Review: “Subway Plays. The International Local: 7”

A sight-specific audio play in New York City subway.  

Normally I take the subway to the theater and then turn off my cell phone before the show. Attending Subway Plays this morning is completely different. My Metro Card serves as a “ticket” and cell phone basically provides the experience. The new creation by Erin B. Mee of This is Not a Theatre Company, is a “podplay” which you listen to on the subway via the Subway Plays app ($2.99 for both Apple and Android). Three plays, in fact, each is meant for a particular line, The International Local: 7 (by Jenny Lyn Bader), Damper Felts: N (by Jessie Bear) and Spare Some Change: L (by Colin Waitt).

To avoid the rush hour I take a Queens-bound 7 local train at 10 am from Times Square. The beauty of Subway Plays is that you can “attend” at any time, night or day. You can also start at 74^th Street-Broadway/Roosevelt Avenue in Queens and go to Manhattan and back. Just make sure to take a local train, not express and listen to one of two tracks (“To Queens” and “To Manhattan”) corresponding to your destination. Each act is under 25 minutes; the entire play should take you about an hour if no delays are on the line.

As the doors close, I take a seat, put the headphones on and hit play. On my way to Queens and back to Manhattan I listen to the bits and pieces of several dialogues. Some of these people travel together and discover something in each other along the way. Some of them are brought together by the commute and suddenly find a genuine human connection. Immigrants, travelers, lovers, local historians, artists might sit and stand right next to you and you won’t even know this. You phone, however, gives you a super power to “overhear” the conversations in the car and to follow the lives of everyday people, at least for the duration of your ride.

I am in love with the concept but not so much the execution. As soon as I start the track, I immediately hear the rattle of the train wheels on the recording, competing with the sounds that the actual subway car makes. To my disappointment, the sound effect never goes away, only fading when the dialogue is heard. I wonder why the sound designer, Natalie Johnsonius Neubert, did that if the play was intended to be sight specific? It is especially disorienting when the car stops, but the sound of it running continues.

The recording is binaural, meaning that sometimes you hear people talking in your right ear, sometimes in your left ear, for a closer resemblance to real life. A couple of times, as the characters discuss other passengers on the train you can’t help but look around and try to assign those characteristics to people who ride with you, including the passers by in the fabric of the narration. These moments, where the play reaches out to the reality are probably the most powerful.

The conversations of the “passengers” are endearing at times, like the one between a Chinese grandmother and her grandson during which she discovers video games for herself. At times the dialogues are informative and reference objects on route like stained glass windows on 40^th street station. But with those the timing is always a little off which is not surprising, it is difficult to time the subway train. There is a couple role-playing “strangers on the train”, a Spanish-speaking woman who tries not to fall asleep, a sketch artist and many more. A tapestry of languages is heard throughout, embodying the concept of New York as an international city.

The dialogues don’t stop and, sometimes, even overlap. I find the density of them a little too thick and the content often pointless. I was sold on the synopsis and really wanted to like Subway Plays. But in reality, The International Local: 7 that I attended is rather disappointing. It tackles some problematic topics, like the perception of immigrants or breast-feeding in public places, but doesn’t provide any insightful observations. Nor does it draw three-dimensional characters. It mostly resembled an exercise in comprehensive listening.
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The International Local: 7, is an audio play by Jenny Lyn Bader. It is conceived by Erin B. Mee and produced by This is Not a Theatre Company. Subway Plays App is available for $2.99. More information at thisisnotatheatrecompany.com

Review: “A Real Boy”

In the fight between puppet parents and human teachers, a young boy’s confused soul becomes a battlefield.  

When it comes to raising a child, who knows better, the parents or the educators? And does it make any difference if we are talking about a human child adopted by a couple of puppets? Stephen Kaplan's A Real Boy certainly raises some interesting and uneasy questions, but unfortunately it gets tangled in symbolism and loses emotional connection with the audience in a supposedly cathartic finale. But despite the fact that the play gets confused by its own conventions and, as a result, suffers from muddled direction and acting, A Real Boy bares a grain of noble intention.

