Barry Gordin

By: Isa Goldberg

March 21, 2023: Emily Feldman’s new play, “The Best We Could” (a family tragedy), at The Manhattan Theatre Club, while contemporary in style, harkens back to classical Greek tragedy. 

Narrated by a character named Maps (Maureen Sebastian), the tale comes to life seamlessly, as the actors walk into the events, and circumstances that will determine their fate. Maps leads us on this father daughter road trip, while pointing out to the audience from the very beginning, that this is a performance. 

Set minimally (by Lael Jellnek), the wide open space tells us we’re looking at the stage…not the family home, or the highway where the action takes place. Without furniture or props, the audience relies on their imagination, creating the scene in their minds, along with the actors. 

In the central role, Frank Wood portrays Lou, an inspector in a biomedical institute who loses his position, and then his career. Wood, who won the Tony Award for his portrayal of the hopeless Jazz musician in “Sideman”, is no stranger to emotionally defunct characters. More importantly, he has the rare gift of portraying the soulless with soul. Even here, he creates empathy for a hapless, ineffectual loser. It is his fate.

Fortunately, Lou is a colorful Everyman, as American as Melville’s Bartlby, and as universal as Gogol’s Counselor, in “The Overcoat”.

Most of the on-stage action focuses on Lou’s road trip with his daughter, designed to lift his spirits, and hers. As Lou’s wife (Constance Shulman) laments, “He needs something to look forward to. I do too.” 

It’s their daughter Ella (Aya Cash) who is trapped, unable to draw on her talents, or challenge herself, in any way. When she sees an obstacle, she quits, and runs in the other direction. She doesn’t even have a dishwasher, a real job, or a husband. She doesn’t have a life, her mother complains. 

On their road trip, Lou and Ella visit Mount Rushmore, something Lou has always wanted to see.  Hearing about this, his friend and former colleague’s wife remarks, “Marvel at the spectacle… A four-headed sarcophagus—etched in the image of four dead men who did more than four terrible things.” 

In contrast to his idols at Rushmore, Lou is a White man who only did one terrible thing, but he pays for it, with his life. Dumped from his job of many years, he cries at the tiniest things. And what he is literally accused of is touching, and squeezing a woman’s butt two times, on the same day. 

While Lou is out to lunch, as they say, the woman he touched certainly is not. She uses the issue of his alleged abuse, and her trauma, to end his career, and boost her own.

With Sebastian narrating and portraying the female victim, the trauma appears as though it were a prophecy for the White man. Sebastian also portrays the wife of Lou’s best friend, who has more to say than anyone else around her, and says it so much more articulately, regardless of how soulless her quotable lines sound. 

Standing by earnestly Ella recalls, “He worked on a paper every weekend my whole life. Maybe he won’t cure cancer (…) but he is contributing something good to this world, and it’s more than most people are doing. And now he’s supposed to just, what? Disappear?”

As Lou’s adult daughter, Cash is entirely fetching. Maureen Sebastian sheds the light of intellectual brilliance, however harsh that is. In the role of his guilt inflicting wife, Constance Shulman is appropriately shrill. And Brian D. Coates plays Lou’s colleague and best friend, with dignified banality.

Daniel Aukin’s direction is sensitive in mining the emotional lives of the characters, bringing the personal to the universal, and maneuvering through the narrational framework so smoothly. 

It’s exciting to hear a new woman’s voice that is distinct, enriching, and well-evolved.

The Best We Could ****
Manhattan Theatre Club
131 West 55th Street
Photography: Marc J. Franklin, Courtesy of Manhattan Theatre Club

By: David Sheward

March 18, 2023: Perhaps the most powerful moment in Parade, the stunning revival of Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s 1998 musical about the infamous Leo Frank case, is a silent one. Ben Platt, who gives a stirring performance as Frank, a man falsely accused of murdering a young girl, sits silently high up on Dane Laffrey’s evocative set, lit by Heather Gilbert to suggest a jail cell. Platt remains seated at a simple table throughout the intermission with a look of desperation on his face. We know the character’s ultimate fate—Frank was kidnapped and lynched after his sentence was commuted to life in prison—and it makes this unspoken sequence all the more shattering. 

