Theaters Go Dark Across The Nation (Part 1)

[I’m an associate member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), the professional organization for theater reviewers in print, on line, and on electronic media.  Every couple of weeks, ATCA sends out an e-mail newsletter to members called The Update with the latest news from the association.  One regular feature of The Update is entitled “This Just In,” a list of “select articles by ATCA members that popped-up in our newsfeed.”  On 24 March, the list included several articles about the effects of the theater-closings because of the coronavirus pandemic.

[Rick On Theater isn’t a news site; I don’t usually report on current events aside from the occasional editorial post that refers to a topical development in theater or the arts.  It struck me as appropriate for me to use my blog to spread the word about how this unprecedented situation is affecting communities, especially theater communities, around the U.S.

[I haven’t researched this issue, but I can’t recall an event in theater history when all the theaters in a region were closed this way.  Individual theaters have been closed, usually on charges of obscenity—I believe nearly all of Mae West’s plays were shut down by police on this basis in 1920s New York City and back in 2017, Broadway saw the première of Paula Vogel’s Indecent, a play that recounted the story of the abortive production of Sholom Ash’s The God of Vengeance in 1923, closed by authorities on this charge—but the only general theater shut-down that I can think of was in 1642 London when Puritan Oliver Cromwell closed all the theaters on moral grounds. 

[Strikes have closed theaters briefly over the decades, but I don’t know what happened in, say, 1918 when this country was attacked by the Spanish flu.  New York City theaters went dark after the 2001 terror attacks, but other parts of the country didn’t take similar action.

[So the current situation may be unprecedented.  Of course, I recognize that the theater-closings are a part of an overall shut-down that includes not only large entertainment spaces, but shops, restaurants, transportation systems, sports arenas, parks, playing fields and playgrounds, and so on.  And it’s important to note that the shut-downs affect not only the customers for these venues, potential audiences in the case of theaters, but the performers and other artists as well as the theater employees like stage hands, ushers, and box-office personnel.  Theater companies have reduced and furloughed staff people and, as you’ll see, reviewers and theater journalists have little on which to report.

[What has this done to the art and business of live theater?  Some New York shows have already closed, some without ever having officially opened such as Hangmen (scheduled to open on 15 March, it ceased preview performances, started on 28 February, on 11 March) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (closed on 11 March after starting previews on 3 March; scheduled to open on 9 April for a limited run through 2 August).  Below are some reports, from different perspectives and different parts of the country responding to  the current situation.

[Update listed seven articles by ATCA members concerning the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.  I’ll present four in Part 1 and later this week, I’ll post the remaining three articles.]

“A THEATER CRITIC CONFRONTS NO SHOWS TO GO TO, NO CURTAINS TO CATCH”

by Chris Jones

[The following article from the Chicago Tribune of 17 March relates how review-writer Chris Jones responded to the closing of his city’s vibrant theaters after Governor J. B. Pritzker banned all gatherings of 100 people or more as of 12 March.]

I’ve written a Friday theater column for the Chicago Tribune for close to 25 years. The topics and issues have varied, but they’ve all had one thing in common. Each and every one has been inspired by the artists of the Chicago theater.

This week, for the first time, there is nothing going on.

No valid listings. No Chris Jones Recommends, because I could not in good conscience recommend that you do anything other than stay home for your own safety and that of your fellow citizens. This week, and probably for weeks to come, the Chicago theater is officially closed for business.

So by necessity, this has to be a column about absence.

It’s personal, of course. I go to the theater most nights, most ordinary nights anyway. Being there, as some curtain somewhere goes up, is close to an obsession of mine. Strike “close to.” The experience — the beauty, the ugliness, the rush of ideas, even the difficult confrontations — have sustained me though a good chunk of my adult life. It always has felt not so much like a job as a gift that transforms into something different every night and the chance to sing what happened from the rooftops.

Like many journalists — in times that were uncertain even before coronavirus — I’ve long had in my head a farewell speech. In my case, I’ve always wanted to tell the people of the Chicago theater one thing: that everything I have been doing all these years is merely reactive.

Even though a review might look like an evaluation or a judgment, that is just a smokescreen.

While a review or a story may (or may not) be artful, it has no purpose for existing without the work it critiques. With the loss of that basis, it dies.

Without the work of the artists, there is nothing to riff on, be inspired by, cry at, get angry at, marvel at, dream on, laugh at, shout back at, object to, smile at, cheer on, ovate for, believe in, defend, attack, get defensive over, feel fragile over, be empowered by, live through. To be glad all the way to the bottom of your heart that this is the city where you chose to spend your life.

Simple as that.

But fear not. As they say in the musical “Avenue Q,” this is only for a while. While theater might seem like life and death, that is not the case and it can wait, even if it will have to be back in production before we will truly be able to say that we have come alive again.

And then it will be the job of the Chicago theater to help us better understand all that we have been experiencing, and, in all probability, to help us to heal.

In the meantime, faithful readers of this column, the artists of the Chicago theater, even though they under great financial duress, will find ways to keep you engaged. And I will do my part: this is time to drudge up old stories and memories of times spent together, and I have plenty of those to share.

And it’s a time to support your local artists, especially if you are missing them. You can buy a gift certificate for a show in the fall. You can pitch in to a campaign to help artists get through this income loss. You can donate your unused ticket, and not ask for a refund from a theater that may have very limited cash left in its accounts right now. I’ll try and help you do that.

This is, for all its surface conflicts, a caring community of the impassioned, and the audience is the biggest part of that group.

As I was trying to figure out how to end this non-column, the phone rang. It was Deb Clapp, the executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres, telling me that she had been told that The Saints, the volunteer (and mostly senior) group that ushers in most non-profit Chicago theaters, had authorized an emergency grant of $25,000 to support laid-off Chicago theater artists.

“They only had one question,” Clapp said. “Where should I send the check?”

See, we’ll be back.

Watch this space.

[Chris Jones is a Chicago Tribune theater reviewer.]

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“MUMMENSCHANZ SUGGESTS STREAMING IS VIABLE OPTION FOR THEATER IN CORONAVIRUS ERA”

by Lily Janiak

[From the “Datebook” section of the San Francisco Chronicle of 19 March, Janiak’s report recounts the decision by Mummenschanz, the Swiss mime troupe, to live-stream its performances in San Jose, California, after Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco, banned gatherings of more than 100 people after 13 March.]

Curtain time was drawing near for Mummenschanz’s “you & me” at San Jose’s Hammer Theatre Center, so to maintain a sense of normalcy, I went through my standard theater criticism rituals as best I could.

