Sean Hayes stars in David Cale’s The Unknown, directed by Leigh Silverman, at Studio Seaview.
(© Emilio Madrid)
No one is writing better solo plays right now than David Cale. I’m convinced of that after seeing his latest, The Unknown, at Studio Seaview. A dramatic perpetual motion machine radiating horror and suspense, it’s guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat, hanging on every word.
Sean Hayes stars as Elliot, a New York City-based writer struggling to come up with his next project. His friends, Larry and Chloe, offer their upstate home as a retreat. They won’t be there and figure the solitude will allow Elliot to concentrate. The first morning, he is woken by the sound of someone singing a number from his last musical, a haunting ballad titled “I Wish You’d Wanted Me.” He thinks it might be Larry joining him unexpectedly, but when he goes to the front door, no one is there. Then he hears the song again. Frightened, he hightails it back to the city, only to find the lyrics of the song tacked to his mailbox.
What follows is a game of cat and mouse as Elliot realizes he has a stalker but chooses not to involve the police. Instead, he surrenders to the writerly impulse to run toward drama, hoping that this potentially dangerous situation might at least be the much needed laxative for his writer’s block. But could this dogged pursuit of art just be a cover for Elliot’s deep and protracted loneliness?
Like he did with Blue Cowboy, Cale takes the perfectly mundane thread of an older gay man’s vanishing romantic life and spins it into a magnificent tapestry rich in detail. Some of his more audacious contrivances could make a telenovela writer blush (identical twins feature). But Cale’s writing is so beautifully crafted, and Hayes’s performance so persuasive, that I could not look away.
Sean Hayes stars in David Cale’s The Unknown, directed by Leigh Silverman, at Studio Seaview.
(© Emilio Madrid)
Hayes has found the solo performer’s sweet spot, delivering instantly distinct sketches of all 11 characters in the script without having to compensate through exaggerated gestures or cartoonish voices. A slight descent in his vocal register and he is Larry. The addition of an East Texas twang to his nervous triangle of a mouth and he is Joey, a handsome stranger Elliot meets at Julius’ on West 10th Street. Through gently insistent charisma, Hayes invites us to be Elliot’s accomplice as the middle-aged gay writer steps into the role of Nancy Drew.
Leigh Silverman, who helmed Cale’s Harry Clarke and Sandra, directs a live thriller for one. Studio Bent’s scenic design is an empty stage, but from that void emerges an entire cinematic world. Cha See dramatically lights it, with Hayes’s face only half-illuminated for some of the spookier moments. See also gives us cozy mood lighting for a scene in a posh? West Village restaurant. Sound designer Caroline Eng populates that moment with light piano music and clinking silverware. She also gives us the eerie surround-sound sensation of an unknown singer moving around outside the upstate house, crunching leaves underfoot as he goes.
It all leaves us feeling on edge, as if a sudden cue could change everything. Even Sarah Laux’s unassuming streetwear costume has surprises hiding in plain sight. Isobel Waller-Bridge’s intense original music underscores the suspense as Elliot chases what could alternately result in his untimely death or the greatest story of his life.
Expertly fashioned by some of the best storytellers working in the theater, The Unknown exposes our susceptibility to narrative, something that does not diminish with age and experience. As our national obsession with the Epstein files proves, we’re more willing to believe the outlandish plot or grand conspiracy when the alternative is depressing banality—the way the world has always operated, with little regard for you. For 75 minutes, Elliot gets to be the main character in an exhilarating drama, and he wastes not a second of it.