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Twelfth Night, January 6, traditionally marks the end of the festive season.
(Or, if youre me, really shocking amounts of Darjeeling.)
(Reviewing theater like making it means a lot of 11:30 p.m. None of the shows is more than an hour long.
He gives the impression of being a curious audience member at his own show.
Together, well all have aSearch Party.
Search Partywont ever be the same from performance to performance.
Were all handed paperback copies of Julys book upon entering the performance space.
The premise is that weve been invited to a book club.
of the book, but whatever plenty of book-club participants dont do the reading anyway.
Im early, so I get about 30 pages in.
I found myself thinking of Charlie Kaufman and when the reenactment begins of Anne WashburnsMr.
Which, basically, is theater.
They ask me where I am from!
goes one of the shows refrains, I say I am a mix.
Of both racism and sexism they lay equally on my skin.
The characters theyre sketching here have sharp, specific edges theyre funny and theyre really not.
Ultimately, they spur the shows most devastating question: How did you become my biggest oppressor?
Saturday, January 6
Its snowing!
And the trains are askew again, though nothing crashed this time.
(Thank you, Wenhua!)
The place is packed forthis house is not a homeby Nile Harris.
I dont know what Im in for, and the answer is: A LOT.
This is the kind of show that causes second-degree burns.
They pass a vape back and forth and slouch bonelessly.
Meanwhile, we hear two voices Black, male chatting in voiceover.
I just think, says one, ironic Blackness needs to take up digital space or whatever.
Meanwhile, the white girls start whining monotonously into their lav mics: Imbooored.
(Can it even be made inside a nonprofit institutional framework, he asks?)
The show is also a wake.
Harriss friend and collaborator, the artist Trevor Bazile, died suddenly in 2021.
(In the voiceover prologue, one of the voices muses about bringing it to a George Floyd protest.
Maybe we can get everyone to bounce for Black Lives, it says with a mordant giggle.)
Its a weird, childlike playspace, part innocent and part grubby.
(If you dont know her work, try falling downthis rabbit holefor the next hour.)
She, and the show she rides in on, are fucking fearless.
Its honestly embarrassing that I havent seen a show by this fascinating pair yet.
Im calling them Peter and Julia because thats what they call each other; thats how they introduce themselves.
Mills Weiss and Mounsey just seem … not quite right.
I love the show.
You know the place, even though it never existed.
She also tells us that this space is where she met Peter.
He was attempting stand-up, she says, without inflection.
It was kind of … only crowd work.
Peter, she says softly into her microphone, you seem really tense.
I think its putting people off.
Could you have a go at relax?
In his own mic, Peters breath shudders as if hes holding an invisible jackhammer.
But if so, why do we find ourselves mourning it?
My nights not over though.
(Levsky is a critic-turned-clown; its good to know there are opportunities for growth in this career.)
Upstill and Levsky play a queer Ukrainian clown couple whose lives are upended by the Russian invasion.
The highlight of the show for me is its third performer, Mariko Iwasa.
