By Robert Simonson
Telling their stories solo and first-person will be: Mike Daisey, talking about his time on a remote South Pacific island whose inhabitants worship America at the base of a constantly erupting volcano in The Last Cargo Cult, at the Public Theater in December; Charlayne Woodard, discussing the ways she has mentored the children in her life, in The Night Watcher, starting Sept. 22 at Primary Stages; and Lynn Redgrave in Nightingale, a play inspired by her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Kempson, the least-known member of the Redgrave acting dynasty, starting Oct. 15 at Manhattan Theatre Club.
Otherwise, some heavy-duty theatre is on tap at the Public Theater, including a new LAByrinth Theatre Company production of Othello starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz, and directed by Peter Sellars (opening Sept. 27). Try and find a ticket, my friend. And rising young playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney will return to the Public with his Kushnerian-titled trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays Part 1 & 2, a script about an extended family and community in the Bayou that is so ambitious, apparently, that it required two directors: Tina Landau (Part 1) and Robert O'Hara (Parts 2 and 3). The second part of the trilogy, The Brothers Size, was previously staged at the Public, to general acclaim. The Public will also provide a home to avant garde master Richard Foreman, who will direct Willem Dafoe in his latest "philosophical comedy," Idiot Savant.
Is there more? Why of course there is! This is Off-Broadway after all, and, even though many of the choice playing spaces have closed in the past year or so, there are still many stages to fill. Some of the more eye-catching attractions include: Broke-ology, Nathan Louis Jackson's play about two brothers who are called home to take care of their ailing father, opening at Lincoln Center Theater on Oct. 5; Still Life, an MCC Theatre production of Alexander Dinelaris' play about a photographer at the pinnacle of her career who inexplicably shuts down, beginning Sept. 16 at the Lucille Lortel; Circle Mirror Transformation, Annie Baker's work about four lost New Englanders (among them, Reed Birney, Peter Friedman, and Deirdre O’Connell) who enroll in a community center drama class experiment, bowing at Playwrights Horizons on Sept. 24; A Boy and His Soul, Colman Domingo's new solo play about the experiences of a young man and his family in 1970s and 80s Philadelphia, opening Sept. 24.
If you can't find something to like in that bunch, then your theatregoer's heart is a lonely hunter, indeed.
Writer's Note: A myriad of new Off-Broadway productions are on offer during the fall of 2009, and this overview is not meant to be exhaustive.
15 Sep 2009
Personal experience, some first-hand, some received second-hand, inform a half-dozen Off-Broadway plays this autumn. Most prominent of the latter category is Anna Deveare Smith's latest bit of uncanny mimicry, Let Me Down Easy. To prepare for the Second Stage Theatre production, Smith interviewed dozens of people, famous and not, about health care and their relationship to caring for their bodies. The piece arrives in Manhattan at an ideal time, as the national debate is dominated by health-care issues. Previews begin Sept. 15. Aftermath opens on the same date at New York Theatre Workshop. For their docu-drama, authors Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen interviewed Iraqis about what happened to their lives after March 20, 2003 - the day the Americans arrived in their country. Jessica Blank directs the result.
Anna Deveare Smith photo by Mary Ellen Mark
Here at Last: A Preview of the Fall 2009 Off-Broadway Season
Also on its way are Ordinary Days, Adam Gwon's musical about four young New Yorkers whose lives are unexpectedly interconnected by circumstance, at the Roundabout beginning Oct. 2; The Lady With All the Answers, in which Judith Ivey plays advice columnist Ann Landers, at the Cherry Lane from Oct. 7 on; What Once We Felt, a Lincoln Center Theater at The Duke production of Ann Marie Healy's play about a writer's journey through the political world of publishing, as her novel becomes the last print published novel ever, commencing Oct. 26; This, the latest by Melissa James Gibson, about the joys — and disappointments — of entering one's forties, at Playwrights Horizons starting Nov. 6; a revival of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, at the Transport Theatre Company beginning in October; and Rebecca Gilman's adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, from November at New York Theatre Workshop.
