Review: It's Poetry Against the Pyre in "Drinks with Dead Poets"
Drinks with Dead Poets Adapted by Glyn Maxwell from his novel of the same name Directed by Attilio Rigotti Presented by Phoenix Theatre Ensemble at A.R.T./New York Theatres 502 West 53rd St., Manhattan, NYC February 2-11, 2024 Elise Stone as Ashling, John Lenartz as Max, Antonio Edwards Suárez as Zach. Photo by Jonathan Slaff. Timely in our current era of book banning, the dystopian world presented in Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s Drinks with Dead Poets , an adaptation of Glyn Maxwell’s novel of the same name, is both entirely different from and eerily similar to our own. Set in the pub on the Hudson River in Nyack, NY, where it was originally performed, the play shows us traveler Max’s (John Lenartz) encounters with barkeepers Ashling (Elise Stone) and Zack (Antonio Edwards Suárez), who represent two classes of people, the Rags and the Flags respectively, in this parallel universe where books are blacked out and buried. The Rags are fettered women who are not just complicit in th...