10 THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY3, 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY HOKYOUNG KIM
Everybody knows that, in Shakespeare’s day, men played the women in his
dramas and comedies until, in the sixteen-sixties, women began taking over
themselves. I don’t know how many actresses of color, though, have played
Shakespeare’s men before. If the number is large, forgive me. In any case,
I don’t regard the accomplished stage, television, and film performer Ruth
Negga as a novelty in playing a man. And that’s because Negga, who was
born in Ethiopia to an Irish mother and an Ethiopian father, has proved,
in the course of her career, that she can find what’s human and individual
in any part, even as she searches it for reflections of her own life. Her eyes
tell us so much about her characters’ inner lives that she gives two shows
simultaneously—a visual display of interiority and the language that goes
with it. In the title role of Yaël Farber’s interpretation of “Hamlet,” at
St. Ann’s Warehouse, Feb. 1-March 8, Negga makes her New York stage
début—and how can her performance be less than interesting? She’s lived
in the play a long time. In 2010, in London, Negga played Ophelia, she
who loves Hamlet not for who he might be but for who he is.—Hilton AlsOFFBROADWAY
just fine as a specimen of her style. Bill (James
Cromwell) and Nancy (Jane Alexander) are se-
nior citizens tucked away in a gated community,
yet muster the energy to divorce. Their sons,
Ben (Ben McKenzie) and Brian (Michael Urie),
descend on the house in a confused fury—is the
split the result of somebody’s oncoming de-
mentia? The play, directed by Leigh Silverman
for Second Stage, is a comic machine: there’s
a laugh a minute, and the actors, especially
Alexander and Urie, milk quiet moments for
a few more. But the best bit of the show is
one that’s purely theatrical—something goes
boom. The satisfaction of that set piece yields
another realization: it’s the only thing Wohl
offers that wouldn’t translate just as well on a
screen.—Vinson Cunningham (Through March 1.)
My Name Is Lucy Barton
Samuel J. Friedman
Laura Linney stars in a one-woman adapta-
tion of Elizabeth Strout’s 2016 novel (directed
by Richard Eyre, for the Manhattan Theatre
Club), about a woman from Amgash, Illinois,
who escapes her poor upbringing to become
a writer in New York. Lucy tells the audience
that years ago, while in the hospital with a mys-
terious illness, she woke to find her estranged
mother in her room, part comfort, part threat.
Together, they tell tales of Amgash, circling
the traumas of Lucy’s childhood—caused by
the cruelties of Lucy’s mother and father, who
had post-traumatic stress disorder from serving
in the Second World War. Strout’s language,
deftly adapted for the stage by Rona Munro, is
elegantly simple, and Linney, radiating warmth
and lucidity, is just the right actor to bring it to
life—her ninety-minute performance is a feat
of subtle bravura. But this production could use
more life—an escape from the antiseptic clois-
ter of the hospital room to the rousing world
outside.—Alexandra Schwartz (Reviewed in our
issue of 1/27/20.) (Through Feb. 29.)Paradise Lost
Theatre Row
This take on John Milton’s epic about the fall
of man, written by Tom Dulack and producedby the Christian-missioned Fellowship for
Performing Arts, begins with darkness, the
clamor of war, and, when the lights come up,
the fallen angel Lucifer (David Andrew Mac-
donald)—head bowed, regal but defeated—
standing center stage, singed and battered
amid smoke and flames. It’s a thrillingly cine-
matic beginning, but character and drama are
elsewhere scarce, as this “Paradise Lost” lacks
the majesty of Milton and the imagination
to draw something novel from the Biblical
story. Lucifer, who leads a failed rebellion
against Heaven, is missing the charisma he’s
owed, and his tempting of the curious and
desirous Eve (Marina Shay) and the simple,
obedient Adam (Robbie Simpson) in the
Garden of Eden is regrettably colorless. Flat
dialogue and stiff performances are peppered
with incidental anachronisms (one charac-
ter zips by on a scooter); Michael Parva’s
direction, like the script, foregrounds peda-
gogy over discovery.—Maya Phillips (Through
Feb. 23.)Romeo & Bernadette
A.R.T./New York Theatres
Poor Romeo: not only is this blank-verse-
spouting gentle soul desperately in love with
the daughter of an enemy family but her
father is a mafioso. And the foulmouthed
wench’s name isn’t even Juliet but Berna-
dette. In this new musical, the book writer
Mark Saltzman wisely doesn’t spend much
time explaining how a Shakespearean pro-
tagonist ends up in 1960 Brooklyn, which
leaves more room for an avalanche of broad
gangland gags. For the songs, Saltzman set
new lyrics to Italian melodies borrowed from
sources operatic (Rossini, Bellini) and pop-
ular (Enrico Cannio, Francesco Paolo Tosti).
(Steve Orich did the inventive arrange-
ments.) Directed on a shoestring, by Justin
Ross Cohen for Amas Musical Theatre, the
production mixes two familiar genres—the
fish out of water and the mafia comedy—
with entirely predictable results. Notable
in the cast is the “Mamma Mia!” veteran
Judy McLane, whose comic edge remains
sharp.—Elisabeth Vincentelli (Through Feb. 16.)17 Minutes
TBG Theatre
In the aftermath of the mass shooting at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in
Parkland, Florida, few people spared much
empathy for a police deputy nicknamed the
Coward of Broward for his failure to enter
the school during the massacre. In this play,
presented by the Barrow Group—which,
without mentioning Parkland, reads like a
fictionalized version of that incident—the
playwright Scott Organ offers a nuanced
argument in the officer’s defense. The
complexity comes mostly via outstanding
performances in strong, small roles: Brian
Rojas as the detective who interrogates the
deputy; Shannon Patterson as a school cop
who’s been hailed as the hero of the trag-
edy; Michael Giese as the shooter’s father;
and, especially, Lee Brock as a victim’s
mother. Larry Mitchell’s lead performance
is comparatively limp; neither Organ nor
the director, Seth Barrish, seems to have
convincingly imagined the deputy’s state