Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All this week during our membership drive, we're ending the show each day with a guide to some can't-miss cultural happenings in today theater on and off-Broadway. We're joined by Vinson Cunningham, staff writer and theater critic for The New Yorker and co-host of their new podcast Critics at Large. Vinson, welcome to WNYC.

Vinson Cunningham: Brian, it's such a pleasure to be on with you. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with a couple of the plays you've reviewed for The New Yorker that opened this fall, starting with Purlie Victorious (A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch). This dates from the early '60s, the storyline, and stars Leslie Odom Jr. of Hamilton fame among other things. Is this a can't-miss theatrical event?

Vinson Cunningham: First of all, I love that phrase. It is in fact a can't-miss theatrical event. It tells the story of these people, these Black people who work as sharecroppers on land on which they used to be enslaved. Even though that sounds very heavy, it's a comic romp through the life of this preacher named Purlie Victorious, who is played by Leslie Odom Jr., and his almost race-hustler-like attempt to free his people and get their ancestral church back.

Brian Lehrer: The great Kenny Leon directed this. How tricky is it to stage a play from the Civil Rights era today, or is it sadly not tricky at all?

Vinson Cunningham: Certainly, many of the issues are still salient, and in that way, it's very easy to recapitulate some of those for contemporary audiences. What Kenny Leon does so well is direct his actors toward a new understanding in a way that they almost seem to be dancing the whole time. There's this wonderful choreography. If you like the comedy of Lucille Ball or Buster Keaton style physical comedy, it's all there for you in that.

Brian Lehrer: Next, let's go on to Jaja's African Hair Braiding from Manhattan Theater Club, which has been extended, I see, through November 19th, so I guess it must be doing pretty well. Tell us a little bit about that play.

Vinson Cunningham: Yes. Jaja's African Hair Braiding, it's wonderful. It tells a story of several West African immigrant women that are all-- the locus of their coming together is this hair braiding shop in which they work, and it shows you a day in their lives. From the beginning, the shop opens, someone comes in to get the highly intricate hairstyle done, and you see all these sort of rivalries but also points of friendship and sisterhood between these women.

It's a really heartening show. Jocelyn Bioh, who wrote it, is one of my favorite younger writers in the theater scene today. It's a really wonderful and heartening, if you like, boisterous dialogue, a lot of motion on stage. You'll really like this.

Brian Lehrer: I saw it compared to Steel Magnolias but among West African immigrants, not Southern belles. Is that an out-of-comparison?

Vinson Cunningham: [laughs] Yes. Leave race and class and lots of other things aside, geography, this aspect of a close sisterhood that it's riven with all kinds of cracks, but also lovely places. I guess that is pretty apt, although I'm more of a Designing Women person myself.

Brian Lehrer: One of the hot tickets this fall is Merrily We Roll Along, the revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical that was such a hit off-Broadway. Now it's on Broadway getting raves and with the same cast. This had been revived before but not so successfully. What do you think makes this time work so well?

Vinson Cunningham: Well, I think what it is, besides the great casting, I think Daniel Radcliffe as Charlie is a masterstroke, just given all of the cultural weight that we ascribed to Daniel Radcliffe because of the Harry Potter of it all. My colleague, Helen Shaw, really aptly says that the reason that this works this time is that it's been imbued with a certain kind of compassion and love that it hadn't always been the focusing on the more jaded and hard parts of these people has, I think, made their fundamental predicament a little bit less accessible to people, but there's an aspect of, as I say, compassion here that I think has really been the heart of this new production.

Brian Lehrer: The similarly titled Merry Me-- Now, I have to be careful how I say that because you could go from Boston to New York to Chicago and say, "Marry me, marry me, marry me." [laughter] This is merry, as in feeling merry, Merrily We Roll Along. Merry Me is also on your list, and this one is off-Broadway downtown through November 19th. Tell us about it.

Vinson Cunningham: Yes, it's at New York Theater Workshop. I haven't even seen this yet, but I'm making a recommendation about it. It seems like a farce that mixes Restoration comedy and Greek drama. A lot of almost [unintelligible 00:05:19] ridiculousness, but I'm recommending it because of the writer. His name is Hansol Jung.

Maybe you saw his show Wolf Play a couple of years ago. He's just a wonderful writer who can take many aspects of puppetry and other kinds of stage technique but always make it land in the heart. I'm really entranced by this burgeoning career.

Brian Lehrer: Last but not least, actor Danny DeVito is on Broadway at the Roundabout. People were so starstruck when he was in the studio with Alison yesterday. I Need That is the name of the play by Theresa Rebeck. Tell us about it.

Vinson Cunningham: Well, I think the premise is pretty easy Danny--

Brian Lehrer: Rebeck, sorry.

Vinson Cunningham: Yes, yes. First of all, Theresa Rebeck is a wonderful writer, but the premise is Danny DeVito is a hoarder. Of course, there are so many emotional resonances that we draw from the condition of hoarding, a certain relationship to memory, a relationship to letting things go and allowing new things in.

I'm mostly in this because I love Danny DeVito and I can't wait to see him work in this play. Also, I think this show, it's an interesting thing how a trope like the hoarder makes its way up from maybe reality television, if you've ever watched the show Hoarders, and makes its way up the ladder of culture. I'm interested to see what Theresa Rebek has done with this trope and how she's weaponized, I guess, Danny DeVito in service of it.

Brian Lehrer: In our last 30 seconds or so, I want to thank you for doing this spot by mentioning that I see you have a novel coming out next year.

Vinson Cunningham: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Congratulations in advance.

Vinson Cunningham: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: It's called Great Expectations. Hasn't that title been taken by someone?

Vinson Cunningham: [laughs] Yes, you may have heard it before. It's one of my favorite novels, but it's loosely based on my own time working on the first Obama campaign. It's about a young person working on a presidential campaign of an unnamed candidate and being slowly drawn into the sphere of influence of two campaign donors.

Of course, it's about the country, and it's a coming-of-age tale and the character, while he's moving into this new stage of his life, he's also thinking about fathers and religion and what is the country and art, so it's a--

Brian Lehrer: I have to jump-

Vinson Cunningham: It's a coming-of-age story. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: -jump in because we're out of time, but please come back when the novel comes out.

Vinson Cunningham: I would love that.

Brian Lehrer: You're officially invited, and maybe we'll talk about theater again between now and then. First, a big thank you. Vinson Cunningham, staff writer and theater critic for The New Yorker and co-host of their new podcast Critics at Large, as well as author of the forthcoming Great Expectations. Thanks, Vinson.

Vinson Cunningham: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Alison next with Jacqueline Woodson and more. Stay tuned.

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