My Take Broadway Review: 'Wolf Play'

The show: “Wolf Play” at Manhattan Class Company by Hansol Jung,previously presented at at SoHo Rep,

What is it?: A vivid, moving and inventive theatrical take of an orphan Koren 6-year-old but who is being shuttled from one adoptive parents to another. Korean-born Jung, and a grad of the Yale School of Drama, has crafted a touching, tale of loss, and displacement. in the world of illegal child adoptions on the Internet,

What makes it special?: Creative staging, storytelling and extraordinary use of puppetry.

What’s it about?: Boy Jeenu is dropped off by his first adoptive father, Peter (Christopher Bannow) into the house of a queer couple. Robin (Nicole Villamil), so wants the child she found in Peter’s listing on a Yahoo! chat room Robin is supported by her macho brother Ryan (Brian Quijada) — at first — but her non-binary partner Ash (Esco Jouléy), isn’t quite ready for this adoption pass-off. And the child has issues.

Issues?: He thinks he’s a wolf, and clearly a coping mechanism of his trauma of being passed along.

Sounds sad: Yes, but there are many moments of joy, playfulness and heartwarming tenderness , too — especially as Ash’s love for the child grows for the boy who enters their life just as they are competing for an important boxing match with the alpha male Ryan as their trainer.

Mitchell Winter is the extraordinary actor in a truly transformative performance as wolf/human/ host/narrator and puppeteer of the child . Villamil as Robin and Jouléy as Ash also give richly realized performances.

Who will like it?: Fans of creative staging and storytelling. Those who are enchanted by the spell of puppetry.

Who won’t?: Those who prefer more conventional storytelling, I guess.

For the kids?: Yes, though despite the use of puppetry it’s not a children’s show. It deals with serious and heartbreaking issues. Still, kids of as certain age (I don’t know your child well) will be also drawn to the theatrical imagination of the production.

One more note: A big bravo to director Dustin Wills whose fast-paced, continually creative staging is both fun and haunting. I still remember his staging of a stunning “Peter Pan” when he was at the Yale School of Drama — a flawed and overloaded production — never-the-less showed a great stage artist in the making.

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