6 THENEWYORKER,AUGUST19, 2019
ILLUSTRATION BY ISABELLE ARSENAULT
The playwright Bess Wohl has spun drama—and sly comedy—from
an upstate silent retreat (“Small Mouth Sounds”), the porn industry
(the docu-musical “Pretty Filthy”), and a film shoot on an ice floe
(“Continuity”). Her plays have the unassuming humanity of found
text, even when they’re entirely made up. Her newest, “Make Believe”
(in previews at Second Stage, opening Aug. 15), begins in a playroom,
where four preadolescent siblings, portrayed by actual children, pass the
time building forts and playing house in the mysterious absence of their
parents. In the second act, the siblings, now middle-aged, return to the
room and revisit the traumatic circumstances that they were previously
too young to grasp. Can child actors build an imaginary world for adults?
The director Michael Greif takes up the challenge.—Michael SchulmanOFFBROADWAY
with a simple, fluid elegance. Refreshingly,
unlike in much of modern theatre, this is a
play in which family dysfunction is not a
gloomy death sentence.—Ken Marks (Through
Sept. 8.)Measure for Measure
The Duke on 42nd Street
It’s no surprise that, since the inception
of the #MeToo movement, “Measure for
Measure,” Shakespeare’s problem play about
virtue and a man’s attempt to use his influ-
ence to coerce a woman into having sex with
him, is seeing more productions. The Acting
Company’s current staging makes small but
notable gestures toward the play’s prescience:
Angelo is a modern-day suited politician who
gropes the chaste would-be nun Isabella in
his office. Later, a public-hearing scene re-
calls the trial of Harvey Weinstein. But this
Weinstein-esque villain, as played by Sam
Lilja, lacks the baseness and sleaze to counter
Rebekah Brockman’s wholeheartedly earnest
and virtuous Isabella. Janet Zarish’s direction
admirably holds its characters accountable
for their self-righteousness and moral hy-
pocrisies, but the comic notes fall by the
wayside.—Maya Phillips (Through Aug. 24.)Moscow Moscow Moscow
Moscow Moscow Moscow
Robert W. Wilson MCC
Theatre Space
Halley Feiffer’s antic and sneakily affecting
play (zippily directed by Trip Cullman) is
at once a rude millennial reboot and a fairly
faithful adaptation of Chekhov’s “Three Sis-
ters.” The year is still 1900, the place still a
house in the Russian provinces, where the
Prozorov sisters—Olga (Rebecca Hender-
son), Masha (Chris Perfetti), and Irina (Tavi
Gevinson)—have languished since their fa-
ther, now dead, transplanted them from their
beloved Moscow. Instead of Chekhov’s del-
icate realism, though, we get Internet-speak
and a quick-cut, absurdist pacing. Feiffer’s
irreverence is a form of homage; watching
these Russians snipe and complain in our
own vernacular gives the lie to the nostal-
gic fantasy that people were better, kinder,
and more “connected” before our atomized
era of screens. The sensitive, comedic cast
is uniformly excellent, particularly Perfetti,
who makes us realize how much the dreamy,
enraged Masha cherishes her own sense of
difference.—Alexandra Schwartz (Reviewed
in our issue of 8/5 & 12/19.) (Through Aug. 17.)Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Hirschfeld
Baz Luhrmann’s pop-fuelled film fantasia
is now a musical, directed by Alex Timbers,
and the new form fits like a cancan dancer’s
glove. In 1899, Christian (Aaron Tveit), an
American romantic in Paris, falls in with an
amiable group of Montmartre artists, who
recruit Satine (the wonderful Karen Olivo),
the premier courtesan of the Moulin Rouge, to
star in their new play. It’s love at first sight for
Christian, but the club’s impresario, Harold
Zidler (Danny Burstein), has promised Satineguitar feats, and George’s serenity supplants
Roth’s glorious buffoonery. Here, as is often
the case, George tours without Kurstin, whose
increasingly illustrious production clientele
(Paul McCartney, Adele) keeps him in Los
Angeles.—J.R. (Aug. 17.)
Bonobo Presents OUTLIER
Brooklyn Mirage
The British electronic artist Bonobo makes
atmospheric sound collages that are as
transfixing as staring out a window during
a cross-country drive. His expansive musi-
cal landscapes change subtly as he weaves
in natural loops, samples, and vocals from
singers such as Rhye and Chet Baker. Themes
of travel and terrain are central to Bonobo’s
work: “Migration,” his 2017 album, was a
meditation on the movement of humans,
which he articulated through sharp, crystal-
line production. Here, he shares a bill with
the electronic musicians Tourist and Lind-
strøm.—J.L. (Aug. 17.)
DJ Stingray
BASEMENT
Speed and agility tend to mark the playing
styles of Detroit dance d.j.s, but the lightning
pace and flamboyant transitions of DJ Stingray’s
1
THETHEATRE
Little Gem
Irish Repertory
This funny, touching one-act, by Elaine
Murphy, was a sensation at the 2008 Dublin
Fringe Festival and is getting an altogether
winning revival here. Three women from
a section of Dublin known as North Inner
City—Amber (Lauren O’Leary); her mother,
Lorraine (Brenda Meaney); and her grand-
mother Kay (Marsha Mason)—tell their sto-
ries and explore their relationships with one
another in a series of rotating monologues.
The writing is wonderful, full of incident,
comedy, drama, and emotion, and in bringing
it to life these three actors are, to use the
adjective favored by Amber when denoting
excellence, “massive.” The director, Marc
Atkinson Borrull, stages the interwoven solossets stand out. Born Sherard Ingram, Stingray,
who wears a balaclava during his performances,
first recorded as Urban Tribe—his 1998 album,
“The Collapse of Modern Culture,” is a down-
tempo electronic classic. His more recent work
focusses on frenetic electro, which manages to
sound dauntingly futuristic rather than like
a cutesy Pac-Man retread.—M.M. (Aug. 17.)