Review: "Pocket Curiosities" Serves Up Two Courses of Bite-Sized Theater
Pocket Curiosities
Definitely Not a Pirate Show, written by Rachel Weekley, directed by Nazlah Black
Novae, written by Rachel Weekley, directed by Zeynep Akça
Presented at The Kraine Theater
85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC
June 25, 2022
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Rachel Weekley. Courtesy Emily Owens PR |
The first of the two short plays, Definitely Not a Pirate Show, features Weekley as definitely not a pirate…although they do progressively admit to some piratical sounding habits. Weekley, who has training in mime, begins the piece with a stretch of wordless physical comedy, and their progression from silence to fragmented to fluid speech enacts in miniature the journey of self-discovery and self-fashioning that they describe. Having found the life they were "meant" to live unfulfilling, they have changed up their maritime practices, much to the displeasure of the authorities. It is hard not to want to draw a comparison here to Our Flag Means Death's Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), who similarly finds in piracy self-reinvention and escape from stifling expectations–and there is also some queer pirate romance in Definitely Not a Pirate Show, though it is not the protagonist's. While this segment overwhelmingly emphasizes its (very well executed) comedy, it does strike a plaintive note near the end that gives extra weight to the humor.
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Anna Stacy, Tyler Riley, and Rachel Weekley. Courtesy Emily Owens PR |
-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards
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