I got dressed up and put on some lipstick. I opened my notebook to a clean page. I couldn’t take my standard social-media-worthy photo of the show’s program in front of the stage, so I asked my husband to take a photo of me at my humble home office. I closed all windows and apps that might ping, but I couldn’t shut down all my electronic devices. I’d need one to watch the show.

It was my first time reviewing a live-streamed performance, and I was nervous. What if I made a mistake with the technology? Even worse, if the experience were lousy — if the translation of theater to my laptop were so unpalatable that I couldn’t honestly recommend it to audiences — would I have to write a review that cast further gloom on an art form facing its greatest crisis in a generation?

Swiss mime troupe Mummenschanz had been scheduled to perform “you & me” Monday-Tuesday, March 16-17, at the Hammer. But on Friday, March 13, Santa Clara County banned gatherings of more than 100 people. Hammer Theatre Center Executive Director Chris Burrill had already been rereading the force majeure (act of God) clause in his contract.

“We made the decision to offer to refund everybody that had an in-person ticket,” he told The Chronicle by phone. “And since we’re located in Silicon Valley . . . we were able to instantly pivot and say, why don’t we live-stream them?”

The Hammer had recently benefited from more than $1 million in upgrades from San Jose State University, which operates the facility. Among those upgrades was a high-definition, low-light camera, which heretofore had been used only to live-stream shows in the lobby for latecomers. On Monday, that camera made its debut broadcasting to a much wider audience. (Originally, the Hammer planned to live-stream Tuesday’s performance as well, but that was before the shelter-in-place order, which effectively canceled the second live stream.)

Mummenschanz founding member Floriana Frassetto, who created “you & me,” said that the decision to permit the live stream was “very immediate.” She was glad there was some way audiences would still be able to enjoy the show, in which a quintet of performers give rambunctious life to abstract shapes of various sizes — some towering, monster-sized blobs, others just the size of a gloved hand, all floating and darting and rearing through the full length of the proscenium stage, and sometimes beyond it.

“It’s not the same when you’re not sitting in the auditorium,” she said, “and you wonder how many people are in the shape, and where their head is, where their behind is: ‘How are they doing it anyway, can they breathe, can they see?’ On film it all looks a bit easier.” The afternoon before the performance, she was hoping the film would still convey at least some of “that magic and those emotions and that purity, that interactivity that we love to portray.”

It wouldn’t be feasible to restage the show, which has been touring internationally since 2016, for the camera, but “the intensity of the lights will be stronger,” to make “you & me” look better on film.

The lights on that HD camera looked so gorgeous I frequently had the illusion — especially with all Mummenschanz’s shapes and colors — that I was watching one of those wordless shorts at the top of a bill with a full-length Pixar feature. At other times, particularly when the camera zoomed out to take in some of the audience members (all invite-only as special guests of Mummenschanz or Hammer Theatre Center workers, and all scattered many seats apart to abide by self-distancing regulations), I felt as if a tiny puppet stage had been packed into my computer, not just the seahorses and lampreys and stick figures and fish that Mummenschanz ingeniously fashion from scrunched tubes, coiled or inflated sheets, but also the audiences. Somehow they looked like puppets, too.

At still other times, I felt acutely the mediation by screen, my disconnection from performers and my fellow audience members — not least when my browser evidently repeated two scenes already shown and then skipped ahead to catch up.

I found myself craving and delighting in the laughter and “aww” sounds from the few spectators who were there in person. They gave me solace that I was still understanding many of the artists’ intentions. Yes, that green slug is disappointed that it didn’t get to chow down on that leaf! Yes, that little fish is terrified by the way those two swans have reared their heads! Yet when audiences reacted audibly to a moment I couldn’t parse, I felt all the more disappointed and frustrated.

Still, on the whole, Mummenschanz’s “you & me” was blissful, a precious escape. They can position and reposition appendages such that performers’ innards seem to be made of goo. They can take 10 white rectangles and create two characters and a relationship and a story. They are masters of the reveal — how a sudden switch of perspective can reveal hitherto hidden mouse ears, or four hands where you thought there were two. When they present an egg shape and hold it perfectly still for a few moments, your eyes start to deceive you — you think you see it vibrating slightly, maybe growing. “No, impossible,” your brain says. And then it does transform, though not in the way you expect.

“You & me” is a testament to the human imagination at a time when we have never needed it more. Mummenschanz’s ability to see the potential in a simple shape, to keep playing with it and opening it up until its myriad stories unfurl, is instructive for all of us when we’re stuck at home, looking at the same old shapes in our kitchens and living rooms.

There was one moment in the show that made me weep with joy, that I must describe fully, spoilers be damned: Two violins with beady eyes were squabbling with each other, making discordant music via pizzicato. In lumbered two giant triangles stacked on top of each other, rather like a Christmas tree. The shape carried two sticks. Were they stringed bows, that the violins might play more mellifluously? Swords, to augment their fighting? No, they started swaying in time. It was a metronome, to help the two instruments find each other’s rhythm.

May we all be each other’s duet partners and metronomes right now.

[Lily Janiak is the San Francisco Chronicle’s theater reviewer.]

                                                        

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“MOST SHOWS NOT GOING ON IN BAY AREA AND BEYOND”

by Robert Sokol

[In the San Francisco Examiner of 13 March, Sokol wrote about his response to the shut-down of the theaters in San Francisco, another of the country’s most active theater towns.]

Some local troupes offering live-streaming alternatives

After the national theater industry announced on Thursday that Broadway theaters would suspend operations until April 12 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a cascade of similar individual announcements began to emerge across the Bay Area, with most local troupes canceling current and immediately upcoming productions.

American Conservatory Theater announced the closure of the hit “Gloria” at the Strand and of “Toni Stone,” which opened at the Geary in San Francisco the night before.

“It is critical to prioritize the safety and health of our patrons, employees, artists and students, and this is the responsible action to take,” read a message from Pam MacKinnon and Jennifer Bielstein, the artistic and executive directors.

“It’s a wild and unprecedented time,” said Bielstein on Friday, adding that ticket holders to both productions will be able to see recordings of the shows via BroadwayHD, a New York-based media streaming company.

“We knew we would not be able to continue to gather in large groups, so we worked with our union partners and asked for permission to share a recording of our current productions,” said Bielstein. She said patrons who have tickets to the shows will soon hear from ACT on how to access the recordings, and expects that 99 percent will accept the offer.

On March 16, ACT, due to demand, announced that new patrons also may purchase tickets to both shows, which will be available for viewing until midnight March 29. For information, visit www.act-sf.org or call (415) 749-2228.