Jenn Remke and Alexander Bello in A Real Boy. Photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp.

Kindergarten teacher Miss Terry (Jenn Remke) gets alarmed when she notices that one of her students, Max Myers (Alexander Bello), only uses two crayons for his drawings, black and white. “There is no color in this child’s life” she shares with Principal Klaus (Jamie Geiger). The Myers are called in for a meeting, and only at this point does Miss Terry realize that both of them are marionette puppets. 

A delightfully awkward comedic scene, consisting of piling up stereotypes about puppets, suggests that the Myers represent people who are somehow different from the mainstream, in their appearance, beliefs, or lifestyle. Dressing exclusively in black and white, and keeping their home in the same pallet so as not to complicate things, seems to be a big part of their philosophy. But Miss Terry suspects that it’s not just a question of aesthetic, and there might be something shady going on in this color-free household.          

Brian Michaels is the puppeteer for Peter Myers, an easily angered man who is not afraid of getting physical despite his fragile build. Jason Allan Kennedy George operates Mary Ann Myers, a very reserved and scared woman. For the duration of the play, I had (wrongly) suspected that Ms. Myers is the victim of abuse, taking George’s quiet acting as a hint. And just as this was misleading, so is seeing marionettes as some kind of unfairly marginalized group of human-puppet society.

When Miss Terry notices that Max starts to grow strings, she refuses to give him back to his parents, evoking the doctrine “in loco parentis” which allows schools to act “in the place of the parent” in the student’s best interests. In the rapidly escalating dispute, both the Myers' lawyer Jilly Lambert (Katie Braden) and local Congressperson Rebecca Landel (Danie Steel), who's on Team Terry, see an opportunity for fame and publicity. Their hyperbolic feminist rage and enormous egos make these two women seem like the villains (for the lack of better defined juxtaposition). 

Overly excited Braden (who is also a co-founder of Ivy Theatre Company) runs around with a baby in the sling the entire time. Combining partnership in a law firm with motherhood is stressful, to say the least, and can justify Braden's over-the-top performance. It is less clear what Steel tries to convey with her loud and obnoxious behavior. And why on earth did costume designer Tristan Raines put a character who manically corrects those who call her “Congresswoman” instead of “Congressperson” in a tight-fitting, low-cut red dress? Lambert and Landel immediately steal the attention away from the main conflict, making it all about themselves. Trying to be puppeteers in the “humans vs puppets” drama, they look like caricatures of successful women.

And don’t forget about Max, a reverse Pinocchio who is confused about his own identity amidst the scandal between adults. Although Bello does a good job, it is difficult for a kid to play this complicated part effectively. Ultimately, it remains unclear—what does it mean to be a marionette in the world of A Real Boy? Is it a part of you that makes you “different”? For a while the play tricks you into thinking that it is about tolerance and acceptance of those who look, think, and live differently. But in the very end, the symbolism of a marionette as something being manipulated moves away from the notion of tolerance. 

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A Real Boy plays at 59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street, through August 27, 2017. The running time is 1 hour 50 minutes with an intermission. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30; Saturday at 2:30 and 7:30; and Sunday at 3:30. Tickets are $25 and are available at 59e59.org or by calling 212-279-4200. 

A Real Boy is by Stephen Kaplan. Directed by Audrey Alford. Set Design is by Ann Beyersdorfer. Lighting Design is by Jenn Fok. Sound Design is by Megan Culley. Costume Design is by Tristan Raines. Puppets are designed and built by Puppet Kitchen. Stage Manager is Stephanie Kay Garcia.

The cast is Alexander Bello, Katie Braden, Jamie Geiger, Jason Allan Kennedy George, Brian Michael, Jenn Remke, Kelley Selznick, and Danie Steel.

[This review was published on theasy.com on 8.07.17]