What comes before and after is one of the most devastating musical experiences in recent Broadway memory. Platt, last seen on Broadway in his Tony-winning turn in Dear Evan Hansen, delivers another emotionally charged interpretation. He conveys Frank’s transformation from a pinched, emotionally closed husband to a passionate partner to his wife Lucille, beautifully played by Micaela Diamond, who makes a similar sojourn from submissive housewife to fearless defender of her wronged spouse. Platt also gets to have some fun when he enacts the prosecution’s depraved version of Frank, moving his body with honky-tonk hijinks (Lauren Yatango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant are credited with the bouncy choreography). But these brilliant leads are just two of a remarkable ensemble of cherished Broadway vets. (More on them later.)

When it first opened, Parade was powerful and moving. But this current Broadway revival, a transfer of the recent City Center Encores staging, is twice as impactful given the current polarized political atmosphere. The story follows the real-life case of Frank, a factory supervisor accused of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, one of his employees, in 1913 Atlanta. Antisemitic hatred swelled against Frank, a Jewish outsider from Brooklyn, and he was convicted on circumstantial evidence and trumped-up testimony. Echoes of our current divided state of affairs can be heard in rallying cries to protect the establishment from wicked, usurping minorities. 

Seeing Michael Arden’s arresting production is like watching an old newsreel come to life. His staging is fluid and cinematic, blending musical sequences and dramatic scenes seamlessly. Gilbert’s lighting transforms Laffrey’s set which resembles a combination courtroom and reviewing stand into multiple locations while Susan Hilarity’s sepia-toned costumes place us in the right historical period. Sven Ortel’s projections of vintage photographs of the actual principals give context to the traumatizing events from the murder itself to the one-sided trial and its long aftermath, reaching up to the present day in a clever bit of staging that brings the issues addressed into the present moment.

Uhry’s panoramic book offers multiple perspectives on the events with each viewpoint given full weight. Industrialization versus rural lifestyles, political motivations behind the attacks of Frank, power dynamics and historical background reaching back to the Civil War are all part of the rich canvas. Brown’s flavorful score combines a variety of influences, such as jazz, ragtime, blues, and gospel, to reflect that diversity. 

The estimable company, led by Platt and Diamond, is among the best on Broadway in the last several years. As Jim Conley, the factory’s African-American janitor who testifies against Frank, Alex Joseph Grayson nearly steals the show with a rapid-fire turn on the witness stand and then almost makes away with it again when he puts across a rough-edged chain-gang lament. Kelli Barrett is heartbreaking as Mary’s grief-stricken mother. Jay Armstrong Johnson gives snap and sass to an opportunist reporter. Paul Alexander Nolan is oily and slick as the racist prosecutor with his eye on the Governor’s mansion. Sean Allan Krill ably displays the conflict faced by the current Governor, torn between expediency in order to stay in office and justice for Frank. Stacie Bono provides sturdy support as his wise wife. Manoel Feliciano colorfully spews volcanic hatred as a demagogic newspaper editor. Danielle Lee Greaves gives soulful heft to the Franks’ housekeeper, forced to give false evidence against her boss. Howard McGillin is vivid as the biased judge and a Confederate soldier. Also praiseworthy are Erin Rose Doyle as Mary who appears as an angel sitting on a trapeze during the trial, Jake Pedersen, Douglas Lyons, Courtnee Carter, Eddie Cooper, and Christopher Gurr. Even the smaller parts, such as Gurr’s elderly prison guard, are given depth.

This is a complex, passionate Parade, reflecting our conflicted past and present. It’s as vital and informative as tonight’s news and just as imperative for viewing if you want to know what’s going on in America.

March 16—Aug. 6. Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, 242 W. 45th St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 40 mins. including intermission. www.telecharge.com.
Photography: Joan Marcus

By: Samuel L. Leiter

March 17, 2023: Jessica Chastain’s compelling performance of Nora in the current revival of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Hudson Theatre reminds us not only that this is the most frequently revived of all the Norwegian dramatist’s plays but that Nora is one of the most sought-after roles by a leading actress of any from the late 19th century on. The role it replaced as an inevitable marker of female stardom was Marguerite Gautier in Dumas fils’ Camille.

