Theatre in Review: Practice (Playwrights Horizons)

	Ronald Peet and company. Photo: Alexander Mejía, Bergamot

In Practice, the line between (alleged) genius and exploitation is so porous that it barely seems to exist. I didn't catch Nazareth Hassan's New York debut, Bowl EP, last spring, so, for me, this is an astonishing bolt from the blue, a wildly ambitious and lengthy comic drama filled with a startlingly original gallery of characters. The play does for experimental theatre what David Adjmi's Stereophonic did for studio recording, exposing the sausage-making aspect of creating, and, in this case, climaxing in a remarkable second-act play-within-the-play that ties together every loose plot end while posing disturbing questions about the lengths to which some artists are willing to go.

It begins with a monologue, delivered by several different auditioning actors, providing a study in how various personalities can bring entirely different values to the same words. They are being guided by the voice, on a God mic, of Asa Leon, who operates an experimental troupe out of a Brooklyn church. Asa, who is not immune to pontificating, says, "I always wanted to have a theatre in a church because both those sites are grand and shocking and intense, and I wanted to bring both those energies together; some sort of retributive philosophical ire compelled me." It's the kind of remark that captivates or sends you running for the hills: the young actors in awe of Asa are all in.

Asa plans to assemble a company, with everyone living together as he builds a performance piece based on their lives. Fair enough; it's a technique as old as The Living Theatre, The Open Theatre, and, I suppose, A Chorus Line, although, in at least two of these cases, the actors got to go home at night. Under Asa's probing, some remarkable, even unnerving details come out: Rinni (Susannah Perkins), a German artist, admits to having a sibling imprisoned for serial murder. Mel (Karina Curet), a Chilean actress, belongs to a politically well-connected family scarred by betrayal and suicide. At a company party where mushrooms are passed around, Ro (Opa Adeyemo), a sunny, charismatic presence, begins to remember the repressed details of an incident from his boyhood involving his father's close friend. At such moments, the difference between art making and group therapy becomes increasingly hard to discern.

I should add that even the most sensational revelations come tumbling out in casual fashion, a style that will be familiar to fans of Adjmi and Annie Baker. (Practice, which is filled with theatre games, owes a certain debt to the latter's Circle Mirror Transformation.) But even as everyone works to build an atmosphere of mutual trust, they fall under the sway of Asa and his profoundly mixed messages. "Hear me please: all of you," Asa says, "Do not apologize. We don't apologize for instinct; we only examine and respond." Nice words, but they ring hollow when Asa quietly humiliates the British-Indian Tristan (Omar Shafiuzzaman, who, hungover, throws up during a physically demanding exercise. Or when, in front of everyone, Asa coerces Mel into confessing to stealing the jellybeans on which the director seems to subsist. Or when, cornering the trans performance artist Angelique (Maya Margarita), who is privately skeptical of the entire enterprise, Asa maneuvers to drive her out of the group.

All of this works because of Keenan Tyler Oliphant's seemingly casual (but really tightly coiled) direction, working with actors who give themselves over to this challenging material with the gusto of Asa's acolytes. It's not too much to say the production turns on Ronald Peet's Asa; barely changing his intonation, he makes the character into a fearsomely god-like figure, gentle and judgmental in the same breath, cunningly using directorial authority to bend everyone to his will. (The one instance of Asa losing it reverberates like a thunderclap in the theatre.)

In the large company, standouts include Adeyemo as Ro, quietly coming to terms with his suddenly ugly past; Curet as Mel, haunted by the thought that her career is supported largely by her father's money and power; Margarita as Angelique, a rebel in her family not for her gender issues but for her decision to forgo law school for the arts; and Mark Junek as Walton, Asa's set designer and domestic partner, whose trust fund underwrites the entire operation. Note how tightly Asa and Walton cling to each other when dancing at that party, a detail that contrasts piquantly with Walton's attempted liaison with Keeyon (Hayward Leach), another member of the company. Also keep an eye on Amandla Jahava as Savannah, whose account of a wild bender becomes grist for Asa's mill, and Alex Wyse as Danny, the dramaturg, who says practically nothing while taking note of everything.

Oliphant handles the script's slow rollout with patience, letting its inherent tension bubble up from below. The first act could almost stand alone, but hang on for the second act, featuring the fruit of everyone's labors. Self Awareness Exercise 001, is a BAM Next Wave-ready piece, as slick as it can be, in which Asa brazenly bares his ruthless manipulations, along with many of his performers' most closely held secrets. It's an astonishing turn of events that raises knotty questions about aesthetics, ethics, consent, and personal boundaries. (Indeed, a good alternate title for Practice could be Stockholm Syndrome.)

Adding to the authenticity of these shady doings is Afsoon Pajoufar's set design, which combines an empty stage look for Act I with a sealed, transparent, mirrored box set for Self Awareness Exercise. Masha Tsimring's lighting lends a faintly haunted look to the first act; in the second act, she creatively illuminates the set in part with LED bars on the sidewalls. The costumes, by Brenda Abbandandolo and Karen Boyer, are carefully styled to suit each character, with special mention going to Asa's bizarre denim ensembles, inevitably topped off with pirates' head scarves. Tei Blow's sound design takes in EDM, a passage from "Claire de Lune," and extensive reinforcement and vocal playback for the second act.

Despite its superficial resemblance to the work of other Playwrights Horizons writers, Practice is more than able to stand on its own, thanks to its incisively detailed characterizations and its wicked appreciation for the follies of the avant-garde. Rarely in my experience has a playwright expressed such ambivalence about the work of his fellow artists. But when the results are so entertaining, one won't complain. Cheers to Playwrights Horizons for once again taking a chance on a new voice with big ambitions. --David Barbour