When his secret life of debauchery comes to a heartbreaking end, disgraced puppet maker Mickey Sabbath plunges into increasingly mad and maddening encounters with people from his wild and wicked past. Part ghost story, part love story, Sabbath’s Theater unleashes Roth’s power to shock and amaze in this profound meditation on mortality and juicy celebration of life.
This juxtaposition – intermingling – of sex and death, of obscenity and grief, is central to the play, and arguably at the core of much of Roth’s oeuvre, although a writer who produced “Portney’s Complaint” and “American Pastoral” and“The Plot Against America” can’t be summed up so simply. But the balance is skewed in this adaptation. I found the explicit scenes more often off-putting than amusing or alluring. There are some poignant moments, especially when Marvel is portraying Drenka, and Kravits is playing Sabbath’s100-year-old cousin Fish. But there are fewer than intended.
One great benefit of seeing “Sabbath’s Theater” brought to the theater is that I had never realized how Shakespearean the novel is. It’s not just the graveyard scenes, but the overall outrageousness of Mickey’s language and behavior. Turturro plays Mickey, and while he has never had the lightest touch as an actor, he brings a benign levity to the tale that sometimes runs counter to the spirit of Roth’s novel. Roth dares us to find anything admirable in his hero. Turturro, on the other hand, seduces us into liking the guy.
2023 | Off-Broadway |
New Group Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
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