Review: Have a Seat in "The Waiting Room"

The Waiting Room

Written by Vel Grande

Directed by Dennis Oliveira

Presented by Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director, at Theater for the New City

155 First Ave., Manhattan, NYC

August 25-31, 2024

L to R: Heather Alzapiedi, Brett Fox, and Jake Declan. Photo by Dan Morales 
To say that life is often illogical if not outright nonsensical certainly qualifies as an understatement. Making its world premiere this month, The Waiting Room, a comedic one-act from Utah-based playwright, novelist, and short story writer Vel Grande, joins the venerable tradition of theater exploring the search for meaning amidst the absurdity of existence. Expertly blending metatheatrical and existential comedy, The Waiting Room is currently part of the 2024 Dream Up Festival at Theater for the New City (TNC). The new works festival, in its twelfth iteration this year, runs from August 25th to September 15th and is dedicated to discovering new authors and challenging, non-traditional works and ideas. Helmed by the TNC's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price, this year's Dream Up Festival offers 16 plays, 12 of which are world premieres, one of which is an American premiere, and all of which can be seen for a ticket price of $15-$20 each.
Brett Fox and Khalil Louigene. Photo by Dan Morales 
The eponymous waiting room contains a row of six chairs facing the audience and a reception desk positioned along an adjoining wall. During the play's inventively staged opening, five of those seats are already filled. The sixth comes to be occupied, quite against his wishes, by one Daniel James Underwood (Brett Fox). Daniel–his full name takes on increasing importance as the play progresses–is made to register with the no-nonsense receptionist (a pitch-perfect A'Lysai) and then told to wait until he is called. We can all relate to this kind of experience, but we usually know what we are waiting for, which Daniel attempts to find out, putting him into conversation with his fellow waiting room occupants and, eventually, someone rather further up the chain (Evan Gibley, funny even from offstage).
Brett Fox and Shaena Kate. Photo by Dan Morales
The others seated with Daniel are distinctively drawn, from one man (Jake Declan) ensconced behind a newspaper and friendly but in a slightly off way; a woman (Heather Alzapiedi) who at first tries her best to avoid making eye contact with Daniel and has an idiosyncratic way of communicating; and another man (Anthony Carlo) who eagerly supplies stories of other people he has known who communicated in unusual ways. Rounding out this group are one woman (Shaena Kate) who is raring to talk about the Jungian imago and another (Sofia Pastena) whose only line before being called by the receptionist is that she doesn't have any lines. At the center of these spirited performances, Fox lends a compelling dynamism, and at some points an impressive physicality, to Daniel's disorientating and confounding experience.
L to R: Heather Alzapiedi, Brett Fox, and Jake Declan. Photo by Dan Morales
In that experience, Daniel can be viewed as an Everyman, or perhaps a man among everypeople. Whatever else any given individual in the waiting room may be waiting for, they are all waiting for the end of the play (a commonality prefigured by the first man's discussion of his deceased great-aunt), and, as Daniel discovers, they, and he, don't have much other choice. While Daniel may struggle to find sense in the part he must play in a production in which he had no hand, an absence of meaning or 'purpose' doesn't translate into a complete absence of optimism. The others who must wait as well seem generally willing to help and talk to Daniel, even if they end up not actually helping and, in some cases, are a bit strange (which, as an allegory for human existence, all tracks); and the exchanges between the waiting room's usher (Jessica Sconfienza) and security guard (Khalil Louigene) point to one way in which individuals can create their own meaning. A nimbly funny journey with more than one unexpected turn, The Waiting Room, like the room in which it is set, is simultaneously singular and capacious.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install
Read more

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re
Read more