![\""The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Unknown_Emilio-Madrid_9421-scaled.jpg\" "\\"\"The")
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\u201cThe Unknown\u201d at Studio Seaview (Photo: Emilio Madrid)<\/p>\n
An ominous black and white image of an overcoat-clad Sean Hayes looms over Studio Seaview where, inside, Hayes delivers David Cale\u2019s new thriller monologue The Unknown. It\u2019s a darker version of TV\u2019s favorite homosexual than we\u2019ve seen before, and the photography (by Emilio Madrid) seems to say: subvert your expectations \u2013 of Hayes, and of what this play will be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an apt warning, because Cale\u2019s play isn\u2019t quite the Hitchcockian noir its marketing would have you believe. There are moments that induced gasps around me and Leigh Silverman\u2019s shivery production definitely leans into the chiaroscuro, but the mystery at the heart of Cale\u2019s plot isn\u2019t actually what the play is about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elliott, a modestly successful playwright, composer, and screenwriter, leaves the bustling city to stay in his friends\u2019 off-the-grid cottage upstate. He\u2019s having trouble writing and thinks the isolation will be good for him. Quickly, though, he hears a spectral voice singing one of his songs, but cannot locate its source. He flees back to the city where he meets a guy at Julius\u2019 and after some drinks and, perhaps, a date rape drug, he begins to realize that this man may be connected to the voice he heard before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s already at the borderline of revealing too much. It\u2019s not that the beat-for-beat moments are that surprising. But the way that Cale presents them and the way Cha See\u2019s lighting shifts around Hayes\u2019 face and Isobel Waller-Bridge\u2019s music creeps in all contribute to the effective moodiness of the production.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s obfuscation, though. The play isn\u2019t about if Elliott is actually being stalked or not. As the events escalate and, especially, when they conclude, it becomes clear that this is a play about that sturdy old chestnut of authorial fascination: writer\u2019s block. And not just Elliott\u2019s \u2013 David Cale\u2019s, too. The play spends a lot of time ramming into dead ends, dropping cough-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it pieces of information, and veering down \u201cyeah, but what if\u2013\u201d tangents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those aren\u2019t entirely negative qualities. Elliott, clearly a stand-in for Cale, is almost always making the wrong decision. His friends urge him to call the police \u2013 to take any action against this person \u2013 yet he is steadfast in his refusal. Elliott knows that\u2019s bad for the story. That\u2019s not how drama works. He tells us that. This is Cale making bad choices for his fictional character when he probably can\u2019t, and shouldn\u2019t, do so in real life. A cocaine-fueled threesome with British strangers amidst the harrowing experience of being stalked? Sure!<\/p>\n
Hayes feels, at times, like he is ultra-focused on the text to the detriment of living in the moment. It\u2019s a huge undertaking, I get it, but his delivery is curiously level for much of the show. It\u2019s a narrative performance more than a dynamic one, aside from a few blips where his heart rate spikes. Silverman has him standing center stage without furniture or props for most of the seventy minutes and he looks like he doesn\u2019t know what to do. A gifted physical actor, he\u2019s hamstrung by the staging, and often resorts to literal handwringing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The play circles back on itself at its conclusion. Having meandered all around the issue, it has nowhere else to go but back to its start. As it ended, I felt Cale\u2019s own writer\u2019s block jump out. It avoids any resolution and none of the play\u2019s questions are addressed. But it also doesn\u2019t achieve a satisfying ambiguity. We\u2019re left with a writer\u2019s exercise put up on its feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Unknown\u201d at Studio Seaview (Photo: Emilio Madrid) An ominous black and white image of an overcoat-clad Sean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-154411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}