Off Broadway plays can get really weird. Like, watermelon-being-smashed-to-bits-on-stage weird. So when the basic Broadway lineup starts to feel tired, it can be difficult to navigate theater options outside of seeing "Wicked" a fourth time. Here to help you avoid being needlessly splattered with fresh fruit, we bring you the July edition of our monthly round-up of Off and Off Off Broadway shows.
"The Flick"
Great For: Anyone who's ever wished there was a version of Todd Solondz's "Happiness" that was less depressing and without all the pedophilia
The women in the bathroom during intermission were not enjoying "The Flick." "There's another hour and fifteen minutes?" one asked (as if an "hour-and-fifteen-minutes" was the amount of time she would be spending in a torture chamber streaming "The View"). "I kno-o-ow," her friend sighed, somehow stretching the word into several syllables. "This show is great ... for people who are depressed."
It's true. "The Flick" is depressing. And it's not for everyone. If you want something "for everyone," I don't know, go so see the "Gazillion Bubble Show" at New World Stages.
In its three hours and ten minutes, "The Flick" does not move from the movie theater that functions as its set. For that admittedly long duration, Annie Baker's Pulitzer-Prize winning script revolves around a premise that could be described in so few words as "low-level employees talking about stuff."
Still, the intricacy of their relationships and impressively realistic dialogue sets up an exquisite examination of the mundanity of human existence that is one part comedy and nine parts Existential Heft. Baker offers up no answers, no solutions for her cast of three in their enduring inability to find satisfaction or a way around the crushing triviality of their lives. And she doesn't try to. "The Flick" is like a modern-day "Waiting For Godot," only much less absurd and all the more troubling when you realize Godot is never, ever, ever showing up.
In performances until Jan. 10 at the Barrow St. Theater.
"39 Steps"
Great For: Fully grown adults who never got to play a truly satisfying game of cops and robbers
When plays are called a "romp," it usually means the person writing the description is not very good at using a thesaurus or that they are a publicist. But "39 Steps" is a show that can be quite accurately characterized as "a spell of rough, energetic play." The cast is having a really, really great time on stage. It's kind of like watching your uncle's improv group having a really, really great time on stage -- if they were actually talented.
The play, inspired by the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, parodies the film-noir genre and the entirety of the Hitchcock canon as the four actors move through the espionage and intrigue of a caper by rotating through a total of 150 roles (and often making a grand joke out of literally switching hats). There are some exceptionally ham-fisted moments -- they go far out of their way to include references to "Psycho" and Vertigo" -- but you'll forgive them, just as you'd forgive your uncle and his improv troupe. They're just having so much fun.
Now in performances a Union Square Theater.
"Significant Other"
Great For: Singles in New York who sense an ageless profundity in "Sex and the City"
"Significant Other" is pretty much what would happen if a middle-aged man wrote about the struggle of being a single 20-something in the city and then optioned it as a pilot on CBS. That's not to say, "don't see it." That is to say, "probably don't see it if you're under thirty and have ever been on a date." The show is out of touch and just so pleased with how funny it thinks millennials are that they may as well have added a laugh track. (Although they didn't need to, because 83 percent of the 97-percent-senior-citizen audience thought it was hilarious.)
Here we have the Being Single Is So Hard archetype applied to a gay man and his three hetero lady friends. Each of the main women in Jordan's life spend the play getting paired off as our protagonist writhes around in the agony of being single. He is self-absorbed, obsessive and whiny, sort of like an even less endearing Toby Maguire. It's far easier to imagine smacking him than sympathizing with him, but maybe that's the point.
Instead of dissolving his conflict into comically ill-fitted matches, "Significant Other" sticks its head up from beneath its Millennial stand-up routine to hit on the pain of loneliness. What emerges -- after the third bachelorette party scene and choreographed "hesitant sending of a romantic email" -- is a tracking of singledom as it shifts from a rough joke in your early 20s to a deeper sense of dread once you grow older and friends can no longer be your family.
In performances until Aug. 16 at Laura Pels Theatre.
"Sea Wife"
Great For: Herman Melville's hipster nephew
"Sea Wife" plays like a folk concert set within an extended maritime metaphor. It tells the story of Percy, as he moves through love and loss, his arc rising and falling with the pounding energy of The Lobbyists (here as your cast of six with an additional cellist).
The show is set in the 19th century, though the patrons clutching PBRs are not the only anachronistic element present during performances in the South Street Seaport Museum. "The earth pukes me up," Percy sings toward the climax of the show, "but the beautiful sea, she don't give a f--k." It's moments like these which quickly yank you out of the scene, allowing for reevaluation of the interesting structure director Liz Carlson has incorporated.
The intimate setting, the use of puppets (mostly as a frightening young Percy) and the act of the cast singing while switching off instruments throughout the show yields an almost interactive element. It wouldn't seem accurate to call this a "musical," and "play" is not quite right either. "Sea Wife" also extends its artistry beyond what might have just been pretty good music during a theme night. It's not the story that matters -- there is literally a character called "sea wife" -- as much as the visual and acoustic experience of these mediums woven together into a uniquely imperfect whole.
In performances until July 26 at the South Street Seaport Museum.
"Le Scandal"
Great For: That older woman drinking an adult juice box in Times Square
"See these?" Bonnie Dunn, (the host and creator of "Le Scandal") asks, holding up a set of tassled pasties. "We wear this because it's the law." She pauses one practiced beat. "We can't show nipples during shows hosted in drinking establishments, so we have to wear these," she explains, freeing one hand to flash her left boob to the audience.
That kind of playful subversion runs through the show, which changes each week. Every Saturday, Dunn assembles a lineup of performers ranging from the traditional burlesque acts to acrobatic lip syncers (shout out to the beatific twink who did yoga in a mermaid tail set to "Part of Your World") to a sword-swallowing Guinness Book of Worlds Record holder who looks eerily like Sissy Spacek.
Make no mistake, "Le Scandal" appreciates the artform at its core. The high-kicking agility of regular performer Apathy Angel may as well be a masterclass in burlesque. But the mix of other acts -- near perfected by Dunn after a small lifetime running the show -- morphs the evening into a sort of hypersexualized variety hour which transcends the coy dance of freeing the nipple. At its best, "Le Scandal" is a commentary on the late-night performance genre. At it's worst, it's still a bunch of sexy, flexible people who are fun to watch while drunk.
In performances at the West Bank Cafe in the Laurie Beechman Theatre.
Also on HuffPost:
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