"Entangled" is an Involving Look at Grief

There were over 300 mass shootings in the U.S. last year and we’ve already passed 100 this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun-related deaths in this country. The aftermath of one such shooting is the subject of Entangled, a two-hander that The Amoralists opened at A.R.T./New York Theatres this week but that is currently scheduled to run only through next weekend.  Which is a shame because it’s a truly moving meditation on grief and guilt.

Directed with elegant simplicity by Kate Moore Heaney, the story is told in a series of interlocking monologues spoken by the single mom of a little girl killed in an imagined shooting at the American Museum of Natural History and the brother of the man who shot her and 46 others.

Charly Evon Simpson wrote the dialog for the mother Greta, a black woman who has worked her way up the corporate ladder but who has still centered her life around the child she named Astrid. While Gabriel Jason Dean created the speeches for Bradley, a white gay man, six years older than the brother he affectionately called Little.

Greta and Bradley take turns standing centerstage in a bare playing space furnished only with a straight-backed chair and relate their memories of the past (the way her small daughter would snuggle in bed with her in the mornings; the way he tried to protect his little brother from their macho dad) and their struggles to deal with the present (callous inquiries from the media, awkward gestures of comfort by friends).

Each is ravaged by the incident but it’s hard not to feel most for Greta. It’s partly the situation. Dean carefully details the emotional fallout of the shame, anger and continuing love Bradley feels for his brother. And James Kautz, the founding artistic director of The Amoralists, plays the character sympathetically. But neither can explain what we most want to know: why Bradley’s brother, or anyone, would commit such an horrendous act and why the people around him didn’t see the warning signs and stop him.

Simpson has an easier job with Greta. After all, who wouldn’t empathize with a mother’s anguish over the murder of her young child?  But Simpson, who also wrote the sensitive play Behind the Sheet (you can listen to my interview with her here) doesn’t make the character one-note. Her Greta is often as funny as she is furious and Naomi Lorrain gives a smashing performance that vibrates with emotional authenticity.

This is far from the first show to confront mass shootings (click here to see a list of others) but it’s one of the most effective—and least exploitive—of the dozen or so I’ve seen over the last 10 years. And I wish there were time for more of you to see it.

A Great Start to This Year's Awards Season

Hard to believe but the 2018-2019 season is over. Except for the shouting. And there will be plenty of that because we’re now in awards season, which means the weeks from now until the June 9 Tony Awards ceremony will be filled with all kinds of theater-related press coverage (like The New York Times’ multi-article look at how black playwrights energized the season) and theater-related events (including an already-sold out live reunion of the much-missed TV show “Theater Talk” that will take place at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, May 7, with panelists including the show’s creator Susan Haskins, New York Times theater critics Ben Brantley and Jesse Green and me).

Of course awards season is mainly about the awards celebrating the best theater of the past year. The Tonys will announce their nominees this coming Tuesday. But the Drama Desk, the Drama League and the Outer Critics Circle (on whose nominating committee I’m honored to sit) have already released their slates. Two of the biggest love-‘em-or-hate-‘em shows—Hadestown and Oklahoma!—have so far garnered the most nominations.

But those nominating groups, who, unlike the Tonys, celebrate both Broadway and off-Broadway shows, spread their love around, with productions from early in the season like Classic Stage Company’s Carmen Jones, New York Theatre Workshop’s The House That Will Not Stand and Signature Theatre’s Our Lady of 121st Street getting nods right alongside the more recent Broadway arrivals such as All My Sons, Ink and Tootsie

The individuals they've honored are wonderfully diverse and at the same time each totally deserving. Female artists appear in an unprecedented number of categories. Those telling a full range of LGBTQ stories are celebrated. Talented newcomers stand shoulder to shoulder with accomplished old-timers. And the nominees are so racially diverse that three of the OCC’s five nominees for Best Actor in a Play are black.

Those are just a few of the reasons that I’m so proud of this year's OCC nominations and why I’m so delighted to share our choices here with you:

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY PLAY
The Ferryman
Ink
Network
To Kill a Mockingbird
What the Constitution Means to Me

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL
Be More Chill
Hadestown
Head Over Heels
The Prom
Tootsie

OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY PLAY
Fairview
The House That Will Not Stand
Lewiston / Clarkston
The Light
White Noise

OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY MUSICAL
The Beast in the Jungle
Black Light
Girl from the North Country
The Hello Girls
Midnight at the Never Get

OUTSTANDING BOOK OF A MUSICAL
(Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Robert Horn Tootsie
Conor McPherson Girl from the North Country
Peter Mills and Cara Reichel The Hello Girls
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
Jeff Whitty and James Magruder Head Over Heels

