Nina
Taking a fresh eye to old ideas, “Nina” never depicts its play-within-a-play. The offstage drama it highlights is more than compelling enough.
Forrest Malloy’s Nina follows five women in their last year of acting school figuring out their lives while preparing for their final production together: The Seagull. The on-the-nose Chekhov is luckily relegated to the background until the very end – this is a play about a friend group before it’s a play about theater. Nina is at once funny and emotionally compelling, all on the strength of a great cast.
The cast consists solely of the five friends, constantly entering and exiting an intimate shared living/work space from scenic designer Wilson Chin. One can see glimpses of personality within the set – Erika’s half of the counter is neatly organized and color-coordinated, contrasting with the day-old coffee cups and jenga towers of books that stand on Lilith’s side. Director Katie Birenboim organizes scenes that show these characters as well-practiced at navigating these cramped areas, both physically and emotionally – they know the space as they know each other. Lighting designer Wheeler Moon keeps most of the stage lit all show, allowing each character to do her own thing quietly even when they aren’t talking, enhancing the space’s (and by extension, the friend group’s) intimacy. Brandon Bulls’ sound design is unobtrusive yet still heightens the tension. “Sympathy is a Knife” is played over the curtain call, a fitting choice for the show.
Costume designer Ásta Bennie-Hostetter gives each character a distinct manner of dress – Lilith and Kyla like their cozy sweaters, Cate rarely leaves her acting clothes, Zoe favors preppy fleeces, and Erika’s brightly-colored outfits always stand out from the group.
Playwright Malloy weaves several threads together – Lillith (Nina Ross FKA Nina Grollman) and Erika’s (Aigner Mizzelle) relationship, Cate’s (Francesca Carpanini) futile attempt to keep the group together after graduation, Kyla’s (Jasminn Johnson) doubts about her chosen profession, and Zoe’s (Katherine Reis) romance with Andrew (the group’s acting teacher) – the last of these being the obvious catalyst for the end of the group.
Zoe’s relationship with the unseen Andrew is, by design, the most difficult part of the play. She’s 19, he’s her 37-year-old teacher. Reis, however, shuns youthful naiveté in her performance. She’s refreshingly mean, imbuing Zoe with a real combativeness. Everyone tries, but nobody successfully changes her mind about anything in the entire play. One can tell how annoyed she is by everyone (except Erika, notably) constantly patronizing her – even when they’re right. Her character ends the play on a still-defiant yet somber note, and it’s an impressively uncomfortable one to grapple with: the audience is in the same position as the friend group, disbelieving Zoe as she insists she wasn’t manipulated and strung along. Sometimes you simply cannot help someone.
Kyla, by contrast, has a far more hopeful ending. She’s debating if she even wants to be an actress anymore, so naturally she’s cast as Nina in The Seagull. Playing an actor uncertain of themselves who is also playing an actor uncertain of themselves is a tall order, but Johnson avoids the obvious clichés of such a character. She’s given the biggest emotional journey of the group, feeling like a supporting character early on but knowing she’s the protagonist by the end. Johnson embodies a quiet confidence in the play’s second half, carving Kyla a spot in well-trod terrain.
Cate is perhaps the most layered character of the group. She’s the one who tries the hardest to keep the group together, even as she destroys it by telling the administration about Zoe and Andrew. Carpanini gives the role a neurotic intensity, like she’s constantly over-planning things in her head. One of Carpanini’s best moments is when Cate tries to give a prepared apology to Zoe, who walks by without even acknowledging her. One gets the sense Cate fully believed in the existence of some magical combination of words that would fix the situation, and we get to watch a complex mix of emotions play out on her face for about three seconds before the character shoves everything back down and returns to her usual high-strung pathos.
Erika and Lilith’s relationship is a more self-contained narrative, feeling like a small piece of a larger story the audience never fully sees amidst all the other threads. Mizzelle’s Erika is confident, witty, and fashionable. By contrast, Lilith (Ross) is someone who makes herself small, and is far more in love with Erika than Erika is with her. Lilith doesn’t have as much of an arc as the other characters, instead serving as the center of the group, the one who’s friends with everyone equally. There’s a quiet sadness to such a place within a social circle, one that Ross explores well. For the opposite reason, Erika doesn’t change much either: she’s had it all figured out from the beginning. If anything, she stands out for being a little too put-together, lacking the melodrama so present in everyone else. However, Mizzelle is eminently likable and prevents the character from being one dimensional, wringing some emotion out of a role with very little conflict to it.
The play ends with a flurry of backstage drama amidst a staging of The Seagull, with the meta-theater thankfully kept to a minimum throughout a by-the-numbers final act. Everyone gets some self-actualization in between their scene cues, character arcs are wrapped up, growth is acknowledged, and Kyla cathartically makes her decision. The audience doesn’t need to see her deliver Nina’s big monologue about acting – we already know how it went.
Nina (through February 9, 2025)
TheaterLab NYC
Theaterlab, 357 W. 36th Street, 3rd Floor, in Manhattan
For ticket, visit http://www.theaterlabnyc.com
Running time: 115 minutes without an intermission
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