{"id":355770,"date":"2024-06-12T18:27:42","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T22:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/?p=355770"},"modified":"2024-06-12T18:27:42","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T22:27:42","slug":"love-and-magic-realism-in-a-haunted-rental-in-theater-js-the-hatmakers-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/2024\/06\/12\/love-and-magic-realism-in-a-haunted-rental-in-theater-js-the-hatmakers-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and magic realism in a haunted rental in Theater J’s ‘The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife’"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many times have we heard the phrase \u201cif these walls could talk\u201d? Well, in Lauren Yee\u2019s play The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife<\/em>, the Wall not only speaks; it rains down pages of text, detailing a story that\u2019s far from pretty. Whether audience members at DC\u2019s Theater J, in a last-of-season production directed by Dan Rothenberg, buy this conceit or not depends on their capacity for whimsy seasoned generously with magic realism.<\/p>\n

Yee\u2019s quirky tale concerns a nervous young couple just moving into their first shared home, a wretched suburban rental fully furnished with the owners\u2019 collection of junk. Almost immediately, the living room wall begins to speak, spooking the female tenant and drawing her away from her partner into the lives of the previous owners, Hetchman (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh) and his long-suffering wife (Sue Jin Song). Past and present dwell uneasily together as the young tenant (Ashley D. Nguyen), identified only as Voice, grabs at the cascading pages that chronicle the Hetchmans\u2019 tale. Her frustrated boyfriend Gabe (Tyler Herman) can neither sense nor hear what\u2019s agitating his partner. Yet all around them, the Hetchmans\u2019 gloomy past unspools anew.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Tyler Herman as Gabe and Ashley D. Nguyen as Voice in \u2018The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife.\u2019 Photo by Ryan Maxwell Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Retired from his work as the town\u2019s top hatmaker, Hetchman sits like a lump in a wretched easy chair that occupies center stage. He munches on junk food and yanks anything he needs, from Kleenexes to the TV remote, with the help of mechanical grabbers.<\/p>\n

After a lifetime of subservience, Hetchman\u2019s wife silently leaves him, carrying with her his most beloved possession \u2014 a beautiful hat that he has made and wears all the time. He barely notices her absence until his neighbor and friend Meckel (Michael Russotto) points out that both the wife and the hat have disappeared at the same time. When the bereaved widower Meckel suggests that Hetchman write to her, the extent of Hetchman\u2019s neglect becomes apparent \u2014 he cannot remember her given name. She is simply Hetchman\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

Will the wife return with the beloved fedora? How can a lifetime of wrongdoing be reconciled? The Voice reads on, hungrily devouring the dropped pages as well as the Wall\u2019s (Alex Tatarsky) enigmatic pronouncements.<\/p>\n

Pamela Weiner\u2019s funky, creative props animate the story. A swaddled infant drops in and out from above, each up and down movement serving as a barometer of love expressed or withheld by Hetchman as he works on his hats. Clearly he can\u2019t make emotional room for both. Glowing jars, hauled in by an unexpected guest, contain secrets and memories tinged with regret. Scenic designer Misha Kachman\u2019s junk-strewn set echoes Hetchman\u2019s wretched mental state. Despite the clutter, however, the play doesn\u2019t settle into any particular decade.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sue Jin Song as Hetchman\u2019s Wife, Ashley D. Nguyen as the Voice, and Maboud Ebrahimzadeh as Hetchman in \u2018The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife.\u2019 Photo by Ryan Maxwell Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Costume designer Ivania Stack dresses Hetchman\u2019s wife in long skirts and a light green duster redolent of the 1920s while Meckel\u2019s gaudy garb is straight out of Miami of the 1950s. Meckel\u2019s and the Hetchmans\u2019 Yiddish-accented English mark them as Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Hetchman has mastered a long-gone trade, but he now sits in his easy chair scrounging for Cheetos and aiming his remote. Depending on one\u2019s tolerance for ambiguity, such anachronisms will seem either charmingly vague or somewhat annoying.<\/p>\n

At its best, The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife<\/em> is a tale of love, and lack thereof. It reminds us that emotions, tenaciously bottled up, wither the bonds that give our lives meaning. No hat, however exquisitely made, can protect its wearer from the need for meaningful human connection.<\/p>\n

Running Time: 100 minutes with no intermission.<\/p>\n

The Hatmaker’s Wife<\/strong><\/em><\/a> plays through June 25, 2024, presented by Theater J<\/a>\u00a0at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th\u00a0Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50\u2013$70, with member and military discounts available)\u00a0online,<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by calling the ticket office at 202-777-3210, or by email (theaterj@theaterj.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The program for The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife <\/em>is online\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a young couple move in together, a gloomy tale of prior tenants unspools. By AMY KOTKIN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":355776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1347,666],"class_list":{"0":"post-355770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews","8":"tag-dan-rothenberg","9":"tag-lauren-yee"},"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nLove and magic realism in a haunted rental in Theater J's 'The Hatmaker\u2019s Wife' - 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