‘Prima Facie’
In this one-woman tour-de-force, Jodie Comer stars as a hard-line lawyer who defends men accused of sexual assault, only to later confront the limitations of the law after being assaulted herself. Comer, who plays all of the characters and all sides of conversations — sometimes involving several people — was lauded for her engrossing performance, which earned her Tony and Olivier Awards. This streaming version, captured live in 2022 at the Harold Pinter Theater in London’s West End, puts you right into the world of blurry morals and towering shelves of case files.
From Jesse Green’s review:
The play, by Suzie Miller, won all sorts of awards in Australia and Britain. It’s easy to see why. Its star, Jodie Comer, late of “Killing Eve,” gives a performance of tremendous skill and improbable stamina … The production, directed by Justin Martin, is chic and accessible, with design flourishes, by now de rigueur, to underline the idea that it is a Big Event. And the reform of sexual assault jurisprudence that the play advocates could hardly be more convincingly argued or worthy of our attention.
Available through March 5. Read the full review.
‘The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy’
Jonathan Levin, Josh Luxenberg and Joshua William Gelb’s slapstick science-fiction adventure, in which Gelb plays a space traveler whose ship gets hit by interstellar detritus, caught our critic’s attention when it was streamed in 2020 from a closet.
Now, an updated and longer version — with “[Redux]” added to the end of the title — is running in person at New York Theater Workshop as part of Under the Radar, making it a good time to revisit the original production. The play’s simultaneous video editing (to create the effect of multiple characters) and crafty camera turns (for a sense of weightlessness) go beyond creative, pandemic-era hacks into something otherworldly.
From Jesse Green’s review:
The virtuosic Gelb, playing all the Egons, is often to be found wriggling through his ship’s trapdoors or bopping himself on the head with a skillet. Instead of Intergalactic Groundhog Day the result is more like the Three Stooges in Space, except there are as many as 26 stooges involved and they’re all as bossy and testy as Moe. … Using standard phones, cameras and computers running software repurposed for digital production, the director Jonathan Levin has devised a sophisticated mise en scène.
Available indefinitely. Read the Under the Radar critic’s notebook. Read the 2020 review.
‘Playing on Air’
“Playing on Air,” a podcast that offers on-demand audio theater, has a new season of seven short plays by the playwrights Patricia Cotter, Kirsten Greenidge, David Ives, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, John Patrick Shanley, Ken Urban and Lloyd Suh.
If the words “audio play” give you pause, think of it as a more artful podcast episode to listen to while preparing dinner — an unexpected trip to the theater. Suh’s “Disney/Fujikawa,” for example, about a meeting between Walt Disney and a Japanese American illustrator whose family members are detained in internment camps in rural Arkansas, made for an eerily intimate conversation experienced through headphones.
The plays — free, short, polished and accessible from anywhere — are less than 30 minutes long, and several come with a bonus Q&A with the production’s cast and creative team.
Available indefinitely. Read more about the series.
‘The Fire This Time Festival’
Each January the Fire This Time Festival (a nod to James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”) premieres a series of 10-minute plays by emerging Black playwrights. This year’s festival, at the Wild Project in Manhattan, runs Jan. 23 to Feb. 2. But you can take in last year’s lineup, with plays by Joël René Scoville, Kamilah Bush, LeeLee Jackson, Monique Pappas-Williams, Nia Akilah Robinson and Taylor A. Blackman — all directed by Cezar Williams — from home. Past seasons are also available.
Available indefinitely.
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