Twice a month on the Token Theatre Friends video series and podcasts, theatre critics (and theatre besties) Jose Solís and Diep Tran bring a POC perspective to the performing arts.
This week the Friends sit with Tony winner Tonya Pinkins and choreographer Briana Reed to discuss Truth and Reconciliation: Womyn Working It Out, an evening of short plays about how women oppress each other. The two of them discuss how theatre can be a form of group therapy, and why #MeToo hasn’t hit theatre in the same way as in Hollywood.
The audio of the interview is also available on the podcast, where the Friends review three shows currently playing in New York City:
Wives by Jaclyn Backhaus at Playwrights Horizons (through Oct. 6, $49-$89). Multiple generations of women (and wives) collide in this exploration of the unspoken voices in history, and how modern women can find their voices when they don’t have any records of the women who came before them.
Play! and Theatre in the Dark: Carpe Diem from This is Not a Theatre Company (through Sept. 29, $25 for Play!, $30 for Theatre in the Dark). These two plays are being performed in rep. In Play!, one dancer talk about the need for a more playful existence in our age of anxiety. In Theatre in the Dark, the audience attend a dinner party blindfolded.
Betrayal by Harold Pinter, on Broadway at the Jacobs Theatre (through Dec. 8, $25-$189). It’s a revival of Pinter’s play about a married woman who has an affair with her husband’s best friend, Tom Hiddleston, Zawe Ashton, and Charlie Cox stars. The production has apparently inspired some live masturbation from the audience, leading to a discussion about proper audience etiquette.
The Friends close the show by dusting off their theatre history books and talk about the historical performances they would travel back in time to see.
Download the podcast here.
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