The same goes for Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which will offer those with tickets to canceled performances of “Culture Clash (Still) in America” and “School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play” access to those shows and Broadway HD’s entire catalog for 30 days, according to publicist Tim Etheridge.

Due to evolving public health orders, Hammer Theatre in San Jose has canceled plans tostreamed a live performance by acclaimed Swiss mime troupe Mummenschanz at 7:30 p.m. March 17. . And“Fast Forward,” a performance by South Bay troupe New Ballet, slated to be live-streamed from Hammer Theatre on March 28, has been moved to June 7.

New Conservatory Theatre Center previously canceled performances (through March 21) as had the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (on March 26), following Mayor London Breed’s banning of large gatherings in San Francisco-owned venues.

On March 10, as Broadway San Francisco announced its 2020-21 season of incoming tours, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre began a trickle of cancellation announcements. Other companies like EXIT Theatre stated they were open but taking extra precautions. (EXIT has since suspended performances through March.)

On Wednesday, Foothill Music Theatre and others started to announce early closure of existing runs. Then, the floodgates opened.

Broadway SF posted that remaining performances of “The Last Ship” with Sting were canceled and that “Hamilton” was on hiatus until March 31. By Thursday night, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, San Jose Stage Company and Marin Theatre Company announced the scrapping of current or coming productions, as did Feinstein’s at the Nikko.

Some, like Custom Made Theatre Co. and Broadway by the Bay are postponing things a week at a time. San Francisco Playhouse announced a two-week postponement of the production slated to open next week. Shotgun Players have stopped shows through April 5, and The Marsh in San Francisco and Berkeley have canceled through April 1.

For patrons, there is disappointment and hassle. For the affected artists, the cut is far deeper, ranging from grief to economic insecurity. Social media began to churn with shared disappointment, camaraderie, frustrations and the commitment come back even stronger.

One parent shared a brief video of her child preparing for a canceled musical. “I’m missing it, and feeling pretty sad” she wrote, “but his dad sent me this clip of his mic check.”

Cancellation times vary wildly; venues are proactively contacting patrons with news, but checking with websites and Facebook pages is recommended.

Patrons with tickets to canceled productions at nonprofit companies are encouraged to donate tickets back to the company as a tax-deductible contribution to help the venues mitigate some of their unexpected losses.

[Robert Sokol is the editor-publisher of BAYSTAGES, the creative director at VIA MEDIA, serves on the executive committee of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), is senior editor for BroadwayWorld-San Francisco.  He writes frequently about theater for the Examiner.]

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“STREAMING THEATER: A VIRUS DOWNTIME GUIDE”

by Lou Harry

[Blogger Harry compiled a list of live-theater alternatives which, while they may not be one-for-one substitutes, may help the theater-addicted stay sane during the theater . . . I mean, HEALTH crisis.  The list below was posted on LouHarry.com on 15 March.]

                                                                            

Nothing can replace live theater.

But while we find our way through this time of theatrical shutdowns, there are options for viewing work from the stage…from your living room.

I’m not talking here about movie adaptations. I’m talking about shows that were actually staged on stage and transported via cameras to your home. Or, at least, stayed true to the theater script even if played without an audience.

Here’s a rundown of streaming options on where to find shot-from-the-stage gems.

(NOTE: This is a work in progress. If you know of others, let me know and I will update.)

A.C.T. [American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco]

It’s not a happy show, but the Pultizer-finalist “Gloria” by Branden Jacob-Jenkins is being streamed by A.C.T. Tickets are being offered as pay-what-you-can.

DALLAS THEATER CENTER

Another pay-what-you-can offering, “American Mariachi,” comes courtesy of Dallas Theater Center. The play-with-music concerns a woman caring for her ailing mother who attempts to form an all-women mariachi band in the 1970s.

FOLGER [Washington, DC]

Through July 1 you can watch Folger Theatre’s “Macbeth,” directed by Aaron Posner and Teller. There’s also a batch of special features.

MARQUEETV

Another subscription service, this one is focused more on opera and dance. However, theater buffs can find plenty of treasures. Recent additions include the 2018 “Julius Caesar” from the Donmer Warehouse and a load of Classic Spring Theatre’s Company’s Oscar Wilde productions including “A Woman of No Importance.” The RSC and Globe Shakespeare productions alone are worth the price (and here I got to experience two productions of “Love’s Labour’s Lost”) but if the classics don’t appeal to you, there aren’t many other choices. UPDATE: MarqueeTV is offering free 30 days of streaming when signing up. FURTHER UPDATE: MarqueeTV has added weekly Saturday evening premieres, which will include the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Twelfth Night.”

OLNEY THEATRE [Maryland suburbs of DC]

The Maryland-based company is offering a $20 ticket to a streaming production of Jordan Harrison’s “The Amateurs.” The offer is only available from March 28-April 5. It’s also offering free online classes beginning March 30.

NATIONAL THEATRE [London]

Richard Bean’s “One Man, Two Guvnors” with James Corden and Sally Cookson’s devised “Jane Eyre” will soon be available free via National Theatre Live. The productions will air each Thursday on YouTube.

KANOPY

Sign up for free with your library card (You do have a library card, don’t you?) for access to Satyricon Theatre’s “The Seagull,” Vakhtangov Theatre’s “Smile Upon Us, Lord,” The Wooster Groups “To You, The Birdie!”, Moscow’s Young Generation Theatre’s “Lady with a Lapdog,” and a lengthy slate of performance artists’ work.

BROADWAYHD

The paid streaming service features productions you may have seen on PBS or elsewhere (“Kinky Boots,” “Red,” “Indecent,” the BBC complete Shakespeare from the 1970s/80s). But there are also recent dramas including “Pipeline,” “Thom Pane (based on nothing),”  and “If I Forget.”

Gems including the Stratford Festival’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (my favorite Bard comedy–see below) and, for completists, “King John.” You’ll also find oddities such as the West End musical version of “From Here to Eternity” (lyrics by Tim Rice) and a slate of Spanish-language plays.

More? “On the Exhale” with an intense Marin Ireland. “Buried Child” with Amy Madigan and Ed Harris.

DIGITAL THEATRE

For £9.99 a month, the British streamer offers Zoe Wanamaker and David Suchet in “All My Sons,” the Regent’s Park production of “Into the Woods,” the revival of “Funny Girl” with Sheridan Smith (which I wrote about here), Tricycle Theatre’s “True West,” and Royal Shakespeare Theatre productions of “Twelfth Night,” “Macbeth” and a post-apocalyptic “Troilus and Cressida.”

