Fabulation

Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine is at the Signature Theatre located at 480 West 42nd Street. It runs two hours fifteen minutes with one intermission. The play closes on January 6, 2019.

Lynn Nottage is the playwright. She won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama for Sweat (2017) and Ruined (2009). Lynn won a Tony Award in 2017 for Sweat.

Fabulation is to tell invented stories; create fables or stories with fantasy.

The place is Manhattan and Brooklyn at the present time.

Undine (Cherise Boothe) owns a public relations firm. She has done well, lives in a fancy apartment. Undine rattles on about getting someone famous to come to an event she is putting on that night. She calls her assistant Stephanie (Mayaa Boateng) to see if can think of anyone. Stephanie is so opposite the sophisticated Udine, turquoise hair and high high heels.

While they are trying to come up with a name her accountant (Dashieli Eaves) comes in and tells her that her husband Herve (Ian Lassiter) has taken all her money and she is under investigation by the FBI.

No money, job or place to live she has to find place to live. She goes back to Brooklyn to live with her parents. Undine hasn’t seen her family in over fourteen years. Her family seems a bit dysfunctional. Her brother (Marcus Callender) and grandmother (Mayaa Boating) are on drugs. Undine goes out the street to get Grandma some heroine and gets caught. She gets 6 months in rehab or a year in jail.

We hear the stories of the people in rehab. Undine finds out she’s pregnant. She tries to get help from social services.

The truth comes out in the end. Like when she was graduating from college her family came up in a van to celebrate. Her college friends as if those were her parents. She tells her tells them her parents died in a fire. The lies kept growing.

To first act in the beginning, I felt Udine character was annoying and rubbed me the wrong way. But as the play goes on, I enjoyed it more. The second act was the best.

Except for Cherise Brooks the rest of the cast plays several roles each. They all shine, never skipping a beat.

Nice set by Adam Rigg.

Montana Levi Blanco costumes were great.

Preview BY Rozanna Radakovich.

Photos by Annazor.

To read a candid interview with the cast, scroll down to the left for photos. Click on photos for this and other shows.