The New Group is offering us a play called The Seven Year Disappear by Jordan Seaver. Directed by Scott Elliott, it is now running at The Signature Pershing Square Theatre on West 42nd Street for a limited time only. It is an odd piece of work with a cast of just two played by Cynthia Nixon and Taylor Trensch as a very odd mother and son. It is all set simply on a stage backed by half a dozen large video screens of different sizes that is remarkably fluid and allows us to move through the seven years during which mother had disappeared leaving the boy alone to get through his growth years on his own.
Miss Nixon has personally matured as an actress of a certain age. In this play she plays a mother in her fifties who returns to help her son understand why she had to leave him and who his father was. Because both actors are dressed in black jumpsuits in collusion with the minimal staging with no concern for changing characters and scenes or the issues of their later days, it’s all a bit murky. We were offered only a one card program, though we were invited to learn more by scanning a QR code or visiting the site tng.theater/program.
Though both actors often give engaging performances, the volume of their angry interactions and racing dialog makes much of it indecipherable. Occasionally the script will contain insight or wit, but for the most part it is just a loud howl of a battle.