PLAY-PERVIEW

One-time-only, live readings of plays are on the menu for this site, with proceeds from all events will be directed to arts organizations impacted by the COVID-19 virus. First up: “A Doll’s House, Part 2” on March 26. March 29 brings Alice Ripley in “The Pink Unicorn.” Missed them? Check out the link above for the schedule.

GREAT PERFORMANCES

With a PBS membership, you can see Denielle Brooks in the delightful Public Theatre production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” Laura Benanti in “She Loves Me,” Kelli O’Hara in “The King and I” and more.

THEATRE CLOSE-UP

If you are in the NYC viewing area, you are in luck. WNET’s outstanding Theatre Close-Up series has recorded productions of such shows as “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play,” Richard Nelson’s Gabriel family trilogy, “The Originalist,” “Buyer and Cellar,” and a breathtaking “Uncle Vanya” starring the great Jay O. Sanders. Some of their recordings, including “On the Exhale,” have found their way to other services. Here’s hoping more do as well.

NETFLIX

Does “Springsteen on Broadway” count as a theater production? I say yes. But there’s more here, too, if you look deep.–particularly if you like shows focused on a name entertainer or two being themselves. Among the choices: John Leguizamo’s “Latin History for Morons,” “Steve Martin and Martin Short’: An Evening You Will Forget For the Rest of Your Lives,” and a bunch of Mike Birbiglia one-man shows including his recent “The New One.” (I’ll let others debate the difference between these and stand-up comedy specials.) Want a fuller stage? Netflix also has the Broadway production of “Shrek.”

AMAZON PRIME

Not exactly fitting into the shot-from-the-stage category but of interest to buffs, there are some made-for-TV obscurities including 1955’s “One Touch of Venus,” the 1962 “Arsenic and Old Lace” with Tony Randall and Boris Karloff, and 1956’s “Bloomer Girl” with Barbara Cook. There’s also the pretty-much-taken-right-from-the-stage “Top Banana” with Phil Silvers. You can also catch 1986’s “Barnum,” starring a pre-Phantom Michael Crawford and Del Shores’ “Southern Baptist Sissies.” Amazon Prime also has James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury in the stage production of “Driving Miss Daisy.”

METROPOLITAN OPERA [NYC]

I’ll let others argue the difference between opera and musical theater. For now, let’s just agree on the coolness of the Metropolitan Opera streaming a different opera every night on its website, www.metopera.org.

GOODMAN THEATRE [Chicago]

Strap yourself in as one of the country’s leading regional theater offers its epic adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s novel “2666.” It’s structured into five acts, each staged in its own unique style.

INDIANA REPERTORY THEATRE

Before going on hiatus, the IRT had a hit show with “Murder on the Orient Express.” It’s now available for streaming, offering not only a way to enjoy a show you may have missed but also to help Indiana’s leading LORT theater. Tickets are $25.

MILWAUKEE REP

For $15, you can watch a production of Danai Gurira’s play “Eclipsed.” The offer is only available through April 1.

SCHAUBUHNE [Berlin, Germany]

The German company, which premieres at least ten shows a season, is opening up its archives for online viewing. Productions include “Hedda Gabler,” “Peer Gynt,” and “Art.” Most on the content will have subtitles.

From the site: “During the suspension of our performances we offer an online substitute programme that includes TV recordings of productions from all decades, from the founding to the present day. The programme will be available daily from 6.30 pm until midnight (German time)…In addition members of the ensemble will send video messages from their domestic isolation. Every day before a recording is broadcast, we publish short readings, improvisations, stories or songs at 6 p.m.”

HBO

“The Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” would make for a very interesting double feature.

DISNEY+

Tucked away in the midst of all of the animated characters and the snippets of relived high school musicals on “Encores” are the real-life actors in Broadway’s “Newsies” (not to be confused with the film version, which is also available through the mouse.

HULU

The 2013 Broadway “Romeo and Juliet” with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad is hidden here along with “Jesus Christ Superstar Live” (I’ll let others argue, etc.).

TUBITV.COM

This free streaming service (with commercials) has the 1981 “Pippin” with Ben Vereen.  (And, violating my own rule of only-shot-from-the-stage, I’ll mention that it also has the 2018 film version of “Hello Again” and a batch of documentaries on “The Fantasticks,” “Hamilton,” and more.)

GLOBEPLAYER

There’s an abundance of Shakespeare available here a la carte. Take a look at the Globe to Globe lineup, which includes a Korean production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a Macedonian “Henry VI, Part 3,” and a “Love’s Labour’s Lost” in British sign language.

ONTHEBOARDS.TV

For a decade now, this Seattle-based hasn’t just presented, but produced original video of stagework including experimental pieces from around the world. For example: “Songs at the End of the World” features a Dutch-Flemish group of actors/musicians exploring “dreams, choices and possibilities” in a musical piece set in Antarctica. Want to expand your horizons? A free trial is offered through April. Details here.  (Thanks, Betsy).

BBC

The network’s “Culture in Quarantine” series has announced adding six productions to its lineup: “Macbeth” with Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack, “Othello” with Hugh Quarshie in the title role and Lucian Msamati as Iago, “Romeo and Juliet” with Bally Gill as Romeo and Karen Fishwick as Juliet, “The Merchant of Venice” with Makram J Khoury as Shylock, “Much Ado About Nothing” with Edward Bennett as Benedick and Michelle Terry as Beatrice, and “Hamlet” with Paapa Essiedu in the title role. No word yet on when they will be posted.

CENNARIUM.COM

Another international presenter/producer, Cennarium offers shows from the stages of Brazil, Italy, Spain, Argentina, and more. (Pictured: “The Cabaret of Lost Men.”) I haven’t explored the content yet but like this philosophy: “95% of large theatrical productions are restricted to major cities. The vast majority of the populations around the world do not have access to performing arts. Cennarium takes the greatest performing arts spectacles and performances from the world’s main cultural capitals and makes them available to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Furthermore, we foster the international performing arts community by providing content to a wider audience.” It’s offering a free 10-day trial. (Thanks, Janet.)

STREAMINGMUSICALS.COM

This unique artists-run company creates what it calls “soundstage musicals.” That is, musicals shot on stage but without a live audience. Actors sing live but musical and underscoring is added later. I wrote about one of its productions, “No One Called Ahead,” for Midwest Film Journal.

