NEW YORK — “The Fear of 13,” a fact-based play about a wrongfully convicted man who spent two decades on death row, is an uneven undertaking. Yet the docudrama delivers several of the Broadway season’s most striking scenes all the same.
As Nick Yarris, the (eventually) exonerated Pennsylvania inmate, the sublime Adrien Brody delivers one such moment when Nick’s matter-of-fact resignation gives way to apoplectic devastation. Ephraim Sykes’s aching rendition of the Temptations’ “I Wish It Would Rain” represents another, as his character — a prisoner separated from his soulmate of a cellmate — sings away his agony. But the most wrenching comes courtesy of Tessa Thompson’s volunteer advocate, Jacki, who falls for Nick’s street-smart swagger and loquacious charm.
Ruminating on Nick’s path to freedom — a seemingly endless ordeal — Jacki mourns a life deferred, her own dreams having played second fiddle to pursuing his exoneration. The puppy she snagged for them in anticipation of his swift release has become an old dog. The family they could have raised will never be. It’s a shattering indictment of a justice system that destroys not just the lives of the wrongfully convicted but also of those in their orbit.
Jacki’s perspective is so powerful that I found myself wishing that the play — written by Lindsey Ferrentino and based on David Sington’s 2015 documentary of the same name — explored it more deeply. Instead, Jacki is given too much of a story to be disregarded as ancillary yet too little to register as a fully formed character. Too often, the excellent Thompson is reduced to dutiful observation as Brody takes the lead.
Not that hinging a play on a two-time Oscar winner’s potent pathos is the worst idea. Returning to a role he originated in 2024 at the London premiere, Brody makes for a magnetic raconteur in this decades-spanning tale. Just listen to Nick relay the story of his month-long 1985 escape from prison or woo Jacki with an endearing blend of gallows humor and worldly curiosity. And though Arnulfo Maldonado’s towering prison block set conveys overwhelming dread, director David Cromer surfaces the levity and hopefulness in Ferrentino’s script.
Still, the play too often scratches the surface while grasping for depth and prompts questions that distract from its fierce focus. Take the exclusion of Nick’s fascination with triskaidekaphobia, or the fear of the number 13, that’s explored in the documentary. Why skip over a character trait so telling that it inspired the play’s title? For all its assets — and there are many — “The Fear of 13” doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts.
The Fear of 13 Through July 12 at the James Earl Jones Theatre in New York. About 1 hour 50 minutes. thefearof13broadway.com.
Here’s a roundup of four more productions now on Broadway:
‘Proof’
There’s no way to be sure — to prove this hypothesis, so to speak — but it seems unlikely that David Auburn’s “Proof” would net the Pulitzer Prize for drama today, as it did in 2001. This tender requiem, about a woman wondering whether her late father passed down both his intellect and his mental illness, favors sentiment over relevance. Universality over specificity. It’s not the kind of topical text that nabs awards nowadays.
So consider it a success that the play’s first Broadway revival affects all the same. Thomas Kail helms a smartly unfussy production — produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground — that lets its impeccable cast interpret Auburn’s words anew.
We meet Ayo Edebiri’s Catherine a week after the death of her mathematician genius father, Robert, whom she cared for as his once-towering mind crumbled. It’s a nuanced performance: The “Bear” breakout plays Catherine with both the weariness of a 25-year-old burdened by an old soul and the petulance of a kid who never got to grow up. Don Cheadle, as Robert, eschews showier tics and shrewdly internalizes the unraveling, making the revelation of his character’s decline all the more crushing. (Catherine’s visions of Robert are telegraphed when the set’s naturalistic house turns translucent, in a clever coup by designers Teresa L. Williams and Amanda Zieve.)
Jin Ha nails eager-to-please energy as Hal, a former student mining Robert’s notebooks for posthumous brilliance, and Kara Young plays Catherine’s sister with carefully calculated concern and condescension. By centering Edebiri and Cheadle, “Proof” emerges as a father-daughter drama about the idea of inheritance — not financial but genetic and spiritual. What do we take from our parents? How do we step out of their shadow? A quarter-century later, Auburn’s old-fashioned formula still checks out.
Proof Through July 19 at the Booth Theatre. About 2 hours 15 minutes. proofbroadway.com.
