The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-28)

C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAY, MAY 28 , 2022

ever to win the esteemed prize.
Nor as a riff on “Hamlet” can it
claim 100 percent originality:
Shakespeare’s soliloquies find
their way into the audience asides
delivered by Marcel Spears’s nim-
bly rendered Juicy. He portrays a
student at an online university
whose usurping uncle leaps into
his mother’s bed.
It is all unabashedly entertain-
ing and one of a spate of enticing
new plays that are destined to be
seen on stages across the country,
offering fresh hope to theaters
and theatergoers who are willing
the industry back to full health.
Anecdotal reports, and my own
observations, indicate that play-
houses are not filling seats the
way they did before the pandem-
ic, and some artistic directors say
an attendance drop-off of 10 to
20 percent may be long-lasting.
Plays like “Fat Ham” and “John
Proctor Is the Villain,” Kimberly
Belflower’s terrific revisionist
take on “The Crucible,” now at
D.C.’s Studio Theatre, are of an
accomplished caliber to spear-
head a more vibrant return to live
performance. Another is Samuel
D. Hunter’s deeply affecting “A
Case for the Existence of God,” at
off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre
Company (not to be confused

NOTEBOOK FROM C1 with the Arlington, Va., troupe of
the same name).
Hunter has danced with the
sublime before, in plays such as
“Greater Clements,” his 2019 con-
templation of identity and his-
tory in an Idaho mining town.
Woolly Mammoth Theatre was an
early proponent, staging Hunter’s
trenchant “A B right New Boise” in

2011. In “A Case for the Existence
      of God,” he returns us to Idaho,
      this time in the company of Keith
      (Kyle Beltran) and Ryan (Will
      Brill), whose ever more meaning-
      ful and complex friendship ex-
      plodes all the tired tropes about
      the emotional bonds between
      men.
      Keith is a mortgage broker and
      Ryan the woefully underqualified
      loan applicant who walks into his
      office — a typically colorless cubi-
      cle placed by set designer Arnulfo
      Maldonado at the ethereal center
      of the vast Irene Diamond stage.
      What evolves in that office belies
      the impersonal surroundings, but
      not in the soapy ways a writer of
      lesser gifts might contrive. Keith
      and Ryan discover a safe space for
      their free-floating insecurities,
      their love of being fathers, an
      essence of masculine intimacy
      that manages to thrive outside
      homoeroticism. (Keith, we learn,
      is straight, and Ryan is gay.)
      “I think we share a specific

kind of sadness, you and me,”

Ryan confides, as their various

struggles over divorce and foster

parenting come to the fore. With

incisive input from Hunter and

director David Cromer, the

smashingly good Brill and Bel-

tran — who were roommates at

Carnegie Mellon University —

forge a relationship at t imes tense

and tenuous, at others mutually

affirmative. Lighting designer Ty-

ler Micoleau is enlisted to devise a

clever plan for indicating shifts in

time and place without the neces-

sity of Keith and Ryan leaving the

office.

The final scene of “A Case for

the Existence of God” is as touch-

ingly resonant as the finale in “Fat

Ham” is groove-in-your-seat exu-

berant. Ijames’s meta-theatrical

comedy follows melancholy Juicy

on the occasion of a backyard

barbecue in America celebrating

the marriage of his mother, Tedra

(the wondrous Nikki Crawford),

to Rev (Billy Eugene Jones). Rev

probably arranged the shanking

in prison of Juicy’s father, Pap,

who (in the guise of Jones again)

materializes in ghostly white for-

mal wear, traces of smoke wafting

out of his hair. Yes, the famous

play’s the thing as Ijames’s evoca-

tions of storied characters arrive:

Ophelia, as Adrianna Mitchell’s

Opal, Horatio (Chris Herbie Hol-

‘Ham’ connects Yorick’s

skull to your funny bone

land’s Tio), Laertes (Calvin Leon

Smith’s L arry) and Polonius (Ben-

ja Kay Thomas’s Rabby).