ACORNTV

And allow me one that breaks my own “live theater” rule for one that’s about theater. “Slings and Arrows,” the outstanding Canadian series, is available for binge-ing. Acorn is offering a 30-day trial with code FREE30.

Know of more? Send me a note.

[Harry uses the following as the epigraph for his blog: I'm a playwright who does journalism.  A journalist who writes books.  And a book writer who pens plays.]

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[These have been the first four articles from ATCA members responding to the coronavirus shut-down of theaters in most U.S. cities.  Log on to Rick On Theater again in a few days for the remainder of the Update list.]

'The Hot Wing King'

All right, tell the truth. 

Aren’t hot wings and Buffalo wings the same things?  I mean, really—they’re both made from the usually-discarded part of the bird, the part that mostly ends up in the soup pot; they’re both cooked up crisp and then covered in a spicy sauce; most people like to dip them in another sauce like blue cheese or ranch; and almost everyone who eats them, eats them in a bar or in the living room with a big game like the Super Bowl on TV.

In fact there are so many recipes for both chicken wing snacks—scores, maybe even hundreds—that it’s probably impossible to distinguish hot wings from Buffalo wings.  As far as I can determine, the main difference—if it’s even accurate—is that the basis of the hot sauce for Buffalo wings is cayenne pepper and for hot wings it’s chili peppers.

The only real difference is that Buffalo wings were invented in Buffalo, New York, and hot wings come from down south; Memphis, Tennessee, is the hot-wing capital of the country, in terms of the number of raw wings sold and cooked ones consumed, though whether they were first concocted there is arguable.

Almost inarguable is that Buffalo wings, the ones people dip in the blue cheese sauce, were introduced in 1964 in a bar.  Hot wings, the ones dipped in ranch dressing (though not always), showed up in Memphis around 1990, sold from a food truck (and 1992 in a restaurant).  An annual hot-wing festival in April began in Memphis in 2002; a Buffalo wing festival started in 2001.

But if you press the point of which town really served the first spicy chicken wings—you might well find yourself in a . . . well, heated argument, let’s say.  (If you want to argue whose wings are better . . . well, that’s probably not a real good idea.)

According to the hot-wing chef in Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King, though, his family recipe for the dish dates back to 1808.  Oh, and he comes from Saint Louis—though I don’t know that he wasn’t born in Memphis, where the play is set.

According to the website This Week in New York, Hall was moved to write The Hot Wing King, her third and last production of her Residency 5 at the Signature Theatre Company, in part because of that annual festival, the Southern Hot Wing Festival, in Memphis, her hometown (about which she writes frequently).  The festival includes a hot-wing cooking competition which is central to the play and initiates the events that unfold.

Hall, 38, a playwright, writer, actress, and social and political activist, was born in Memphis.  According to an interview in Art Works Blog, a website of the National Endowment for the Arts, Hall’s parents told stories around the dinner table, recounting their day at work and playing all the characters, and she credits this practice for her attraction to theater.  “It was like watching one-person shows at the kitchen table.”  As a girl, she staged plays in her family’s living room.

In 1999, she graduated from Craigmont High School in Memphis as the first African-American valedictorian.  After high school, Hall attended New York City’s Columbia University, graduating in 2003 with a major in African-American Studies and Creative Writing.  She was awarded top departmental honors from the university’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS). 

In 2005, she graduated from the American Repertory Theater’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University with a Master of Fine Arts in Acting, and then spent two years as an actress in New York, working on stage and in TV.  She then entered the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace playwriting program, graduating in 2009.

Hall’s been a book reviewer, journalist (another form of storytelling), and essayist for publications such as the Boston Globe, Essence, Newsweek and the New York Times.  She’s also been a Kennedy Center Playwriting Fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center of Waterford, Connecticut.

She’s probably best known as the author of The Mountaintop, her play about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last night before his assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on 4 April 1968, which premièred in London in 2009 to great critical acclaim.  The Mountaintop opened on Broadway on 13 October 2011, starring Samuel L. Jackson (in his Broadway début) as King and Angela Bassett as a mysterious maid.  Directed by Kenny Leon, it ran 117 regular performances and 24 previews, closing on 22 January 2012.

Hall is also the book-writer, with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, the current juke-boxer that opened in November at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.  Other work includes Hurt Village (2012; currently in development as a feature film to be Hall’s film-directing début) and Our Lady of Kibeho (2014), Hall’s previous Residency 5 offerings at STC, and Children of Killers (2011). (Signature’s Residency 5 guarantees each playwright three productions of new plays over the course of a five-year residency.)

Hall has very strong socio-political views; race and ethnicity are often elemental to her dramaturgy.  The dramatist tries to represent the African-America community in her plays and promotes or celebrates social change. 

When, while taking an acting class at Columbia, Hall’s  teacher told the class to find plays with characters who looked like them, Hall and her scene partner, another young Southern black woman, searched the university library to no avail.  There were no plays with two black women in the cast, so Hall thought: “I have to write those plays, then.  I have to carry that baton forward and write us into existence because if I don’t who else will?"

In 2017, she was named artistic director of the Hattiloo Theater, an African-American repertory theater in Memphis dedicated to “the diversity of black expression.”  Hall said “she hopes to help bring about ‘a renaissance, a revitalization of the arts in Memphis.’”   Hall’s dedication to her city and her heritage is expressed in a comment she made at the time: “Everything that Memphis is, is represented  in my art.”

Hall’s awards include a Laurence Olivier Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts) Fellowship, and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award.  Hall was shortlisted for the London Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award and received the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award from the William Inge Theatre Festival.  She is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Ron Brown Scholar Program, and the Coca-Cola Scholar Program. 

The world première of The Hot Wing King began performances at the Pershing Square Signature Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, the company’s 191-seat proscenium house, on 11 February 2020; the production, directed by Hall’s collaborator, Steven H. Broadnax, III, opened on 1 March.  I caught the 7:30 p.m. performance on Friday, 6 March.  After one extension for the originally announced final performance on 15 March, Hot Wing King was scheduled to close on 22 March, but the coronavirus pandemic caused Signature to cease all performances after 11 March.

In the Memphis house owned by Dwayne (Korey Jackson), a successful hotel manager, Cordell (Toussaint Jeanlouis) is preparing the ingredients for the town’s annual hot-wing contest.  He’s sure he has a good chance of winning the $5,000 prize this year with a new recipe, “Cajun Alfredo with Bourbon-Infused Crumbled Bacon”—especially with the help of his friends Dwayne, Isom (Sheldon Best), and Big Charles (Nicco Annan).  The four African-American men are all gay and Cordell is Dwayne’s housemate and lover.

