SUMO (c) Joan Marcus
Theater: SUMO
At the Public Theater (Ma-Yi Theater Co-Production)
One of the most exciting purposes of theater is its ability to transport us to a unique and specific world most of us would never find ourselves in, and this is why the audience the night I saw Lisa Sanaye Dring’s play SUMO in the Anspacher Theater always felt like they were on the edge of their seat whenever a new scene started. SUMO (pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable, adding more peculiarity to non-Asian ears), doesn’t specify its time frame, and for a while, it does feel like it could take place back in feudal Japan or modern-day Tokyo (although it becomes clearer as the play proceeds). Dring starts with three narrators who introduce us to the world, what is expected and what is forbidden in the sport of sumo, but she mainly abandons this conceit once the play gets going. We are in a training center run by superstar wrestler Mitsuo (David Shih) as he imparts wisdom and life lessons along with techniques. Enter this almost cult-like living quarters is newbie Akio (Scott Keiji Takeda), who has always dreamed about being a sumo star, but as is always the case, a plebe is treated more like an indentured servant: cleaning, cooking and serving food—and helping to bathe some of them, even as they make fun of him and treat Akio as an untouchable. Akio’s rise in the ranks of the sumo hierarchy is the familiar plot of Dring’s play, and it follows the usual sports film tropes of an athlete struggling, overcoming, triumphing and finally reassessing the given sport. But thankfully on top of this trajectory, the play slyly investigates the toxic male environment that most male contact sports seem to thrive on as well as themes of insecurity, of achieving ones’ dream (as well as “almost” achieving ones’ dream), of sexual identity and mostly of how one must compromise in order to stay on top. Director Ralph B. Peña’s impressive production starts slowly as he introduces the cast and the politics of the training camp, but once the play focuses more on the competitions, the play is smoothly swift and engaging. This is all due to the charismatic and confident cast, which includes Kris Bona, Red Concepción, Michael Hisamoto, Earl T. Kim, Paco Tolson, Viet Vo and, especially, Ahmad Kamal, whose character gets a satisfying secondary plot arc. SUMO’S story may feel like any underdog sports tale, but this world is so vividly brought to life that it’s one of the more entertaining Off-Broadway shows this season.
Conversations With Mother (c) Carol Rossegg
Theater: Conversations With Mother
At Theatre 555
Matthew Lombardo’s Conversations With Mother feels so conventionally old-fashioned that he seems to almost revel in incorporating a sitcom structure to a play. The playwright, known for plays like Looped and Tea at Five, has written a seemingly autobiographical two-character play about a writer and his mother that doesn’t reinvent the genre, although it does add a dash of magical realism to keep it interesting. Maria Collavechio (Caroline Aaron) is a good Catholic mother in suburban Pennsylvania, and she obviously has a special bond with her youngest son Bobby (Matt Doyle). The play starts with a young Bobby pleading with his mother to save him from summer camp (oddly, the same way Annie Baker starts her first film about a young girl and her mother, Janet Planet) and it ends with Maria’s illness at the end of her life, dictating to Bobby what she has planned for her funeral. In between these two scenes is about 50 years of conversations that have so many mom truisms, expertly handled by the veteran Aaron, that it feels like Lombardo has been obsessively writing them down in anticipation for this inevitable play. Maria also seems nonplussed about Bobby being gay, from him lying to her about going to church in order to go to a gay party, or that his first job in Manhattan is at the gay bar called The Meat Hook, which she insisted he tells everyone is a deli. Like Lombardo, Bobby is also a playwright and the funniest moments of this play deals with Bobby’s plays, including a risky meta moment in which mother and son are in the theater watching a scene we saw earlier in the play. The most dramatically rich plotline involves Bobby’s drug addiction and a co-dependent relationship with a self-destructive longtime boyfriend, themes that were also explored in Lombardo’s Broadway play, High. Here, they work mainly because Doyle (a recent Tony-winner for Company) keeps us invested in Bobby’s downfall, even when he treats Maria abominably in rehab, giving way to the best scene of the play. Conversations With Mother has one unexpected moment that happens in the epilogue that might not feel earned but provides an equally happy and sad ending. Director Noah Himmelstein’s biggest accomplishment is having his overqualified actors make familiar material (a lot feel like outtakes from Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound) feel fresh. He should have talked Lombardo out of including eye-rolling, Brechtian headlines for each scene so filled with cliché that even Bertolt’s mother probably uttered them to him as a child in 1905 Germany. Come for the acting, be comforted by the sentimentality of the story and have a good cry at the end. Not bad for a night at the theater.
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As Time Goes By (c) Out of the Box Theatrics
Theater: As Time Goes By
Out of the Box Theatrics at Theatre 154
The post-coital play gets a 21st century update in Danny Brown’s uneven but funny As Time Goes By, about a Grindr hook-up between two men whose meeting extends beyond its usual expiration date. Like Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, to which this play most aspires (down to its musical title), strangers are looking for some physical connection, however short, and maybe accidentally finding an emotional one. Adam (Ephraim Birney) is the host in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment and David (Joel Meyers) is the guest, and while both got what they wanted from their interaction, a huge snowstorm traps David there, unable to find a rideshare home. Adam has also recently moved to this new apartment, which is why there are no chairs for David to sit on, so the two are both in a sort of transitory limbo, which may make them open to more than just sex. Brown has a good ear for funny, contemporary dialogue, which both Birney and Meyers handle breezily well, with references to PreP, douching and the Real Housewives occasionally peppered in. That both characters are Jewish could have opened some unique subjects beyond the generic questions like “How often do you this?” and “Do you believe in relationships?” although all are legitimate inquiries when stuck in a studio apartment with a stranger. The biggest hurdle of this play for me is the first part of the play, which felt like a different beast, playing up the comedy with one character being naggingly obsessively compulsive while the other casually flippant, a sort of gay Odd Couple with no wiggle room. Also, what gay man doesn’t know that there’s always a chance of bodily fluids to soil things? This makes the leap to the more serious issues that Brown brings up later a bit harder to believe. Noah Eisenberg’s production is cleanly realized, especially on Baron E. Pugh’s handsome set. The actors do better in the second half. And the Blondie song referenced early in the play might have been a more interesting title than the overused song from Casablanca.
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