One of the pleasures of “Fat

Ham” is its wry act of appropria-

tion; there’s affection, not snark,

in Ijames’s embrace of the canon

so that the contemporary fric-

tions among the reimagined

characters propel the play win-

ningly into social satire. That

Mitchell’s r isibly restless Opal has

no eyes for Juicy — and uptight

Marine Larry does — are just two

of the many ways “Fat Ham” turns

“Hamlet” giddily upside down. In

the mouthy matriarchal role,

Thomas is a special magnitude of

irresistible.

As Juicy, Spears proves an ap-

pealing central conveyor of

Ijames’s conceits, one of which

proposes this latter-day Hamlet

as seeking a career in human

resources; the job is portrayed

here as being for someone who,

ahem, has trouble making up his

mind. The playwright sneaks in

bits of enjoyable wordplay, too, as

when Rev lavishes praise on his

own grilling skills. “The secret is

the rub,” he says. “A h, there’s the

rub,” Juicy replies. Silly for sure —

and kind of great.

Fat Ham , by James Ijames. Directed

by Saheem Ali. Set, Maruti Evans;

costumes, Dominique Fawn Hill;

lighting, Stacey Derosier; sound,

Mikaal Sulaiman. About 95 minutes.

Through July 3 at Public Theater, 425

Lafayette St., New York.

publictheater.org.

A Case for the Existence of God ,

by Samuel D. Hunter. Directed by

David Cromer. Set Arnulfo

Maldonado; costumes, Brenda

Abbandandolo; lighting, Tyler

Micoleau; sound, Christopher

Darbassie. About 90 minutes.

Through June 5 at Signature Theatre,

480 W. 42d St., New York.

signaturetheatre.org.

EMILIO MADRID

J OAN MARCUS

LEFT: Chris Herbie Holland as

Tio and Marcel Spears as Juicy

in James Ijames’s Pulitzer-

winning “Fat Ham.”

ABOVE: Will Brill as Ryan a nd

Kyle Beltran as Keith in Samuel

D. Hunter’s “A Case for the

Existence of God.”

S0136-6x3

“Away from the noise and bustle”

Discover great area neighborhoods in “Where We Live,” Saturdays in Real Estate.

OPERA

Pleasecheck

websitefor

up-to-date

COVIDsafety

protocols.

$30-110

KennedyCenter’s

TerraceTheater

2700 FStreet, NW,

Washington,DC 20029

(202)546-9332

http://www.operalafayette.org

GuestConductorPedroMemelsdorffexplores the

complicateddynamicsbetweenthe musicalcultureof

ImperialFranceand the peopleof the Caribbean.

Well-knownFrenchcomposersfrom the 18th centuryand

newlyrediscovered worksarerepresentedin this

orchestralconcertwith vocalsoloistsand ensemble.

Sunday,June 12, 2022,

7:30 p.m.

ConcertSpirituel

aux Caraïbes

Musicfrom the Caribbean

FrenchColonies

Ticketssold online

and at the door

$40

BenderJewishCommunityCenter

of GreaterWashington,

6125 Montrose Road

Rockville,MD

Info and ticketlink at:

http://www.belcantanti.com

FeaturingRobertMcGinness,Baritone,and dancersfrom

the OlneyBallet,accompaniedby achamberorchestraand

KaterinaSouvorova on piano.Sungin Germanwith English

supertitles.

FridayMay 27 at 7:30 pm

SUNMay 29 at 3pm

FranzSchubert’s

Die schöne

Müllerin

(The Fair Maidof the Mill)

Pleasecheck

websitefor

up-to-date

COVIDsafety

protocols.

$30-135

KennedyCenter’s

TerraceTheater

2700 FStreet, NW,

Washington,DC 20029

(202)546-9332

http://www.operalafayette.org

ArtisticDirectorRyanBrown and filmmakerTania

HernandezVelascopresentafully-stagedmodern

premiereofGrétry’s1770 Silvain like it’snever been

seenbefore. Set in the 19th centuryAmerican

Southwest,the storyexplores timelesstalesof afather

and son relationship,and the still historically-pertinent

strugglesover land rightsin America.

Thursday,June 2&Friday,

June3, 7:30 p.m.

Gretry’s

Silvain

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