Two months ago, the forty-ish Cordell left his wife, two sons, and job as a FedEx executive in St.  Louis to move in with Dwayne.  His wife won’t sign the divorce papers and Cordell hasn’t been able to find a job in Memphis and he feels a little like a kept man in Dwayne’s house—not that Dwayne, an eminently reasonable and thoughtful man, has said or done anything to give this impression

Cordell’s team, the New Wing Order, who gather for this occasion every year—Cordell has entered before, but never won—consists of his and Dwayne’s closest friends who treat the occasion as a special event for the four of them.  Isom, in his thirties and the youngest of the group, is an outright flamer, femmy, outrageous, and funny; when Dwayne gives the men special team shirts for the contest, Isom adds glitter to his and cuts the bottom off to reveal his midriff.  (The costumes are the work of Emilio Sosa, who seems to have had the most fun with Isom’s garb.)  During the first scene, sports-loving Big Charles keeps running back to the TV in the living room to check on a game in progress while Cordell is organizing the prep in the kitchen. 

The whole process is almost-organized chaos, and supplies the comedy for Hall’s bifurcated play: half sit-com and half family drama.  The cracks in Dwayne and Cordell’s relationship are a hint of the drama to come, and it gets a boost from the arrival of Dwayne’s former brother-in-law, TJ (Eric B. Robinson, Jr.).  TJ’s a drug-dealer and small-time crook.  He was married to Dwayne’s sister, an emotionally disturbed woman who died while under police restraint and Dwayne feels guilty because he had called the cops when she was having an episode.

TJ’s come by to leave a package of money for his son, sixteen-year-old Everett, known as “EJ” (Cecil Blutcher), who shows up himself asking to stay with his uncle.  Dwayne’s guilt over the death of EJ’s mother, which the boy witnessed, compels him to look on the boy as his responsibility; he wants his nephew to live with him and Cordell—though Cordell has misgivings about the prospect.  EJ’s also a high school basketball star and Cordell, a former Georgetown Hoya b-ball player, tries to bond with his lover’s nephew over a little one-on-one on the backyard court.

The Hot Wing King shifts between the sit-com manicness of the cooking contest, which takes place mostly in the up-left kitchen of Michael Carnahan’s open-walled set, and the melodrama of the extended-family situation, which happens in the rest of the house, including the up-right bedroom, meant to be upstairs, that EJ will occupy, and the down-left back terrace where the basketball hoop is located.  The living room, fittingly at center stage, is neutral territory where scenes from both the cooking comedy and the family drama play out.

The two parts of the play do cross over some, but TJ is pretty much exclusively involved in the family plot, though his son enters the cooking comedy near the end of the play when Dwayne makes him an honorary member of the New Wing Order.  Big Charles and Isom stick mostly to the cooking scenario—Isom takes an action that effects the outcome of the competition, but I won’t reveal it now (though Hall telegraphs it long before its repercussions are seen); only Dwayne and Cordell are really part of both elements of The Hot Wing King. 

This isn’t the kind of play in which any real disaster occurs; the most dramatic thing to happen to Dwayne’s circle is the result of the hot-wing contest (which I also won’t reveal).  In the end, everyone is accommodated, even the criminally-inclined TJ.  What Hall’s writing about isn’t the hot-wing contest or the conflict among Dwayne, TJ, and EJ; the play’s also not about the potential conflict between Dwayne and Cordell (who never actually brings up his concerns to Dwayne). 

In addition to the Memphis hot-wing festival, Hall also drew inspiration for The Hot Wing King from the relationship of her brother and his lover, but the play isn’t really about gay men, black men, or gay black men; neither gayness nor race is an issue: the first is only mentioned a few times more or less in passing and the second not at all.  The Hot Wing King’s about how these guys, who are mostly unrelated to one another, make a family. 

I can’t tell you much detail, at least not cogently, about Katori Hall’s Hot Wing King.  The production, which ran two hours and 20 minutes with one intermission, was well done, and the acting was fine . . . but I couldn’t understand about two-thirds of what anyone was saying!

The problem I had—and I really hate to put this into words—is that they spoke in Southern black colloquialisms, like code.  One reviewer called it “the vibrant dialect of black Memphis,” and, from their laughter, it seemed most of the rest of the audience got the idiom.

It wasn’t a serious drawback for me when two of the men were just talking—then I could understand them fine.  (These scenes had another problem, though it wasn’t about comprehension, but believability.)  When the guys are all together and runnin’ off at the mouth, which they do a lot, it was just all gobbledygook to me.  I couldn’t even distinguish individual words—or even individual speakers!  

I can tell what Hall’s main theme for the play is; that really comes out in the quieter one-on-one scenes.  It’s not a bad point—but I had to sit through all the incomprehensible scenes of code-talk while Hall and her characters make it. 

As I said, however, Broadnax’s production was fine aside from this problem—which, I suppose, was at least partly my failing for not knowing the characters’ vernacular.  (I wasn’t the only spectator with this difficulty.  Michael Sommers of New York Stage Review remarked, “Frankly, some of the deeply Southern-fried lingo escaped my old Eastern Seaboard ears . . . .”)  Perhaps the director could have found a way to accommodate the old, white Northerners like me without sacrificing the veracity—or verisimilitude is maybe a more accurate word—of the characters and milieu, but I’m not convinced he could have. 

I would never say, though, that the actors were anything less than convincing either in their characterizations of the six Memphians or in their use of the local argot.  The cast as a whole, especially the four New Wing Order members, formed a true mini-community, a club to which they all belonged.  Another word for this might be . . . family.

The only times that this sense of closeness and familiarity is strained is when the play waxes serious.  In those moments, Hall wrote the characters dialogue that’s hyper poetic and lofty—the polar opposite of the local patois.  The tonal shift doesn’t quite work smoothly, and as much as the actors worked to make the sober scenes sound like conversation, the dialogue kept coming out as epigraphs. 

(In his New York Times review of Hall’s play, Ben Brantley, who had a complaint similar to mine, quotes one example of this shift in diction.  This is Cordell speaking to Dwayne: “I see why you steady [sic] treat me like a child.  I am.  It’s like I’ve just been pushed out of the womb and I’m getting hit with the cold and the air and the lights and the truth.”)

As in any good ensemble play, all the actors performed at the same level of excellence.  Even in the scenes which I had a hard time understanding, I had no difficulty feeling that the actors understood one another completely, playing off (and with) one another like the close and fond friends they were supposed to be.  The quality of the cast and the work of Broadnax was not in doubt.

