance routines. This reviewer’s particular favorite was “You’re the Boss,” the red hot, sizzling Elvis/Ann-Margaret number pas de deux (Alaina Mills is riveting).

Although long and a bit repetitive, “Elvis” fits the bill if you’re looking for an evening of the kind of rocking entertainment NSMT is known for.

Elvis: A Musical Revolution’ at North Shore Music Theatre. Book by Sean Cercone and David Abbinanti. Based on a concept by Floyd Mutrux. Direction and Choreography by Kevin P. Hill. Co-Music Direction by Milton Granger and Robert L. Ruckinski. Scenic Design by Kyle Dixon. Costume Design by Travis M. Grant. Lighting Design by Jack Mehler. Sound Design by Alex Berg. Wig and Hair Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt. At the North Shore Music Theatre through November 12.

For tickets and more info, visit: https://www.nsmt.org/

Blue Man Group Presses the Refresh Button while Keeping the Best of Its Core

Posted by Shelley A. Sackett

By Shelley A. Sackett

Blue Man Group is a global entertainment phenomenon known for its award-winning theatrical productions, unique characters and multiple creative explorations. With its all-new 2024 show at The Charles Playhouse, it has upped the ante on its high-energy production with new music, two new acts and a finale that feels like a Las Vegas New Year’s Eve celebration, complete with streamers, confetti and bubbles.

Yet, the show remains true to its core, despite the addition of many AI, A/V, and audience participation bells and whistles. Still a euphoric celebration of human connection through art, music, comedy and non-verbal communication, the show features its signature magic of the three bald and blue men who explore today’s cultural norms with wonder, poking fun at the audience’s collective quirks and reminding them how much they all have in common.

The music is infectious, with a great beat that dares the audience to sit still. This show is live and alive, tickling all the senses (especially the ears. The one thing that hasn’t changed is that it is LOUD. You might want to pack earplugs, especially for children).

It is also fun. When the blue men start tossing paintballs into each other’s mouths and spray painting it onto spinning canvases, the veteran attendees breathe a sigh of relief that that old standby routine made the renewal cut.

What hits and misses are the additional tips of the hat to Artificial Intelligence, the Internet, and our relentless and narcissistic obsession with self-documentation. Multi-screens are placed throughout the theater and a camera person shoots video that is broadcast in real-time. There are even ad spoofs for products like “Hope jolt nasal spray” to ease us through our existential crises.

When latecomers are featured on the big screen and called out over the loudspeakers, the gestalt of the experience shifts from funky quirkiness to late-night talk show gimmickry. The same for the segments with audience members, who are solicited and vetted before the show. Some are invited onto the stage to participate in distracting, second-rate skits. One even volunteered to have a camera snake down his throat so he could share his esophageal sphincter with the rest of the audience. On the big screen. In pulsating color.

Yet enough of the original magic and charm remains to satisfy Blue Man Group traditionalists. The modern plumbing musical set, Cap’n Crunch cereal routine, and paint-infused drumming are real crowd-pleasers. Blue Man Group is owned and operated by Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, and when that lineage shines through, the show’s underlying charisma does too.

The show remains a family-friendly party with enough content that is over kids’ heads to keep the adults engaged and enough silliness and jaw-dropping effects to keep the kids enchanted. With its excellent music and iconic, charismatic blue men, it is an excellent respite from the dreary onslaught that passes for news and the prospect of 4 p.m. sunsets to come.

Blue Man Group’ – Created, Written and Directed by Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink. Lighting Design by Matthew McCarthy; Set Design by David Gallo; Video Design by Caryl Glaab. Presented by Blue Man Productions at The Charles Playhouse, 74 Warrenton St., Boston. Ongoing.

For information and tickets, go to www.blueman.com

InSights

A Blog by Shelley A. Sackett

ASP’s Impressive ‘King Hedley II’ Is a Requiem to a Dream

P. Carl Invites the Audience on His Gender Transition Journey in the A.R.T.’s ‘Becoming a Man’

The Huntington’s Must-See ‘John Proctor Is the Villain’ Conjures Pure Theatrical Magic

Local Co-editors Trumpet Global Diversity with Stories of 100 Jewish Brides From 83 Countries

Tone-Perfect ‘A Case for the Existence of God’ Finds the Sacred in the Profane

‘Liv at Sea’ Navigates Emotional Tsunamis in a Pitch Perfect Production

Huntington, SpeakEasy’s Co-Production “The Band’s Visit” Serves Up A Sublime Slice of Life

ASP’s Not-to-Be-Missed “How I Learned to Drive” Explores Abuse and Memory in a Tour de Force Production

ELVIS Is Another NSMT Crowd Pleaser

Blue Man Group Presses the Refresh Button while Keeping the Best of Its Core