Friday Critic's Picks
I noticed you’re wondering what to see on Broadway, Off and Off-Off
No Singing in the Navy
Salty and sweet like a lollipop lost at sea, Milo Cramer’s musical cheerily (and queerily) follows three seamen on 24-hour shore leave, forbidden to warble. This tuneful picaresque includes harmonizing crabs (in a bucket), a closeted, Claggart-like captain who croons, and a lonely lighthouse who gets the power ballad. Forget nonbinary bisexual polycules, kids, we’re neck-deep in the polymorphous waters of object sexuality. Drown in delight at Cramer’s waves of goofy wordplay and cute ditties. “Silly sailors,” Bailey Lee, Ellen Nikbakht, Elliot Sagay steer us expertly from giddy abandon to a gut punch of grief. Playwrights Horizons through April 26
Spider Rabbit
Tony Torn revives the spirit of ethereally weird downtown performance artist Taylor Mead, who premiered this Michael McClure monologue in 1971. Torn describes the piece as “an absurdist, anti-war, gargoyle cartoon that feels increasingly relevant over 50 years later.” Imagine Aunt Gladys and Longlegs had a hate child who grew up to be a children’s birthday party clown. Fearless Dan Safer directs and choreographs Torn for an hourlong descent into madness that will sear your brain. The Club at La MaMa through April 12
Mexodus
Two dudes, a sound looper, a bunch of instruments, and a reservoir of talent big as Texas. Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson take us on an epic journey of 19th-century Mexican immigration—just not in the direction you might assume. A Black slave escapes and the only path to freedom and a new life lies south. Part buddy comedy, part Latinidad Pride house party, Mexodus is a blast. Not since Hamilton have I seen a show fuse folk and hip-hop to such powerful theatrical effect. Dynamic choreography by Tony Thomas and richly atmospheric staging by David Mendizábal. Daryl Roth Theatre through June 14
Becky Shaw
What I noticed: “A black social comedy about class, upward mobility, and ethics. It asks: Can one be rich and good?”… “Gina Gionfriddo’s script is packed with witty banter and darkly funny aphorisms—as well it should be. After all, these characters are descendants of Congreve’s carefree rakes, Sheridan’s scheming libertines, and Wilde’s quipping fops, not to mention Philip Barry’s sophisticated socialites yearning for freedom.” … “What a delight to hear well-tuned repartee and a clockwork comic plot from a writer with a sense of pedigree.” Helen Hayes Theatre through June 14
Death of a Salesman
What I noticed: “I suppose you can screw up Salesman, but you’d have to work very hard with terrible actors. And this cast is extraordinarily good.” …. “The production suggests that Joe Mantello was taking notes at Ivo van Hove’s abstract yet muscular staging of A View from the Bridge. Mantello sets the action inside the loading bay of a dusty, abandoned warehouse. Scenic designer Chloe Lamford’s massive columns fill the cavernous Winter Garden stage, nodding to the ghost of industrial America. Will this concrete pile be reclaimed as an AI data center? An Amazon shipping facility? An immigrant mass detention camp?” Winter Garden Theatre through August 9