Although first produced in 1879, A Doll’s House’s controversial theme of a woman’s awakening to her subordination in a patriarchal society prevented it from catching on for good until years later; interesting parallels can be drawn between it and Camille, the story of a courtesan’s downfall in Parisian society. Despite an 1883 production in Louisville, Kentucky, starring Helena Modjeska, New York didn’t see an English version (there had been a German one) until 1889, in a special matinee production starring Beatrice Cameron (Richard Mansfield’s wife) called Nora, or A Doll’s Home. It flopped. 

However, another special matinee, in 1894, starring Minnie Maddern Fiske, revealed the play’s power; before long, Mrs. Fiske was recognized not only as Ibsen’s chief American representative, but America’s greatest actress. Soon after, in 1895, Janet Achurch, the British actress who introduced the play to London in 1889, gave her version on Broadway, but it was considered inferior to Mrs. Fiske’s.  

After Mrs. Fiske, A Doll’s House became a staple of the American repertory, including numerous Broadway (and Off-Broadway) versions, usually featuring premiere stars, a constellation to which Ms. Chastain deservedly belongs. Her production, given a decidedly unusual realization in the minimalist vein favored by British director Jamie Lloyd (Betrayal, Cyrano de Bergerac), is a surprisingly hypnotic one that somehow works despite its abandoning conventional scenery, costumes, and lighting.

The Hudson’s bare, brick-walled stage, designed by Soutra Gilmour, shows a strip of the rear wall, rising about seven feet, in very pale gray, with the higher reaches much darker (the effect, created by paint, suggests that the lighting is responsible). Jon Clark’s lighting—including a raft of overhead battens that rise and fall slowly—uses the brighter portion of the wall as a perfect backdrop for casting on it the actors’ shadows. All the actors wear stylishly simple, black costumes (co-designed—for some reason—by Ms. Gilmour and Enver Chakartash). 

A principal concession to overt scenic theatricality is a turntable that, employing precisely calibrated variations in speed, moves actors on and off when they don’t rely on their feet (or, in the case of Dr. Rank [the subtly insinuating Michael Patrick Thornton], a wheelchair) for their mobility. Brilliantly highlighting the many alterations in mood is the often ominous thrumming of the score, composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto.

Everything is arranged to make the most out of the least in telling the story of Nora and Torvald Helmer (Arian Moayed), an attractive young Norwegian couple married for eight years, raising three young children; the latter are heard, not seen, just as physical actions, like lighting someone’s cigar, are mentioned, but not executed. Props, in fact, are non-existent, apart from two small, white chairs, on one of which Ms. Chastain sits almost entirely through the 90-performance. Even Nora’s famous tarantella dance is done while seated, although she ends it lying on the floor. 

The sculptural placement of the actors, who, when not involved in a scene, stand or sit at the perimeters, often facing the wings, is striking. However, in a few scenes, the blocking, such as it is, is distracting. In one, Krogstad and Nora have a conversation in which they sit on back-to-back chairs, hers facing the audience, his facing upstage, where he’s essentially invisible to much of the house. Another has the two of them share a single chair, each resting a lone buttock on it. I’m sure there’s a rationale for these choices, but why should one be bothered figuring it out when it’s more important we listen to the dialogue? In fact, such things can be the bane of such artfully crafted productions; the audience must pay attention to what the characters are saying while simultaneously pondering the defiantly unique directorial choices. 

Ibsen’s familiar tale, of course, recounts Nora’s having once forged her dying father’s name to a document so as to obtain a loan from a lawyer named Krogstad (Okieriete Onoadowan, craftily potent) in order to help her husband—from whom the loan is kept secret—survive a potentially fatal illness. Krogstad’s knowledge of her crime imperils her marriage when he threatens to reveal it to Torvald unless Nora can prevent her husband—recently made head of a savings bank—from firing him. Nora, treated by Torvald as a child, his “little bird,” which she willingly accepts, believes her impeccably moralistic, but loving, husband will rise to the moment if the truth is ever revealed. 

However, Torvald turns on her viciously when he learns what she has done. When the threat of her exposure is removed, he forgives her, but she has seen enough of what he’s made of, and, in one of the most famous moments in modern drama, which inevitably established the play as representative of modern feminism, decides to leave her husband and children in the interests of her self-improvement. Ibsen himself pooh-pooed the feminist argument, and the play can also be seen, among other things, as an indictment of relationships built on lies, a persistent Ibsenian theme.

