Tag Archives: Cindy Cheung

Coach Coach

Comedy, Off Off Broadway, Play June 11, 2024 Leave a comment

Dr. Meredith Martin is not just any old coach.  She is an esteemed coach coach running a very exclusive program for coaches who are struggling.  Her current retreat — held in an aging and overstuff rental home centered between an airport for convenience and the woods for aesthetics — is so exclusive there are only four attendees.  Each of the participants hopes Dr. Martin will elevate her practice and perhaps even give her a place on the insider team.  

This is the set-up of Bailey Williams’ new comedy Coach Coach, the second entry of  Clubbed Thumb’s 2024 Summerworks.  Commissioned by the daring incubator, the script is not as wholly satisfying as some of their past offerings.  Williams has fun playing with the language of psycho babble and marketing spin and earns many chuckles, but the work could be far more expansive in its views of what is admittedly a poorly regulated speciality and more probing in its observations about the sway of some players within it.  While each soliloquy highlights an aspect of a character’s struggle, collectively they give a choppiness to the unfolding of events without significantly varying the tone or the emotional undercurrent.  

Despite its shortcomings it is, in the words of one CT insider, very “on brand”: thoughtful, explorative, and marching to the beat of its own rhythm section.  Also in keeping with Clubbed Thumb’s deserved reputation, all the artistic elements are of high quality.  The cast  — Purva Bedi, Cindy Cheung, Becca Lish, Kelly McAndrew, Susannah Millonzi and Zuzanna Szadkowski — is terrific both as individuals and as a well orchestrated ensemble. Even when the characters are not fully listening to one another, the actresses clearly are.  Director Sarah Blush has mined the recursive dialogue for maximum impact, for example having death coach Velma (Millonzi) slither over the furniture with reptilian delight and often leaving the deflated Patti (Cheung) perched at the end of her chair as if she isn’t sure she deserves to even sit.  Dan Wang’s costumes are color coded for each specialty: green for business, hot pink for romance, black for death and so on.  His initial wardrobe choice for assistant coach Margo (Szadkowski) received its own round of applause.  Scenic designer Colleen Murray’s selection of furnishing styles lends the right oppressive air. And lighting design by Masha Tsimring and sound design by Johnny Gasper lean heavily into the eeriness of the ill-fated gathering.  

Margo (Zuzanna Szadkowdki) contemplates her options in Clubbed Thumb’s Coach Coach; photo by Maria Baranova

Coach Coach runs through June 13 at the Wild Project on 3rd Street between Avenues A and B.  Running time is 75 minutes with no intermission.  Evening performances are almost completely sold out, but there are newly posted 3:00pm matinees on June 12 and 13.  Tickets are $25 for students, $30 for general admission, and $40 for a reserved seat (highly recommended.)  You can also “pay it forward” for $60.  And if you find yourself too late to secure a spot for this very limited run, consider being ahead of the curve for Crystal Finn’s Find Me Here opening on June 19.  With its starry cast and notable design team, this final entry of the season is sure to be a Clubbed Thumb treat.  Visit https://www.clubbedthumb.org/productions/2024/ for more tickets and information.

Merry Me

Off-Broadway, Play November 13, 2023 Leave a comment

The new comedy Merry Me has plenty going for it.  The layered writing by Hanson Jung is packed with witty spins on pop culture and references to classicists from Euripides to Shakespeare all built around a structure most similar to a Restoration Comedy.  The cast — everyone making a New York Theatre Workshop debut — is masterful.  It would be easy to play up every clever note, which would also be exhausting.  Instead the punches are delivered in slowly rising waves under the direction of the always excellent Leigh Silverman.  It’s all quite attention getting and yet somehow lacks stickiness, which is not meant to be a sexy pun despite the prominence of bawdy humor in the dialogue.

Marinda Anderson, Esco Jouley, Shaunette Renee Wilson and Nicole Villamil in Merry Me; photo by Joan Marcus

The plot unfolds on the front lines of a war that has been paused by a well-known Angel (sassy  Shaunette Renée Wilson).  She introduces us to the interdependent characters as she and her cohorts manipulate their lives.  There is Lieutenant Shane Horne (magnetic Esco Jouléy) who having seduced the General’s Wife (pixieish Cindy Cheung) is on a quest for her next “Merry.”  Shane enlists the help of therapist Dr. Jess O’Nope (exuberant Marinda Anderson) to convince the rather dim General Memnon (David Ryan Smith with just the right amount of dopiness) that they are now heterosexual.  Meanwhile the General’s equally dim son Private Willy (Ryan Spahn taking the hit for cis white men everywhere) has smuggled his beautiful new wife Sapph (Nicole Villamil managing an incredible balancing act between allure and innocence) onto the base.  Bored out of her mind and her body, she dresses in “boy drag” in order to explore her surroundings and seek out Shane. 

Playwright Jung pulls in references from Illyria to Wakanda with a hefty serving of Kushner and a soupçon of E.L. James.  All of her characters are self aware and often speak in stage directions and subtext. The energy is that of an old-fashioned farce but the would-be cliches are almost literally turned on their heads.  Having directed many productions in the NYTW space, Leigh takes actions that would typical be horizontal and stages them vertically with wonderful results.  There is one tiny portable foley door that gets run in and out of, but for the most part that classic farcical piece is “performed” by a remarkable back wall designed by Rachel Hauck.  The effects are fully achieved with the help of Barbara Samuels lighting and Caroline Eng and Kate Marvin’s sound design.  

A combination of intellectual exercise and frank sexuality, unsurprisingly Merry Me is attracting an unusual blend of followers.  The age range of the audience was fresh out of college to well into AARP membership.  Faces represented the colors of the rainbow.  And reactions spanned from gently bobbing heads to energetic fist pumping.  Performances continue through November 19 at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street.  Runtime is 90 minutes with no intermission.  Full priced tickets are $65.  For more information visit https://www.nytw.org/show/merry-me/.    There is room in this world for something different even if it isn’t enduring.