Singling out a few for the significance of their roles, either for their function in the plot or the character challenge Hall gave them, I compliment Korey Jackson for making Dwayne the levelheaded stalwart he is.  Jackson makes him unquestionably the pater of this ad hoc familias, keeping everyone on an even keel.  The actor keeps Dwayne outwardly on control, even as he lets us see the turmoil he’s feeling inside.

As his partner, Cordell, Toussaint Jeanlouis conveys his seriousness about making his hot wings, no matter how lightly anyone else may take the task.  He can seem as even-tempered as Dwayne, but he’s far more fragile, and Toussaint lets this out at times then hides it away at others.  As Isom, the most flamboyant character in The Hot Wing King, Sheldon Best plays the hell out of his character; it’s hard to tell who’s having more fun, Best or Isom.  He literally light ups the stage and makes the most of Sosa’s costumes.

Best is also one of the two darlings of reviewers in Broadnax’s production.  The other is Cecil Blutcher, making his Off-Broadway début as the young EJ.  Now, Blutcher is considerably older than EJ, and the extra maturity and self-control shows in the way the actor conveys EJ’s confusion and hurt over the death of his mother and his father’s less-than conscientious parenting and his own wish to go down a different path than TJ.  In Blutcher’s hands, EJ’s outbursts and recriminations still indicate an underlying yearning and even goodness.  The actor’s delivery of a horrifying speech describing his mother’s shooting reveals a lot about EJ and his troubled demeanor.

I’ve already described Michael Carnahan’s set, which comprised four playing areas (in descending order of activity: kitchen, living room, back yard patio, and upstairs bedroom).  One reviewer, Marilyn Stasio of Variety, thought the concept was superfluous, but I (like most of the published reviewers) found it well used and practical in terms of an acting environment, not to mention a fine visual representation of Dwayne’s comfortable, un-showy, middle-class lifestyle.  (The kitchen incidentally, is practical and the men actually cook the sauce on stage—so the Griffin is filled with the aroma of cooking hot-wing sauce.)

Sosa’s costumes did the same thing for the characters: display each one’s personality and way of presenting themselves to the world in an unobtrusive (well, except for Isom’s flashy dress) way.  Alan C. Edwards’s lighting nicely isolates or integrates the different playing areas as needed while still allowing us to be aware that this is a home, not a series of rooms.  (Carnahan’s open walls go a long way to establishing this from preset; though we know there are “walls” there, no room is unconnected from any other.)

I’ve collected a dozen reviews of The Hot Wing King to survey.  Brantley in the Times acknowledged that the play “has its problems” but continued that “this likable but lumpy production . . . is never better than when its all-male ensemble is functioning as an awkward but interdependent unit.”  The characters “have that palpable, physical ease with one another, both contented and irritable, that comes from being part of a family.”  Hall, Brantley contended, “is asking what constitutes a family in a world of fragmentation.”  He added that the core characters are gay “allows Hall to challenge conventional definitions of manhood and fatherhood in black America,” using “the bright, peppy context of a classical sitcom structure to do so.” 

“The balance between social soap opera and buoyant comedy isn’t always gracefully sustained,” reported the Timesman, further noting, “Nor is the script able to comfortably fold its more somber subplots into the running, frantic story of the cooking contest.”  Furthermore, Brantley found, “When characters . . . talk about their deeper feelings, they tend to shift into improbably poetic flights of diction.” 

“What’s refreshing here is the matter-of-fact depiction of black gay characters who may be dissatisfied, to varying degrees, with their own behavior but not, ultimately, because of their sexuality,” asserted the Times reviewer. 

In the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout, quipping that “Katori Hall’s plays remind me of a sign I once saw over the front door of an unpretentious little restaurant: ‘NOT FANCY, BUT GOOD,’” observed that “there's nothing fancy about the down-to-earth dramaturgy of Ms. Hall's kitchen-sink chronicles of family life in all its varied aspects.” 

All she does—if “all” is the word—is tell stories about ordinary men and women who, as Jack Webb said of the characters in “Dragnet,” sound “as real as a guy pouring a cup of coffee.”  Yet truth gushes out every time they open their mouths, and before you know it, you’re caught up in their lives and fates.

Teachout dubbed Hall “one of the best playwrights we have,” and labeled The Hot Wing King “her finest play yet.”  After describing the situations in Hall’s script, the WSJ review-writer explained that “while ‘The Hot Wing King’ starts off playing the resulting complications for belly laughs, they end up being deeply, darkly serious.” 

Variety’s Stasio warned would-be theatergoers, “Good luck trying to follow the meandering plot of ‘The Hot Wing King,’” which she labels a “good-natured kitchen comedy.”  Stasio asserted, “Director Steve H. Broadnax III gets the best results when he keeps everybody and his uncle squished into the narrow kitchen.” 

The Variety reviewer continued, “Those crowd scenes work so well, you wonder why Hall . . . and her design team even bothered with the superfluous settings of a living room and an upstairs bedroom.  It certainly wasn’t demanded by the loose-limbed plot,” Stasio felt.  “Although it presents itself as a gay sitcom, the ‘sit’ isn’t sturdy enough to sustain the ‘com,’ which actually comes from the extremely likable characters.”

On TheaterScene.com, Julia Polinsky declared, “The play pushes all kinds of buttons and does it well.  Humor, anger, resentment, ambition, family, love, commitment: it’s all there, alternating between hilarious and searing.”  Polinsky reported that Hall “has written The Hot Wing King in a rapid-fire, delicious-sounding vernacular, which helps the play feel completely natural.”  The playwright “knows how to make you care as deeply about these men as Cordell cares about his wings,” felt the review-writer.  “Which is particularly interesting, because the basic story is pretty well-worn.”  Polinsky made some pertinent observations:

Lacking the milieu of gay African-American men, The Hot Wing King could be almost tedious—yawn, again?  The wayward teenage son looking for redemption?  The couple that’s uncomfortable with one person’s sacrifice and the other’s controlling behavior?  The friends, one warmhearted and wise, the other giddy and silly?  Sorry, but what’s new?  Been there, done that; let’s move on.  But Hall’s vivid characterizations and superb language, coupled with outstanding performances and terrific direction from Steve H. Broadnax III, makes The Hot Wing King feel fresh and new.  Not to mention, the knockout scenic design . . . and costumes that effortlessly create character . . . make it all work.  Really well.  Really, really well.

The reviewer concluded with the admonition: “Those tears in your eyes at The Hot Wing King?  They might be from the heat of some Suicide Flats, or from the heart of this tale of ambition, love, family, and Pili-Pili powder.” 

