At the beginning of Lucas Hnath’s new play, “The Thin Place,” the main character, Hilda, explains the title. She says it’s like visiting an aquarium and seeing an octopus press itself up against the glass, except the octopus and the glass aren’t there. In an essay in the play’s program, Hnath describes “the thin place” as a spot on a street where “trees were said to walk there at night.”
I don’t know what either Hnath or his character Hilda are talking about. But I did come away with a couple of ideas regarding what the thin place can be, both of which made me glad I’d seen the play, which opened Thursday at Off Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons.
Les Waters directs “The Thin Place” with the house lights up throughout most of the 90-minute production. Mark Barton’s lighting puts about as much light on us in the audience as he does the actors on stage. It’s a harsh, alienating effect, but right from the get-go, it establishes what a thin place it is, that space between the actors and us.
The other and far more wondrous thin place is the aura around the face of Emily Cass McDonnell, the actor who plays Hilda and achieves the miracle of conveying the temperature of her thoughts without saying a word. The drama of “The Thin Place” occurs around the edges of what is spoken. It’s a thin place, indeed.
Hilda attends a séance led by a medium named Linda (the enigmatic Randy Danson), an older woman who turns out not to be everything Hilda had hoped after their first few ghost fests. When the two women have established a friendship of sorts, Linda invites Hilda to a party with two other close friends, Jerry (the effectively crass Triney Sandoval) and Sylvia (the slightly less crass Kelly McAndrew).
The intimate wine-laced get-together takes Hilda’s opinion of Linda to another place. Jerry and Sylvia’s lively banter with Linda — very different from Hilda’s far more introspective one-on-ones with her close friend — quickly turns the newcomer to this group into the outsider. There’s a long stretch where Hilda says nothing, and McDonnell rivets us with her silent sense of betrayal. Anyone who has been the loner at a party will relate.
When Hilda finally does rejoin the conversation, Hnath gives the character a humdinger of a monologue about her dead mother. McDonnell reduces her voice to a thin (it’s the best word) sliver of a sound that irritates but eventually lulls with a quivering sing-song effect.
Hnath’s four characters all want something from each other. And Hilda especially doesn’t get what she wants from Linda, whose response to her maternal tale reflects how literally the world has been pulled out from under her. Together they travel to a place where the trees stand still, and where something happens that is both creepy and far more ordinary.
The opening moments of “The Thin Place,” with the lights up and McDonnell’s Hilda on stage to deliver a long monologue about her less-than-exciting life, is a study in how to make a theatergoer start checking his or her watch in under 10 minutes. That alienation technique is purely intentional. Once Linda arrives to sit alongside Hilda, Hnath’s language creates real suspense, and is soon saturated with unexpected turns of phrase that compel us to pay attention. It helps, too, that Linda is a medium and her séance is worth attending.
10 Best New York Theater Productions of 2019, From 'The Sound Inside' to 'Halfway Bitches' (Photos)
TheWrap critic Robert Hofler ranks this year's top shows -- and original productions continued to outshine revivals.
10. "Do You Feel Anger?" by Mara Nelson-Greenberg (Off Broadway, Vineyard Theatre)
Female employees of a debt collection agency endure harassment from the boss and other male clowns. The author's hilarious dialogue subverts our expectations at every plot twist, as well as several times in between. Nelson-Greenberg brings a great new voice to the theater. Directed by Margot Bordelon.
9. "Grief Is the Thing With Feathers," by Enda Walsh (Off Broadway, St. Ann's Warehouse)
The playwright adapts Max Porter's novel about a young widower grieving his dead wife. Cillian Murphy took flight through the nightmare of the character's pain in the year's most technically dazzling production, directed by Walsh.
8. "Ain't No Mo," by Jordan E. Cooper (Off Broadway, Public Theater)
The U.S. government makes an offer that black people aren't supposed to refuse in this ultra-sharp and scary satire. Cooper not only wrote the play but delivered one of the year's most unforgettable performances, playing an airline employee from hell. Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb.
7. "The Sound Inside," by Adam Rapp (Broadway)
Mary-Louise Parker writes up a storm in a riveting new drama that explores the creative process. Will Hochman, in his Broadway debut, is equally fine as her troubled creative-writing student. Directed by David Cromer.
6. "Daddy," by Jeremy O. Harris (Off Broadway, Vineyard Theater and the New Group)
Regression and mutual exploitation are the hallmarks of an art-world affair between two men (Alan Cumming and Ronald Peet) of completely different backgrounds. "Daddy" is the play that got the "Slave Play" author into the Yale School of Drama. Directed by the gifted Danya Taymor.
5. "Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus," by Taylor Mac (Broadway)
Nathan Lane cleaned up a big, bloody and inspired mess of a political disaster. Mac's demented comedy manages to improve mightily on Shakespeare's worst play. Directed with total irreverence by George. C. Wolfe.
4. "Marys Seacole," by Jackie Sibblies Drury (Off Broadway, LCT3)
Two Jamaican nurses speak across a century and a half to bring comfort to people who don't care about them. This drama is the arresting follow-up to the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Fairview." Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz with a harrowing battle scene.
3. "Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven," by Stephen Adly Guirgis (Off Broadway, Atlantic Theater Company
This drama set in an all-female homeless shelter is a female "Iceman Cometh" for the 21st century -- and a lot more fun than anything written by Eugene O'Neill. The play is replete with big issues, none of which Guirgis ever turns into a sermon. John Ortiz directs the mammoth, talented cast.
2. "Make Believe," by Bess Wohl (Off Broadway, Second Stage)
Childhood traumas continue to haunt a family in their adult years. Wohl child-proofed her amazing play by making the kids' overacting an asset. Michael Greif directed them with assurance, and their grown-up counterparts were terrific too.
1. "A Strange Loop," by Michael R. Jackson (Off Broadway, Playwrights Horizons)
The writer defies the musical jinx of wearing three hats: book writer, lyricist and composer. Jackson is superb at all three tasks in this musical about writing a musical. In a lousy year for new original tuners, "Loop" is the real thing. Stephen Brackett directed the stream-of-conscious story like a master helmer.
1 of 11
For the second year in a row, original works instead of revivals were the must-see events of the year
TheWrap critic Robert Hofler ranks this year's top shows -- and original productions continued to outshine revivals.
Robert Hofler, TheWrap's lead theater critic, has worked as an editor at Life, Us Weekly and Variety. His books include "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson," "Party Animals," and "Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange, How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos." His latest book, "Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne," is now in paperback.