There are important subplots, of course, involving an old friend, Kristine Linde (Jesmille Darbouze, warmly intelligent), emotionally linked to Krogstad, and Dr. Rank, dying of an inherited case of venereal disease. Still, he’s not too far gone to declare his love for Nora, a confession that sharply changes her mind about asking for the help he’s only too willing to offer.

What makes this production stand out is not so much its essentialist, barebones staging, as its suppressed, restrained, conversational style, which forces us to listen to the dialogue, delivered in an understated orchestrated manner that remains natural but avoids naturalism. Even scenes that might, in real life, be expressed in overtly demonstrative terms, like the happy reunion of Kristine and Nora, are given a muted approach, which is probably intended to give the big emotional outbursts that much more power by contrast. On the other hand, this makes Torvald’s eruption, when he learns of Nora’s past actions, so ferocious, that it seems more the director’s calculated choice than a convincing expression of Torvald’s disappointment.

And, in what is one of the play’s perpetual problems, the articulate response of the once naively childlike Nora to her disappointment in Torvald’s reaction is as hard to assimilate as ever, so sudden is her intellectual grasp of what has been staring her in the face all this time. 

Amy Herzog’s adaptation accentuates these difficulties. Transitions and motives are more distinct than ever because of the way in which sceneryless scenes blend almost seamlessly together; the barbered, modern syntax; and the nuanced line readings. Profanity is limited, but we still get a “Fuck it all” to wake us up, along with other reminders that—apart from the 1879 projected on the rear wall at the beginning—the play is meant to be as pertinent today as when first produced. 

The excellent Mr. Moayed is a sleek, modern Torvald, the casually patronizing way in which he infantilizes his wife, whom he often calls “baby,” believable enough; for my taste, though, his angry renunciation of Nora goes too far too fast. 

Ms. Chastain’s performance is superbly constructed, the cracks in its veneer sometimes visible but, until there’s no recourse, never threatening to bring the structure down. When Nora finally succumbs, she does so with deep power mingled with restraint. Remaining in the spotlight throughout, even during those long, preshow moments as she slowly circles the space with the audience watching, she maintains unbroken focus. Ms. Chastain, aided by Mr. Lloyd’s theatrical insights, has met the role’s challenges and left her indelible mark on it. 

A Doll’s House
Hudson Theatre
141 W. 44^th Street, NYC
Through June 10, 2023
Photography: Emilio Madrid

By: Paulanne Simmons

March 16, 2023: The Harder They Come, a musical based on the 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and starring reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, has all the elements of a hit: a lovable rogue hero played by a talented lead (Natey Jones as Ivan), great music and an enthusiastic ensemble. It also benefits from the swiftly moving direction of Tony Taccone and Sergio Trujillo.

Suzan-Lori Parks, who wrote the book, follows for the most part the storyline of the film. 

Ivan, an aspiring songwriter/singer comes to live with his mother in Kingston after the death of his grandmother. Before very long he is undone by a series of setbacks. He is robbed of all his belongings. He gets a job with a preacher (J. Bernard Calloway), only to lose it when he falls for Elsa (Meecah), the very same woman the preacher is unsuccessfully courting. He injures a man in a fight over his stolen bike and is whipped by the authorities. He is exploited by a bigtime record producer who gives him a mere $20 for “The Harder They Come.” 

Finally, Ivan’s friend, José (Dominique Johnson), gets him a job running marijuana. He’s bringing home steady money to Elsa, who is now his wife. But Ivan soon learns he is getting only a fraction of the profits drug trafficking brings in. Things go from bad to worse.

However, Parks has made a few major changes. She has simplified the plot, turned Ivan into a more faithful and upright person, made José into a better friend and included fewer encounters with the police. All the changes serve the stage version well.

Still, it’s hard to see how The Harder They Come would make much of an impression without the glorious music. There is little chemistry between Ivan and Elsa. The preacher is a stereotypical hypocrite. The music producer is a standard bully. The book does little to turn anyone into a real rather than a representative person.

The actors do their best in unrewarding roles. And Jones and Johnson are standouts for the believable relationship they create. While Jones knocks it out of the park every time he starts singing.

In fact, if the show struggles during the dialogue it soars when the music takes over. Most of the numbers are from Jimmy Cliff’s songbook (think “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” “Many Rivers to Cross,” “Rivers of Babylon”). But there are additional songs by Parks. They are so well integrated into the show only an expert could tell the difference.