Labeling The Hot Wing King a “delectable new play,” James Wilson on Talkin’ Broadway remarked: “It is not uncommon for a theater production to appeal to the visual and aural senses, but it is rare that a show gets people talking about the enticing smells.”  Wilson quickly added, “To its credit, The Hot Wing King has abundant pleasures beyond its attention to aromatic detail.  Hall,” he reported, “artfully mixes a heaping dose of comedy, a dollop of sentimentality, and a dash of social commentary to create a rich and satisfying theater experience.” 

The TB reviewer lamented that the play “sometimes drifts into broad and formulaic situation-comedy mode, but the actors skillfully inject the characters . . . with complex humanity.”  He caviled a bit that, “[r]unning nearly two and a half hours, the play arrives a little overdone,” backing off, however, because “[t]here are a lot of laughs.”  Compared to other recent black-themed plays, Wilson asserted, “Hall’s The Hot Wing King does not push the boundaries of theatrical form and style in ways that other shows have, but it is certainly a viable contender.”  He concluded, “In its unabashed treatment of sexuality, masculinity and race, it is a play to be applauded and savored.”

On TheaterScene.net (not affiliated with the above-cited TheaterScene.com), Darryl Reilly labeled Hall’s play “uplifting” and said it’s “where comedy and drama deftly converge.”  He proclaimed it a “rewarding contemporary work.”  The reviewer praised “Hall’s gorgeous dialogue” as “a compendium of punchy lingo, colloquialisms and everyday realism,” and found, “Her command of structure is impeccable as the events unfold with force, suspense and insight.” 

Reilly labeled Broadnax’s staging “sharp,” Carnahan’s set design “artful,” Edwards’s lighting “adroit,” sound designers Luqman Brown and Robert Kaplowitz’s effects “sparkling,” and Sosa’s costumes “stylish.”  In conclusion, he affirmed, “The Hot Wing King’s accomplished depth continues to substantiate Hall’s preeminence as a leading playwright.”

The Hot Wing King “is a moderately heartwarming, sometimes amusing, occasionally clichéd dramedy with sitcom overtones,” declared Samuel L. Leiter on his blog, Theatre’s Leiter Side.  “Performed under Steve H. Broadnax III’s buoyant direction, with raucous energy,” Leiter complained, “Balancing sitcom business and darker issues is a precarious endeavor that the play doesn’t always master.”  The “jokes and bickering” that dominate the first part of the play until “[e]ventually, more serious personal matters intrude” forces “a tonal shift.” 

The work of the design team, Leiter wrote, “go far to making The Hot Wing King tasty, although not quite enough to sustain a two hour and 20 minute meal.”  The actors “definitely make The Hot Wing King a sweet-tasting, if not particularly hot, concoction that many will enjoy,” but Leiter, like me, warned that “many listeners . . . will find themselves depending more on the expressive acting than the words spoken to follow along closely.” 

Zachary Stewart characterized The Hot Wing King as “a sensitive portrait of black masculinity, and the tension that can arise between fathers and sons when they don't see eye-to-eye,” on TheaterMania.  “The linguistic richness of The Hot Wing King makes it particularly delicious to hear,” affirmed Stewart. 

Through clever wordplay, shameless vowel substitution, and ’90s pop music references, these men have developed a vernacular that feels central to their identities as individuals and cohesion as a community. 

“Steve H. Broadnax III has directed a snappy production that seamlessly slides back and forth over the border between comedy and drama,” reported the TM reviewer.  Stewart praised Carnahan’s set, but he declared Sosa’s costumes “brilliant.”  The reviewer’s final comment was: “But as both a comedy and a drama, The Hot Wing King is quite filling, and will leave you with a satisfying aftertaste days later.”

On New York Theatre Guide, Stanford Friedman called Hall’s play “a tasty new work” that “comes in three flavors.” 

As directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, it is a classic buddy comedy with friends and lovers involved in bouts of physical tomfoolery and good-natured ribbing.  It is also a honey-glazed drama seasoned with uncertainty and dipped in guilt.  And it is a hot take on sons and fathers, biological and otherwise, in black America . . . .

“Saucy.  Spicy.  One hardly needs to be an experienced theater critic for these adjectives to pop into one’s head during the prolonged opening section of Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King.”  So asserted Brian Scott Lipton at the top of his Theater Pizzazz review—and then added, “The other word that popped into my critical head, however, was ‘surprising.’” 

Hall . . . is usually a writer of substance, so I didn’t expect her to simply pen an extended sitcom.  And Hall doesn’t disappoint.  The play suddenly makes a sharp tonal turn, and while the laughs don’t completely disappear, much of the next two hours is devoted to a dramatic and stunningly realistic exploration of several different kinds of male relationships.

The TP review-writer concluded: “Like a good hot wing, the play ends up having not just fire, but remarkable depth and flavor, all of which is brought out to perfection by an incredibly talented cast under Steve H. Broadnax III’s assured direction.”

Melissa Rose Bernardo, in the first of two notices for New York Stage Review, revealed, “It sounds hard to believe given the title, but The Hot Wing King is, at its core, not really a play about hot wings.”  Bernardo explained that “the wing-ding is really just a pretext . . . to bring together this group of men.”  The source of the drama?  Bernardo affirmed that “there’s no recipe, and there are no step-by-step instructions, for Dwayne and Cordell’s relationship.  Like the rest of us, they’ll just have to wing it.”

In NYSR review number two, Michael Sommers labeled the play “[f]requently a laugh out loud new comedy,” then explained, “On its occasionally serious side, the good-natured play considers a couple of issues that probably confront many an adult male relationship today.”  Sommers pronounced the première “smart and sassy” and called Hall “ever-astonishing.”  The second NYSR reviewer pointed out that Hall “develops the likable story” by “cunningly entwin[ing] thoughtful matters with some fairly broad comedy.” 

“A playful though ultimately sincere dramedy with an upbeat viewpoint, dynamic characters, and a happy ending,” reported Sommers, “The Hot Wing King is agreeably performed by a company of tiptop actors who appear highly natural and easy in their intimate interactions.”  The review-writer praised Sosa’s costumes and found that Broadnax “has done quite a capable job in guiding his company through the play’s changing emotional subtleties.”  He concluded that the play, which he found “sweet” and “relatively easygoing,” “delivers a worthy American story for today that is composed, produced, and performed with considerable intelligence and charm.”

*  *  *  *

DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, THE HOT WING KING  ENDED ITS RUN AT THE SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY ON 11 MARCH 2020