Humor leads to the release of endorphins in the brain,
which help to control pain.
— RA Haig The Anatomy of Humor
A play based on a grief group therapy session and life after an important loss does not sound like a cheery event to experience on a hot summer’s day but playwright Doménica Feraud has managed to make it light and comical. Her new play Someone Spectacular at The Pershing Square Signature Center provokes more laughter than sighs despite the profound subject. Feraud is a 30-year-old New Yorker and Someone Spectacular has a distinctive city vibe; all the characters are dissimilar; the space is anonymous like any AA meeting room in the city; and everybody is worried about wasting time.
Delia Cunningham, Shakur Tolliver, Damian Young, Gamze Ceylan, Ana Cruz Kayne,
Alison Cimmet in Someone Spectacular by DomeÌnica Feraud
The six talented actors were already on stage when the public entered the theater, each actor taking a chair from the stack and settling in a semi-circle without talking to each other. Directed by Tatiana Pandiani, the ensemble flawlessly moves around the stage throughout the piece, using every prop and every possible position to make the static setting live, allowing us to see their facial expressions when needed. The characters are waiting for Beth, the group counselor, who is unusually absent and is not answering her phone. They have been meeting once a week for three months but they barely know each other, they are six strangers stuck in an uncomfortable situation.
Since New Yorkers don’t like to waste time, after a round of a game in which one person poses three names of known people, and the rest have to decide which of the three they would “Fuck, Marry, or Kill”, they go ahead and have a chaotic therapy session without the counselor. Elegant and soft spoken Gamze Ceylan plays Evelyn, a stylish woman in her late forties who is grieving for the loss of her elderly mother. Throughout her life, her mother suffered from bipolar disorder with schizophrenic tendencies — and “Munchausen by proxy for fun” she adds, admitting to a torturous upbringing. Her problem? “How can you mourn someone you spent a lifetime running away from?” She became the opposite, a perfect mother and wife, empathic, attentive, dedicated only to her family.
Delia Cunningham, Alison Cimmet, Damian Young, Shakur Tolliver, Gamze Ceylan, Ana Cruz Kayne
Ana Cruz Kayne brings the high-strung Lily to life, a 30 year old bratty actress who has lost her mother but, differently from Evelyn, she truly adored hers, and she can’t even get over the first stage of grief and guilt — – “Hi! I’m Lily and today my grief is at a 10 because it’s always at a fucking 10 and every day I wake up shocked I haven’t killed myself. Happy?” Rage mixed with irony is her answer to everything until, in the end, she breaks, revealing her fear “I’m not sure I make sense without her.” Julian, played by Shakur Tolliver, lost his favorite Aunt: “She wasn’t my mom, but I loved her just as much. She was the one person who had my back.” Tolliver does his best with his role but unfortunately his dialogue is the least realistic, full of explanatory lines, and it’s hard to care for his character.
Alison Cimmet is Nelle, a neurotic former assistant; Cimmet adds a lot of slight physical comedy to her already hilarious lines making her character a favorite. Sharp-tongued and matter-of-fact, she is there because she has lost her favorite sister. The experience of grief can be different for everyone and Nelle admits that she can’t look at her sister’s pictures or read a single text message to or from her since her death, but she has been talking everyday to a cactus the sister gave her, even giving the plant her sister’s name, and the family is rightly worried.
Alison Cimmet, Gamze Ceylan, Delia Cunningham, Damian Young, Ana Cruz Kayne, Shakur Tolliver
Damian Young is Thom, a buoyant, pragmatic businessman. He feels lost since the death of his wife: “I can’t watch videos. Hearing her voice … it’s wild. Something you love that much suddenly holds the capacity to destroy you.” Delia Cunningham is Jude, the youngest in the group, the classic nerd with low self-esteem easily intimidated by others. Jude, as with Evelyn, had a mean mom who locked her up when she was young and, also like Evelyn, she married as soon as possible to escape hell and start the perfect family. But, she lost her son late in her pregnancy and she blames herself: “There was a baby in my body and then there wasn’t and I can’t be blameless in that.” Jude’s miscarriage isn’t the only reason she’s there; it happened 18 months before the meeting while the rest are all recently bereaved, a little mystery for the group to spice up the plot. And, will Beth ever show up or was she murdered like someone suggested?
Scenic designer dots, costume designer Siena Zoë Allen, lighting designer Oona Curley, and sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman serve the script efficiently; the artists created the perfect ambiance even if it is a minimalistic play and there isn’t much room for creativity. Coping with the loss of someone spectacular, a loss so massive that you have no idea how you can live through it, is a complex issue and this play never goes truly in-depth, it glides lightly from loss to social issues, modern anecdotes, and back. Julian and Jude’s dialogues are a bit weak, especially in the finale where a couple of trite lines could be eliminated. But the one-liners and the back-and-forth between characters are truly amusing, making the play worth seeing — as well as showing Feraud’s clear gift for comedy.
Delia Cunningham, Gamze Ceylan, Ana Cruz Kayne, Damian Young
photos © Julieta Cervantes
someone spectacular
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42 St, Jim Houghton Way
Tues-Fri at 7:30; Sat at 8; Wed, Sat & Sun at 2
ends on September 7, 2024
for tickets, visit Telecharge