Susan Granger’s review of “You Will Get Sick” (Laura Pels Theater/Roundabout- Off-Broadway)
Noah Diaz wrote the surreal absurdist play “You Will Get Sick” – about disease, dying and death – as his Yale Drama School thesis – and now it’s making its Off-Broadway debut at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theater with 85 year-old Tony-winner Linda Lavin superbly propelling the production.
But she’s not the one who receives the terminal diagnosis. She is Callan, a ‘caregiver’ of sorts, for a man (Daniel K. Isaac) known only as #1, who is willing to pay for someone to chronicle the onset and progress of his demise. For example, he will pay $60 for Callan to accompany him to a medical supply store to get a cane and wheelchair.
Callan’s intention is to use this unique relationship as the basis for a monologue to present to her night-school acting class. Not that she has much talent for acting – even less for singing – although she seems bizarrely determined to play Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.”
FYI: There are many “Oz” allusions and metaphors.
But it gets even more complicated since #1 withholds so much essential information that there’s a narrator (Dario Ladani Sanchez) with a microphone to supply that – as playwright Noah Diaz obliquely delves into the psychological effects of illness.
Nate Miller and Miranda Anderson are memorable in various supporting roles.
Even before the play begins, as the audience enters the theater, the lobby walls are filled with leaflets that offer $20 to call a particular phone number with the notice: “I Need To Tell You Something I’m Not Ready To Tell Anyone I Know.”
Running a brief 85 minutes, it’s adroitly directed by Sam Pinkleton, nominated for a Tony for choreographing “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.” Pinkleton inventively integrates the dialogue with the collective dots’ set concept, Lee Kinney’s sound design, augmented by Cha See’s lighting, Skyler Fox’s illusions, Daniel Kluger’s original music, along with Michael Krass and Alicia Austin’s costuming.
Bottom Line: It’s definitely avant-garde, experimental theater.
“You Will Get Sick” runs until Dec. 11, 2022.