When a blizzard strands stagecoach passengers in a lodge in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” violence and mayhem erupt. Death looms.
Eight people are also marooned by a snowstorm in William Inge’s 1955 play “Bus Stop,” but what looms for them is life: Some take stock, others try to figure out what awaits.
Best known for its movie adaptation starring Marilyn Monroe, “Bus Stop” isn’t seen much in New York these days, so Classic Stage Company, the National Asian American Theater Company and Transport Group should be thanked for this revival.
The director Jack Cummings III staged Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” and “Picnic” in repertory for the Transport Group in 2017, and is familiar with the delicate bard of the Midwest, whose deceptively plain work captures the lives of working people. The most consequential decision here is to forgo amplification, creating a sense of intimacy at the Kansas diner where four bus passengers and their driver (David Shih) wait out the weather. The diner’s owner Grace (Cindy Cheung) and a waitress, the high school student Elma (Delphi Borich), are used to parades of customers, but maybe not for such extended stays. Conversations stop and start as the visitors chat among themselves and with the locals, who include the sheriff, Will (David Lee Huynh). Elma, for example, is fascinated by Dr. Gerald Lyman (Rajesh Bose), a former professor whose flowery verbiage evokes a broader, more literate world than hers — and a more perverse one, too, as he has a taste for underage women.
But the most striking of the newcomers is Cherie (Midori Francis), a nightclub singer who has been whisked away by Bo (Michael Hsu Rosen), a smitten young cowboy who plans to take her to his Montana ranch, whether she likes it or not.
The story line is rattling to a contemporary audience. But the beauty, humanity and complexity of Inge’s writing is that he makes us understand what drives Bo and, even more important, who Cherie is, and why she stays with Bo.
Both naïve and wise to the ways of the world, she has been “goin’ with guys” since she was 14 — “down in the Ozarks, we don’t waste much time,” she says. Delivering the show’s standout performance, Francis illuminates how Cherie realizes that she may have met someone who not only cares about her, but also doesn’t mind what she had to do to survive. A performance of “That Old Black Magic,” backed by Bo’s friend, Virgil (Moses Villarama), on guitar, hits the right balance of awkwardness and sincerity: This Cherie is not wanting for pity or deserving of laughter. (Unfortunately, Rosen is not as assured as Bo, making the relationship more imbalanced than it should be.)
Because the actors are not miked, they feel close to one another and to the audience. We feel as if we, too, are in the diner with them, especially when they talk at the counter or at a table. Cummings also suggests a kind of stasis, as if the roadside restaurant were a self-contained parenthesis outside of time and space. There is talk of the howling winds outside, but we don’t hear them (the production does not have a sound designer), making the diner feel cut off.
That directorial decision mostly works, but Cummings is on shakier ground when dramatizing the space itself. In scenes involving only two or three characters, the others often stare blankly, just sitting or standing there. This is at odds with the verisimilitude of the natural voices and saps the show of dramatic tension. It doesn’t help that the set (by Peiyi Wong) and lighting (by R. Lee Kennedy) lack a sense of atmosphere and the cowboys’ shirts and jeans are distractingly crisp (costumes by Mariko Ohigashi).
Inge’s main subjects are usually said to be loneliness and the search for connection. “Bus Stop” has something else: Its examination of masculinity is particularly perceptive about the way it can instill feelings of inadequacy and shame, but also a quiet confidence. This production might not hit all the play’s grace notes, but I’m still glad it pulled over for a while.
Bus Stop
Through June 8 at Classic Stage Company, Manhattan; classicstage.org. Running time: 2 hours.
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