Theater: Acorn Theatre / 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036
Synopsis:
Set in the Russian-Jewish enclave of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Russian Transport is a deeply
personal tale of an immigrant couple, their two assimilated teenagers and the fierce and fiery upheaval they experience when sexy, mysterious Uncle Boris from the old country comes to stay with them for his shot at the American dream. Part family drama, part heart-pounding thriller, this debut from Erika Sheffer captures the complex and conflicting layers of striving, joy, pain and terror in one very particular immigrant experience.
January 30, 2012: The standup comic and sometime actress Janeane Garofalo drops the shtick, more or less, to play a stern Russian Jewish mother in Brooklyn in “Russian Transport,” by Erika Sheffer, a new play from the New Group that opened on Monday night at the Acorn Theater.
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January 30, 2012: What's this? A thoughtful, well-written domestic drama with something original to say about immigrant families living by old world values in a new world culture? Pinch me! In her provocative debut drama, "Russian Transport," Erika Sheffer draws her characters from the Russian Jewish community of Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay -- not the sitcom pool. Taking a tip from Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge," tyro scribe acknowledges the criminal underclass that operates in immigrant communities, presenting a constant threat to the stability of families like the one that comes vividly to life here.
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January 31, 2012: At the start of Russian Transport, an air mattress spontaneously inflates out of a cabinet and onto the living-room floor of a house in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. It’s a striking image, and hits just the right note of invasive tumescence for Erika Sheffer’s engrossing moral thriller. The play’s first scenes seem to promise a night of familiar domestic comedy, with a Russian-immigrant twist: Misha (Daniel Oreskes) is the put-upon papa, who runs a struggling car service; Diana (Janeane Garofalo) is his dour, bossy wife; Alex (Raviv Ullman) and Mira (Sarah Steele) are their bickering teenage kids. But with the arrival from abroad of Diana’s brother Boris (an impressive Morgan Spector), the family veers into ugly new territory.
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January 31, 2012: Some families have trouble communicating. The immigrant family at the center of Erika Sheffer's "Russian Transport," the latest production from the talented director Scott Elliott at The New Group, is not one of them.
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January 30, 2012: The new family drama “Russian Transport” isn’t edgy or groundbreaking. Rather, it’s a good old-fashioned delicacy: a solid yarn, well told.
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January 31, 2012: The New Group is presenting playwright Erika Sheffer in an off Broadway debut at The Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row. The Ruskies have landed in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn and might seem like any other low-middle income immigrant Russian Jews, all lovingly cursing at each other but for the fact that there’s more than Misha (Daniel Oreskes) and wife Diana’s (Janeane Garofalo) struggling car service going on. They’re raising two teenagers, Mira (Sarah Steele) and Alex (Raviv Ullman), each hiding their own secrets, aside from big brother annoying little sister whenever possible.
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January 30, 2012: As Tolstoy famously said, all happy families are alike. That does not mean that all unhappy families are inherently interesting or should have plays written about them. The immigrant clan depicted in Erika Sheffer's "Russian Transport," presented by the New Group, has some potentially fascinating quirks, but the novice playwright has settled for familiar plot twists, and there are too many structural flaws to ignore.
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January 31, 2012: Playwright Erika Sheffer makes an impressive debut with Russian Transport, receiving its world premiere in a New Group production at the Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row. While the play may stumble in spots, it is impossible to dismiss Sheffer's command of storytelling and zestful, pungent dialogue.
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