For anyone eager to get back to the theater but less than eager to be packed elbow-to-elbow indoors alongside hundreds upon hundreds of fellow audience members, Seven Deadly Sins is the perfect gateway show.
A collection of seven short plays—“New American plays!” coos Shuga Cain, the evening’s Mistress of Ceremonies, in Purgatory, a prologue that kicks off the festivities—staged behind storefront-style clear glass screens in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, Sins allows all the viewers to remain outdoors. (Masks are optional, but according to the Sins website the cast, crew, and front-of-house staff is fully vaccinated.)
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Though you’re wearing headphones (plus a portable receiver around your neck—that’s how you hear the actors), you’ll still need to work to focus on the plays. Remember, you’re in the Meatpacking District, a haven for drunk bachelorettes searching the perilous cobblestone streets for long-closed landmarks like Hogs & Heifers.
Inevitably, some pieces command focus far better than others. Watch, by Moisés Kaufman—who directs all the entries, and whose Tectonic Theater Project is co-producing with Madison Wells Live—is a pleasant but predictable musing on greed, centering on squabbling siblings Leo (Eric Ulloa) and Vivian (Tricia Alexandro) and their deceased dad’s $225,000 diamond-and-sapphire Rolex. And Thomas Bradshaw’s Hard, which represents sloth, stands as the show’s sole misfire. It’s built on the absurd premise that the beautiful Sandra (Shamika Cotton) would put up with—and beg for sex from—her sloppy, sweatpants-wearing, porn-obsessed husband Jeff (Brandon J. Ellis). Did we mention that Jeff wears adult diapers voluntarily so he doesn’t have to interrupt his multiplayer videogaming?
More intriguing is Tell Me Everything You Know; in this gluttony-inspired Garden of Eden riff, Ngozi Anyanwu (Good Grief, The Homecoming Queen) dispenses with Adam and envisions the serpent as a glamorous sequin-clad seductress (Shavanna Calder) and her prey as a wide-eyed apple-craving naïf (Morgan McGhee). Jeffrey LaHoste tackles envy in the Versailles-set period piece Naples, a witty tête-à-tête between Madame (Caitlin O’Connell) and her husband’s lover, Philippe (Andrew Keenan-Bolger), that proves a pretty face is often no match for age and experience. And you won’t be able to look away from Longhorn, Ming Peiffer’s wrath-fueled representation of race-based violence, an explosive encounter between characters identified only as M (Brad Fleischer) and W (Kahyun Kim); the play is prefaced by a trigger warning, and rightly so.
A few plays will, inevitably, leave you wanting more. MJ Kaufman’s ultra-timely Wild Pride is a spot-on exploration of internet cancel culture that proves extremely affecting, even as it moves at the whiplash-fast speed of the average Instagram scroll; Cody Sloan is terrific as the aphorism-spouting trans influencer Guru (“Decades of harmful messaging can be reversed in a single night of dancing!” he promises), and Bianca “B” Norwood is perfection as Guru’s many worshipful-turned-spiteful followers and commenters.
And Bess Wohl seems like she’s just scratching the surface with Lust. Set in a strip club, focusing on an unnamed pole dancer (the spectacular Donna Carnow), the stream-of-consciousness voice-over—recorded by Cynthia Nixon—seems like a grab bag of random thoughts: a grocery list (“Eggs. Milk. Baby carrots and cucumbers, the little ones.”), things to do (“Parent teacher conference, don’t forget”; “Refill prescription for eczema cream”). But the dialogue quickly reveals itself to be a savvily crafted inner monologue with the depth, dark comic edge, and clarity that we’ve come to expect from Wohl (Grand Horizons, Make Believe, Small Mouth Sounds). It’s amazing how quickly—and deftly—our heroine summons blinding, murderous rage when she catches sight of the man who assaulted her. And if you’ve ever used the phrase “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” just wait until you see Wohl’s interpretation here.
Seven Deadly Sins opened June 29, 2021, the street-venue performance beginning at 94 Gansevoort Street, and runs through July 25. Information and tickets: sevendeadlysinsnyc.com
