{"id":6585,"date":"2017-05-03T06:03:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T10:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6585"},"modified":"2017-05-22T06:09:53","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T10:09:53","slug":"wink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6585","title":{"rendered":"WINK"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wink,

Joshua de Jesus as Wink<\/p><\/div>\n

We braved the Amtrak\/New Jersey Transit\/Penn Station debacle last Sunday to go into New York to see an off-off-(perhaps a third off is needed here, I\u2019m not sure)-Broadway play in which our nephew-in-law is appearing.<\/p>\n

It was fun to rub elbows with intrepid theater-goers, trying a performance that might be a little risky, perhaps hoping for something a little risqu\u00e9 and figuring out which cast member they are related to. The play is Neil Koenigsberg\u2019s WINK<\/em>, directed amiably by Ron Beverly, and playing at the Theater for the New City<\/a>, 155 First Avenue, just south of 10th Street through May 7.<\/p>\n

Since we\u2019d allowed so much extra time for train delays, we had ample time for a long cross-town walk and fortification with blood marys at the bar across the street from the theater, where a baby shower was in full swing.<\/p>\n

The cast did a terrific job (nephew-in-law included), but the play itself is problematic. It takes place in Hollywood today, and its major conflict is between the desire of a teenage character, the eponymous Wink, to not declare a gender\u2014\u201cI\u2019m just Wink\u201d\u2014and the determination of a Hollywood agent to find out. If Koenigsberg\u2014a former Hollywood public relations luminary-turned-playwright\u2014had set the play in 1950 or somewhere other than Hollywood, this obsession might be more believable. The gender identity wars are being fought on different ground.<\/p>\n

A good reason to see this play, though, is to see Joshua de Jesus as Wink. He does a heartfelt job on territory that\u2019s pretty well trodden. Joe Maruzzo is engaging as a past-his-prime actor, Jose Joaquin Perez is a homeless counselor, and Nikole Williams a public relations consultant struggling with how to describe Wink and getting no help from anyone. The awful agent is our nephew, Joe Isenberg.<\/p>\n

As Director Beverly told me after the show, \u201cJoe has to be willing to be not liked,\u201d and he paraphrased a reviewer who said, \u201cyou may not like this character, but you can admire Joe\u2019s portrayal.\u201d We did! And we liked all the do-wop music too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We braved the Amtrak\/New Jersey Transit\/Penn Station debacle last Sunday to go into New York to see an off-off-(perhaps a third off is needed here, I\u2019m not sure)-Broadway play in which our nephew-in-law is appearing. It was fun to rub … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"WINK - new play about gender identity","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,366,104,147],"tags":[218,999,998,91,997],"class_list":["post-6585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-hollywood","tag-joshua-de-jesus","tag-neil-koenigsberg","tag-new-york","tag-wink"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-wink","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6588,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions\/6588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}