Sunday Morning Michael Dale: A Guide To Rikers Island and A Hamilton Landmark You May Have Missed

"Why me? Why me? Why?!"

This is the reaction given by former boxer turned actor Rich Roy in his autobiographical A White Man's Guide To Rikers Island (written with Eric C. Webb) upon hearing that the pedestrian he hit while driving home drunk from a night out with his friends had died.

And if his self-centered reaction doesn't exactly endear him to the audience, it is admittedly an honest and realistic one. How many of us have also done something stupid and reckless and can forget about it the next day because we were lucky enough to have not fatally injured an innocent bystander?

Running through April 3rd at the Gene Frankel Theater (general admission, $35), this is a piece that can toy with your emotions a bit, and likely will strike people of different races in different ways. Roy, who begins the play as himself before Dillon John Collins takes over as his younger version for the bulk of its ninety minutes, is very open about the white privilege that got him over two years of freedom before his trial began and allowed his lawyer to settle for one year in prison, which would likely be reduced to six months.

But once that stay on Rikers begins, he's among a population he cites as being 92% Black and Hispanic and 85% waiting for their trials, as they can't afford bail.

"And that empty, unearned privilege is what makes everyone rightfully hate your guts just by looking at you."

This is not a play about being a white victim, nor is it one that ignores that the real victims in the story are the dead pedestrian and the thousands of inmates that might not be imprisoned if not for a system that is widely recognized as being racist. But it is one about being in the unfamiliar position of being a targeted minority; albeit one who knows the exact date when, if he gets through it all, he'll have his unearned privilege back.

Voiceovers supply additional characters -- more functional than developed -- including Rich's transgender cellmate Shivon and his blockmate Saddam, who help him use his family's money to fund a scheme that helps benefit other prisoners, thus earning some protection. Further protection comes when his CO recruits him to write a column for the prison newspaper; a tongue-in-cheek survival guide for white prisoners that became the basis for this play.

This is not a nuanced piece of theatre. The storytelling is blunt and uncomplicated as the narrative keeps emphasizing its social justice message. And just to ensure the point gets across, Roy returns at the end to give an impassioned speech calling for solutions to systemic racism and white privilege.

Collins, who is making his stage acting debut after three years of training, also gives a very blunt and uncomplicated performance under Thomas G. Waites' direction; his energy, athleticism and stage charisma carrying him through a marathon role.

But it's the directness of the script and performances that gives the evening a feel of authenticity and sincerity. You might not expect it from the title (I sure didn't) but A White Man's Guide To Rikers Island turns out to be a determined piece of activist theatre.

Thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda...

...they say there's been a noticeable uptick in tourism at New York landmarks like Trinity Church Cemetery -- gravesite of Alexander Hamilton, his wife Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, their son Philip, Elizabeth's sister Angelica Schuyler Church and colonial superspy Hercules Mulligan (They say Mulligan was especially difficult to bury because every time they laid him down he got the f*** back up again) and the Morris-Jumel Mansion; General Washington's former uptown headquarters where Aaron Burr married its wealthy owner, Eliza Jumel.

I recently noticed another notable site for history buffs and musical theatre fans. Up until recently, I only knew the building at 4 St. Marks Place as the home of that landmark East Village vintage clothing store Trash & Vaudeville, but a plaque that was put up during the first year of the pandemic notes that the 1831 federal style townhouse was once the home of the widowed Elizabeth Hamilton and her children Alexander, Jr. and Eliza.

But wait, there's more. See where it says the building once housed "experimental theatres venues"? In 1955 Julie Bovasso founded the non-profit Tempo Playhouse at this spot and, in the first Obie Award ceremony, was recognized for her performance in the company's American premiere of Jean Genet's The Maids.

The space was eventually renamed the New Bowery Theater when it became a showplace for underground films and then was transformed into the Bridge Theater, a home for contemporary dance which closed shortly after obscenity and indecency charges were filed (and eventually dropped) due to the performance of an anti-war piece titled LBJ, which included the burning of an American flag.

Read those plaques when you're walking around the city. You never know what history you're passing by.

Just before the theatres began closing in March of 2020...

...one of the last high-profile Off-Broadway openings was Lauren Yee's excellent Cambodian Rock Band; a mix of fact and fiction about the popularity of rebellious American music in Phnom Penh during the early 1970s, that became illegal when the exit of U.S. troops prompted the invasion of the Khmer Rouge, taking genocidal control of the country.

One of the survivors of that murderous regime is the mother of playwright Sam Chanse, whose intriguing "what you are now" (the lower-case title is the playwright's preference) is set in contemporary times and deals with many of the issues she's grown up with regarding her mother's behavior as her mind sorts out her memories.

In director Steve Cosson's premiere production, which marks the reopening of Ensemble Studio Theatre (through April 3rd, general admission $30, Students/Seniors $25) Pisay Pao plays Pia, the daughter of Chantrea (Sonnie Brown), a Khmer Rouge survivor who, like many Cambodians, migrated to Lowell, Massachusetts. At the time, she was pregnant with Pia and was accompanied by her young son Darany, now a rambunctious, free-spirited adult played by Robert Lee Lang.

Pia became a neurological scientist, dedicated to researching how the mind processes memories from traumatic experiences as a piecing together of details that can be unintentionally altered when recalled, rather than simply being copied and pasted as an accurate whole.

Pia brings up various experiments involving rats' reactions to stimuli, and as a parallel we see Chantrea's reaction when Darany plays a recording of Cambodian rock, given to him by Siobhan (Emma Kikue), the Irish/Cambodian women he's dating.

Clocking in at about 100 minutes, the play alternates between family/immigration issues and scientific studies without feeling complete at either end. But even so, at this early stage "what you are now" is worth a look and will surely stimulate conversation about playgoers' memories.

Curtain Line...

I was really excited to hear the slogan, "Oklahoma! Reinvented for the 21st Century," until I realized it meant the musical and not the state.

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