TNC’s Croquet Player, a great night of theater, both entertaining and thought provoking

In the old days, when I felt like hearing music without having to go through the Village Voice ads, I would sometimes just go to West 4th and Mercer, buy a ticket and walk into the Bottom Line. Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky never seemed to book a bad act, at least as far as my tastes were concerned.

In the years since I have found two venues that I similarly feel confident. For film, I pretty much enjoy everything that the Film Forum shows. For stage, it’s Theater for the New City.

A few weeks ago I went over to the East Village where the Theater has been since the early 1970s and took in a modern adaptation of an HG Wells short story.

It’s one of those pieces from the past that is picked for revival because of its relevance today. The Croquet Player‘s theme is the rise of Fascism and Communism in the 1930s.

The adaptation successfully utilized the amazing talents of the ensemble, injecting well scripted modern gayish humor into a plot that originally portrayed the croquet player as simply effeminate. The humor was secondary to the main story, but not actually that secondary.

Set on May 10, 1940, the play unfolds at the elegant Perona Springs Hotel overlooking the Normandy coast, where guests gather for a leisurely game of croquet as Europe stands on the brink of catastrophe. As the world beyond their retreat descends into chaos, champion croquet player Georgie Frobisher encounters the enigmatic Dr. Finchatton, who recounts a disturbing theory: a mysterious contagion rising from the marshlands of England is spreading across Europe—not only as disease, but as a psychological force fueling Fascism.

What begins as an unsettling conversation soon takes on terrifying urgency. When Nazi forces invade and bomb the hotel, Georgie must confront whether the doctor’s warnings were mere fantasy—or a prophetic glimpse into humanity’s darker instincts.

It took about ten minutes before I got into the swing of things, but once things got going, I became completely enthralled throughout the two acts.

It was partly because of the unfolding plot, which was both engrossing and well developed, and especially the high quality of the acting.

Christine Weiss played the player’s high society mother, somewhat faux, and reminiscent of Robin Williams’ Mrs. Doubtfire. Daniel Yaiullo is an amazing actor who transformed Georgie from a superficial dandy into someone with a growing understanding of both himself and the world around him in the space of a couple of hours.

I have to be honest here and say here that I am actually the publisher of this paper and don’t spend all that much time in the theater because it’s hard to get away from business. I like to say that the less I write, the better the paper is, but I so much enjoyed this production that I had to take pen to paper here.

Weiss plays the role of Georgie’s mother, which is her main role, but also the wife of a minister who goes batty inhaling some vapors that is actually a metaphor for fascism (or the Nazis) and goes around looking for people to stab, and finally some kind of a witch for a few minutes. Just like Robin Williams, she was great at being both humorous and vulnerable at the same time.

Great live theater in an intimate setting cannot be beat (my very affordable seat was in the fourth row).

I used to buy a ticket for a next show every time I went to the Bottom Line. As I’m writing this I realize I’ve got to start doing the same thing for TNC and the Film Forum so I’ll always have something to look forward to which will help getting through these unusual times.