By Adrienne Urbanski
STANDING CLEAR
Directed by Barbara Karger
Written by Ishah Janssen-Faith
& Jack McGowan
Thurs.-Sun. through June 21
Access Theater
380 Broadway, 4th Floor
($20, $15 students; 212-868-4444;
coffeecuptheatre.org)
As frequent subway passengers, we New Yorkers constantly find ourselves in confined spaces with strangers, with whom we typically try to avoid eye contact and conversation. Considering how many hours we spend using public transit, it is strange how infrequently the subway appears in local dramatic works. The premise itself seems so obvious that the ingenuity of this new play’s concept could easily be overlooked.
Comprised of a series of scenes—some related to continuing storylines, others disconnected—“Standing Clear,” with the true authenticity of seasoned New Yorkers, navigates the snafus and comedies that unfold everyday for commuters. The daily frustrations of noisy strangers, overcrowding, coats caught in the subway’s closing door, avoiding the come-ons of randy fellow passengers, are all on display.
The show opens with a row of riders staring at the passengers across from them, criticizing and analyzing their appearances, hazarding guesses about their lives. In another scene, a boy and girl silently flirt with each other while the girl fantasizes about who this attractive stranger might be and tries to drum up the nerve to approach her mysterious crush.
Multiple scenes focus on the iPod-entrenched commuter, existing entirely in the world of their own personal soundtracks, cut off from life unfolding around them. At one point, both rows of subway benches are packed with riders, all of them singing and lip-synching to themselves. One by one, each rider imagines that the other passengers are listening to the same song and they begin moving in choreographed unison. However, once each fantasy has passed, the rider realizes how truly alone they are. When two characters realize that they are listening to the same song simultaneously, they laugh and do an impromptu dance together across the train floor.
“Standing Clear” offers little solution to bridging the space between us, depicting the chatty passengers who reach out to their fellow riders as eccentrics unable to adhere to social protocol. Rather, the play offers up idyllic scenarios, which seem unlikely to ever become reality.
One of the more touching plotlines involves an affluent woman who befriends a mentally disturbed man, after realizing his intentions to be harmless, giving him her hot pink makeup compact. The man later saves her from the aggressive come ons of a flirtatious male passenger, intent on bringing her home for a “quickie.”
Those of us familiar with the perils of daily commuting, especially those of the fairer sex, will know that this work is a glossed over version of the subway experience. While the scenarios ring true, absent are panhandlers, homeless, busking musicians and, other than the aforementioned scene, the common phenomenon of creepy men.
Two of the play’s showings will feature talk backs with relevant groups, one with NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign, which is devoted to improving the conditions for commuters, and Hollaback New York, a now famous website which publicly humiliates, through the use of cell phone photos, the city’s street harassers (their motto is, “If you can’t slap them, snap them!”). Despite the inclusion of these two groups, the play touches little on the truly dangerous perils of subway riding, instead choosing to focus the majority of its time to the idea of disconnection.
In spite of its somewhat whitewashed view of commuting, the work mines the public transit experience for humor, successfully invoking frequent bouts of laughter from its audience. As physical comedians, all of the actors shine, producing laughter without even uttering a word. Their talents become most apparent during a scene depicting overcrowding on the subway, in which the actors try to reach for the overhead bar all while finding themselves in uncomfortable positions with their fellow passengers. One unfortunate male passenger is shoved back and forth between a group of women, all whom mistake his innocent clumsiness as a sexual come on, pushing him back and forth between one another.
And just maybe when audiences leave the darkness of the Access Theater and board their own trains home they can find humor in the frustrations of their ride, laughing with their fellow passengers, rather than griping, thereby bridging the gap between us.
The performance on Monday, June 16, will feature a talkback with Hollaback NYC and Girls for Gender Equity. Tickets for show and reception are $30.