The band – Chris Hemingway (reeds), Ravi Best (trumpet), Karl Lyden (trombone), Sherrod Bares (guitar), George Farmer (bass), Jaylen Petinaud (drums), Randy Cohen (synthesizer & keyboards) – under John Bronston’s musical direction, is dynamite. The featured actors and the ensemble work rhythmic and harmonic fireworks.

If you love reggae, The Harder They Come is a must. Otherwise, it’s still strongly recommended.

The Harder They Come
Through April 2, 2023
The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street.
Photography: Joan Marcus

By: David Sheward

March 11, 2023: Before Jamie Lloyd’s minimalist and strangely powerful revival of A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen’s prophetic proto-feminist masterpiece, begins, audience members at the Hudson Theater are treated to the spectacle of Oscar-winning Jessica Chastain sitting in a simple chair on a revolving turntable. As Chastain is spun slowly around, she fixes the audience with a cold stare. Many whip out their camera-phones to take videos or pictures, as if she were an art exhibit. This pre-show photo op reinforces Ibsen’s theme of society treating women like dolls or objects. Chastain is objectified by the audience just as Ibsen’s heroine Nora is objectified by her condescending husband Torvald. The year of the play (1875) is superimposed above Soutra Gilmour’s stark, bare setting to remind us that such sexism has been around for a long time and it hasn’t gone completely away.

What follows is a bare-bones yet densely-packed staging of a reliable classic. Apart from a few chairs, there is no scenery and no props. Nora’s children are prerecorded voices. Co-costume designers Gilmour and Enver Chakartash have dressed the cast in basic black. Apart from Torvald’s explosion of anger when his middle-class world may be crumbling, the actors speak in whispers. Lloyd has stripped the play to its essence, a stark journey of a woman discovering her identity apart from the male-dominated society she inhabits. What starts as a somewhat forced melodrama about blackmail becomes a searing manifesto of women’s liberation a century before the modern movement took hold. Nora appears to be a feather-headed housewife, beholden to a powerful spouse who has just gained a high position at a local bank. But we gradually discover she has committed forgery in order to save his health. When an equally desperate victim of institutional inequity named Krogstad threatens her and Torvald wilts under the pressure, she breaks free and emerges as an individual, renouncing her domestic bonds.

Lloyd’s precise, elemental staging and Amy Herzog’s idiomatic update of the script gives us Nora’s story with no frills or distractions. The power struggle between the characters becomes clearer as when Nora and Krogstad battle for space on one chair and Torvald’s shadow threatens to engulf Nora (Jon Clark created the noir-ish lighting). 

The acting is just as raw, basic and intense. Nora is usually played as a giddy, clueless child until her big speech in the last act and then suddenly she becomes Superwoman. Chastain chooses to exhibit Nora’s strength and courage from the beginning of the play so that her transformation from doll-baby to independent feminist pioneer is not so jarring. This Nora is a multi-faceted woman with a different personality for each of the men in her life. With Torvald, she is the childish sprite, dancing for her daddy’s approval. With Dr. Rank, she is a sly, fun-loving seductress. With Krogstad, a fierce combatant willing to try any means to save her reputation. Chastain conveys all these Noras in a dazzling performance.

Arian Moayed’s Torvald is a petty tyrant, tantrum-prone brat, and finally a crawling supplicant as Nora discovers her true strength. Okieriete Onaodowan finds the humanity in the blackmailng Krogstad and Jesmille Darbouze displays the toughness and compassion of Kristine, Nora’s girlhood friend who must make her own way in a man’s world and eventually finds love with Krogstad. Michael Patrick Thornton, an actor who uses a wheelchair, is well-cast as Dr. Rank, whose failing health does not reflect his rakishness. His scenes with Nora have an unexpected flirtatious spark. Tasha Lawrence makes the most of the small part of Anne-Marie, Nora’s nanny, also a victim of society’s disapproval. 

A friend asked if there is no scenery, how does Lloyd stage the famous door slam which ends the play? There are no spoilers here, but suffice it to say that the finale of this inventive revival is as theatrical and surprising as all that precedes it. This is a very sturdy, although unfurnished Doll’s House.