OUTSTANDING NEW SCORE
(Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin The Prom
Joe Iconis Be More Chill
Peter Mills The Hello Girls
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
David Yazbek Tootsie

OUTSTANDING REVIVAL OF A PLAY
(Broadway or Off-Broadway)
All My Sons
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
Juno and the Paycock
Our Lady of 121st Street
The Waverly Gallery

OUTSTANDING REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL
(Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Carmen Jones
Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish)
Kiss Me, Kate
Oklahoma!
Smokey Joe’s Cafe

OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR OF A PLAY
Rupert Goold Ink
Sam Mendes The Ferryman
Jack O’Brien All My Sons
Bartlett Sher To Kill a Mockingbird
Logan Vaughn The Light

OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR OF A MUSICAL
Rachel Chavkin Hadestown
Scott Ellis Tootsie
Daniel Fish Oklahoma!
Joel Grey Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish)
Cara Reichel The Hello Girls

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHER
Warren Carlyle Kiss Me, Kate
Christopher Gattelli The Cher Show
Denis Jones Tootsie
David Neumann Hadestown
Sergio Trujillo Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations

OUTSTANDING SCENIC DESIGN
(Play or Musical)
Beowulf Boritt Bernhardt/Hamlet
Bunny Christie Ink
Rachel Hauck Hadestown
Rob Howell The Ferryman
David Korins Beetlejuice

OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN
(Play or Musical)
Rob Howell The Ferryman
Bob Mackie The Cher Show
William Ivey Long Beetlejuice
William Ivey Long Tootsie
Arianne Phillips Head Over Heels

OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN
(Play or Musical)
Neil Austin Ink
Stacey Derosier Lewiston / Clarkston
Bradley King Hadestown
Jason Lyons Sugar in Our Wounds
Peter Mumford King Kong

OUTSTANDING PROJECTION DESIGN
(Play or Musical)
Peter England King Kong
Alex Basco Koch Be More Chill
Peter Nigrini Beetlejuice
Jeff Sugg All My Sons
Tal Yarden Network

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN
(Play or Musical)
John Gromada All My Sons
Peter Hylenski King Kong
Drew Levy Oklahoma!
Eric Sleichim Network
Nevin Steinberg and Jessica Paz Hadestown

OUTSTANDING ORCHESTRATIONS
Michael Chorney and Todd Sickafoose Hadestown
Simon Hale Girl from the North Country
Joseph Joubert Carmen Jones
Daniel Kluger Oklahoma!
Harold Wheeler Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A PLAY
McKinley Belcher III The Light
Bryan Cranston Network
Daveed Diggs White Noise
Bill Irwin On Beckett
Jeremy Pope Choir Boy

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A PLAY
Glenn Close Mother of the Maid
Edie Falco The True
Glenda Jackson King Lear
Mandi Masden The Light
Elaine May The Waverly Gallery

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
Brooks Ashmanskas The Prom
Reeve Carney Hadestown
Damon Daunno Oklahoma!
Santino Fontana Tootsie
Steven Skybell Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish)

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
Stephanie J. Block The Cher Show
Kelli O’Hara Kiss Me, Kate
Beth Leavel The Prom
Anika Noni Rose Carmen Jones
Mare Winningham Girl from the North Country

OUTSTANDING FEATURED ACTOR IN A PLAY
Bertie Carvel Ink
John Clay III Choir Boy
Hugh Dancy Apologia
John Procaccino Downstairs
Benjamin Walker All My Sons

OUTSTANDING FEATURED ACTRESS IN A PLAY
Joan Allen The Waverly Gallery
Stephanie Berry Sugar in Our Wounds
Fionnula Flanagan The Ferryman
Harriett D. Foy The House That Will Not Stand
Celia Keenan-Bolger To Kill a Mockingbird

OUTSTANDING FEATURED ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
John Behlmann Tootsie
André De Shields Hadestown
Reg Rogers Tootsie
George Salazar Be More Chill
Ephraim Sykes Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations

OUTSTANDING FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
Amber Gray Hadestown
Leslie Kritzer Beetlejuice
Bonnie Milligan Head Over Heels
Sarah Stiles Tootsie
Ali Stroker Oklahoma!

OUTSTANDING SOLO PERFORMANCE
Mike Birbiglia The New One
Maddie Corman Accidentally Brave
Jake Gyllenhaal A Life
Carey Mulligan Girls & Boys
Renée Taylor My Life on a Diet

JOHN GASSNER AWARD
(Presented for an American play, preferably by a new playwright)
Jeremy O. Harris Slave Play
Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell The Lifespan of a Fact
Donja R. Love Sugar in Our Wounds
Ming Peiffer Usual Girls
Charly Evon Simpson Behind the Sheet