‘The Rocky Horror Show’
Sam Pinkleton’s revival of “The Rocky Horror Show” always needed to strut the line between Broadway sheen and B-movie shagginess. For a manic musical that flopped on the Great White Way a half-century ago, then gained unlikely immortality thanks to a bonkers 1975 movie and its frenzied midnight screenings, the irreverence meter must be well calibrated. Too much polish will wipe the allure off Richard O’Brien’s cult classic. Too much mania could shock mainstream theatergoers into a stupor.
Happy news: Pinkleton and Co. have mostly gotten this zany experiment right, even if the audience participation is a quandary without an easy answer. At my Saturday-night performance, the crowd’s sporadic callouts derailed the show more often than they delighted. Thankfully, Pinkleton has “Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch on the premises — tapping a perfectly bemused narrator to keep this hypersexualized sci-fi train on the tracks.
Andrew Durand and Stephanie Hsu (Oscar-nominated for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) also commit to the bit as Brad and Janet, the lovebirds who stumble upon the freakiest of castles. It’s there that we’re introduced to Luke Evans’s domineering take on Frank-N-Furter, the transsexual mad scientist originated by Tim Curry. For all the scene stealers on hand — Amber Gray, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Harvey Guillén and Josh Rivera, among them — it’s Evans’s fierce flamboyance that most electrifies. The only casting concern: Juliette Lewis, the “Yellowjackets” actress tackling dual roles in her Broadway debut, struggles to find her footing with a tepid turn that (one imagines) will surely grow in conviction.
Will the absurdist plot be comprehensible to the uninitiated? Doubtful! So maybe skim a longer synopsis before venturing into Studio 54, which has been spectacularly transformed — lobby and all — into a neon-lit, space-age haven by the design collective Dots. With any luck, you’ll be dying to circle back and do the time warp again.
The Rocky Horror Show Through July 19 at Studio 54. About 1 hour 50 minutes. roundabouttheatre.org.
‘Fallen Angels’
For the most immaculate line reading of the Broadway season, look no further than Rose Byrne’s delivery of “Howdareyou?!” — shrieked via a single indignant syllable — in the uproarious revival of Noël Coward’s “Fallen Angels.” It’s no outlier: Byrne’s sidesplitting choices flow as freely as the champagne in this drawing-room farce about two sexually unsatisfied socialites jockeying for an old flame’s attention. The bug-eyed glances to the audience with each cigarette puff. The tipsy sashaying to the ring of a telephone. The drunken delay before addressing a question.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for those rehearsals as Byrne — fresh off an Oscar nomination for the surrealist nightmare “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” — and partner in crime Kelli O’Hara unearthed laughs fresh and familiar from Coward’s century-old text. As Julia Sterroll, the frenemy to Byrne’s Jane Banbury, O’Hara delivers cruel truths with a matter-of-fact smirk and follows her first pratfall with a second and, yep, a third. It all makes for a breathlessly funny romp.
It’s a credit to director Scott Ellis that every other performer in this racy 1920s-set riot (Tracee Chimo, Aasif Mandvi, Christopher Fitzgerald and Mark Consuelos) also understands exactly what kind of play they’re in. And most of the time, their task is simple: Stay out of Byrne and O’Hara’s ways. Each actress is a powerhouse in her own right. But together? Talk about a double act for the ages.
Fallen Angels Through June 7 at the Todd Haimes Theatre. About 1 hour 30 minutes. roundabouttheatre.org.
‘Titaníque’
Speaking of comic delirium: “Titaníque,” a Celine Dion jukebox musical by way of “Titanic” parody, has docked on Broadway after acclaimed off-Broadway and West End runs. Created by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and director Tye Blue, this barrage of Dion bangers, niche references and fourth-wall-obliterating gags makes the silliest choice at every turn — and is all the better for it.
Case in point: Mindelle gleefully plays Dion as a spotlight-hogging emcee, here to share her revisionist take on James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster. The rest of the cast list hints at the chaos to come. Rousouli and “Scream’s” Melissa Barrera portray the doomed lovers Jack and Rose. “The Big Bang Theory” star Jim Parsons plays Rose’s slaphappy mother. Frankie Grande depicts not Titanic architect Thomas Andrews but … the actor Victor Garber? By this point, you shouldn’t be surprised that someone plays the iceberg (Layton Williams, for the record).
I mean this in the best way possible: “Titaníque” is just as stupid as it sounds. Get “shipfaced,” as signage at the bar suggests, and see it immediately.
Titaníque Through July 12 at the St. James Theatre. About 1 hour 40 minutes. titaniquebroadway.com.
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