Emily Feldman’s The Best We Could (a family tragedy), at Manhattan Theater Club’s Off-Broadway City Center Stage I, is also performed on a bare stage and delivers an emotional wallop despite its spareness. Feldman’s telling of her story of a father-daughter road trip is influenced by Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, with a Stage Manager narrating the action, playing supporting parts, and acting as God-like figure controlling the characters. (Best is even closer to Wilder’s one-act The Happy Journey to Camden to Trenton, which also features a Stage Manager, bare stage, and involves a family auto sojourn.) 

Just as Wilder wrote about the universality in the everyday, Feldman presents a seemingly ordinary story filled with apparently mundane details which reveals the joys and despair of the human experience. Ella (moving Aya Cash) is a disorganized but loving daughter driving cross-country with her eccentric dad Lou (touchingly paternal Frank Wood) to pick up a rescue dog replacement for a recently departed and much adored pet. Along the way, they visit Lou’s best friend Marc (affable Brian D. Coats) who may be able to help Lou re-enter the work force after a long hiatus. There are numerous funny scenes with Lou speaking to total strangers (all played by the versatile Maureen Sebastian as the  Stage Manager figure, called Maps), much to Ella’s embarrassment. We also flashback and forward to vignettes with Ella’s mom Peg (an amusingly sharp-edged Constance Shulman) who is demanding she and Lou sell the house and move into a smaller space. 

Feldman creates a carefully-observed portrait of modern-day America as Ella’s loose, unstructured lifestyle clashes with her parents’ strict reliance on one’s employment providing your identity. When Ella learns the real reason for Lou’s joblessness, their relationship fractures and the subtitle becomes alarmingly real. (Sebastian is especially intense as a former co-worker of Lou’s.) Daniel Aukin’s direction is subtle but hits the comic moments just right, delivering a perfect balance between humor and pathos. 

Both A Doll’s House and The Best We Could demonstrate that with the right cast, play and director, all that’s needed is two planks and a passion for absorbing theater.

A Doll’s House ****, March 9—June 4. Hudson Theatre, 141 W. 44th St., NYC. Running time: 105 mins. with no intermission. thehudsonbroadway.com.
Photography: Emilio Madrid

The Best We Could (a family tragedy) ****, March 1—26. Manhattan Theater Club at New York City Center, 131 W. 55th St., NYC. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. www.nycitycenter.org.
Photography: Marc J. Franklin

By: Samuel L. Leiter

March 9, 2023: In recent years, Lynn Nottage, with a Tony nomination (MJ)and two Pulitzer Prizes (Sweat, Ruined), has soared into the stratosphere of American playwriting, much—but not all—of her work focusing on African American concerns. So an opportunity to revisit one of her earlier works, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, which premiered at Off Broadway’s Second Stage in 1995, and is now being revived by Off Broadway’s Keen Company at Theatre Row, is a welcome one, if only to see how far her work has come since then. Numerous moments glow with Ms. Nottage’s talent, but, overall, the play (and production) is patchy, the work of a young writer feeling her artistic oats, even if they haven’t entirely been digested.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy, acceptably directed by Colette Robert, takes place in a basement apartment in Brooklyn, near the Nostrand Avenue A-train station, to which the Crump family has recently moved from Pensacola, Fla. Godfrey Crump (Jason Bowen), whose wife, Sandra, has died, has come North with his daughters, 17-year-old Ernestine (Shanel Bailey), and 15-year-old Ermina (Malika Samuel). Broken by his loss, he’s found solace in the teachings of the Harlem-based, charismatic Black spiritual leader known as Father Divine. 

The Crumps’ story is presented through the coming-of-age memories of Ernestine, who frequently breaks the fourth wall to deliver commentary to the audience, even coming forth at the end to inform us of what happened in later years.

Godfrey, a nattily dressed baker—always carrying cookies for his loved ones—proud of an old pair of well-buffed shoes, is obsessed with Father Divine’s rigid dictates; he has given up alcohol and doesn’t allow his girls to listen to the radio on Sunday; they make do listening to the neighbors’ music seeping through the thin walls (sound design by Broken Chord). When advised to do so in a message from Father Divine, Godfrey renames Ernestine Darling Angel and Ermina Devout Mary, monikers they’re not too thrilled to receive. Hoping to one day address “Sweet Father” in person, he’s fixated on filling one notebook after another with questions for him, even though—in what seems an odd contradiction—he’s barely able to read.

Into this somewhat strained situation suddenly arrives the late Sandra’s flashy sister, Lily Ann Green (Sharina Martin), dressed in high heels, and a two-piece red suit of tight skirt and jacket over a white blouse (the fine period costumes are by Johanna Pan). Lily, who happens to be an active communist, and who prefers multiple men in her life to the monogamy of marriage, moves in with the Crumps. Her independent mindset proves a powerful influence on her nieces, especially Ernestine, and a strong temptation for the resistant Godfrey. Her political beliefs expose the insecurities surrounding one of the era’s most sensitive subjects, one that makes Godfrey very nervous when Ernestine is reprimanded by a teacher for writing a paper called “The Colored Worker in the United States.”

Crumbs from the Table of Joy explores the world of people within the matrix of postwar racial and political concerns, especially those affecting African Americans moving to New York from rural Southern environments, where their limited freedoms confront life in the Big Apple. Ernestine, for example, is excited to find herself seated between two white girls in a Brooklyn movie theatre. 

Ernestine’s high school graduation, in preparation for which she uses a dressmaker’s dummy to make her own white dress, is a big event because she’s the first family member ever to achieve this milestone. But for all his pride, Godfrey’s narrow vision of her future remains stuck in a narrow-minded past.

The Crumps live in a building occupied by Jews, with whom they have little to do other than serve as one family’s Sabbath gentiles, turning on lights on Friday nights. But, in one of the most implausible developments, Godfrey, riding the subway on his way to Father Divine’s “Peace Mission” in Harlem, meets Gerte Schulte (Natalia Payne), a white, German woman, takes her with him, and comes home after having married her. Some see the revelation of this news as a dramatic bombshell; I thought it a dud that failed to explode.

The abrupt introduction of a German refugee, one who says she came to love Black people because of their music, and who has had seriously hard times herself, into the family ménage, is another way Godfrey wishes to emulate Father Divine, himself married to a white woman; in fact, like Father Divine and his wife, Godfrey and Gerte have a sexless marriage. Hard as it is to accept, her presence offers excellent possibilities for dramatic conflict when Gerte and Lily, with her bias against white folks, inevitably clash. Gerte and Godfrey’s interracial relationship also incites violence at a Brooklyn movie theatre. 

The contradiction between Godfrey’s ability to write but not read is one of several obvious bumps in the play’s journey. Another happens when Lily, soon after her arrival, accepts an offer of food from Ernestine, then takes one bite and a sip of soda before neglecting the food entirely. In the script, Ms. Nottage makes it much clearer just how hungry Lily is. Then there’s Mr. Boston’s bland, mostly blank (except for a portrait of Father Divine) set, far too tall and expansive for a basement apartment. 

Ernestine’s frequent asides, assisted by spotlighting her as the surrounding lights are dimmed, could be more sharply delineated by Anshuman Bhatia’s lighting, as well as by a more distinctive tonal shift in Ms. Bailey’s performance. And the playwright’s reliance on the clichéd device of having characters behave in surprising ways (like Gerte transforming into Marlene Dietrich for a rendition of “Falling in Love Again”) only for them to be revealed as imaginary expressions of what Ernestine—who longs for life to mirror the movies—would like to have been the case, is overused. 

There’s much to admire in the performances, especially those of the adult characters. Mr. Bowen, despite the inconsistencies in his role, makes Godfrey a nervously insecure yet firmly determined father and husband. Ms. Martin brings attitude, worldly wisdom, and sex appeal to the brassy but troubled Lily. And Ms. Payne, playing the unlikeliest character of all, manages to make Grete real, using her rich vocal quality and authentic-sounding dialect (her bio says she speaks Ukrainian and French) to bring the role to life. As Ernestine and Ermina, Mses. Bailey and Samuel do well enough despite having to play characters younger than the actresses themselves. 

There are more than crumbs to appreciate from this play’s table of joy, with its rich dialogue, heartfelt characters, socially conscious themes, period atmosphere, and quality acting. It stumbles here and there, isn’t always convincing, and could use a more imaginative physical representation, but it’s still a Lynn Nottage play, and for that alone is worth a visit.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy
Theatre Row
410 W. 42^nd Street, NYC
Through April 1, 2023
Photography: Julieta Cervantes