Three ageless witchy sisters live together in a basement apartment in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood something like Edgewater or Andersonville. Wyrd is a 2018 play written by Matt Minnicino that gives you an off-kilter view of witchery skills over the millennia in an often poetic, often playful, sometimes chilling way. Sonya Robinson directs Wyrd, set in a city that is an oven, with 98-degree days and no AC. (As one character says, It’s hot enough to char brisket on the sidewalk. When you walk by people, you can smell literally years into their pasts.)
The first sister we meet is sweet Snow (Maria Ines Manuel), who’s falling in love with a woman she’s just met named Jan (Blaire Prince). Their scene together is typical of two people in the first throes of romance, sharing experiences and a first kiss. Jan compliments Snow and notes that she doesn’t seem to accept a compliment very well. Snow tells her it’s “Because I would not have room for such a Beautiful Thing, and so I thought If I let it just hang, strung between your lips and my ears, If I didn’t take it, It would simply hum in the air until it dissipates.” Jan is, of course, amazed—and that’s the first thing about Snow that amazes her.
After they decide on a second date, Jan observes that Snow may not be human (and tells us all the ways humans are shitty) but “whatever, we’re nearing the end of civilization, so I mean I like you because you’re something else. I’ve never met anyone like you.” (A lovely way for a first date to end.) Their final kiss is remarkable and Jan says it might have been magic. Snow points out “some call it witchcraft.”
In the next scene, Iras, the mom sister (Nealie Tinlin), is getting ready for a trip and instructs her sisters about signing up for duties on the Google Doc she created. Iras sometimes enters and exits through the door, sometimes through the refrigerator.
Snow and Red (Snag Flynn) are discussing Snow’s new friend. Red, the scary sister, decides to order food from the new Indian place and does so by concentrating (eyes narrow, muscles tense, nostrils flare) because she loathes hearing voices over the phone.
Red has a date with Stuart (Layke Fowler), a WASPy guy with a silver spoon upbringing (he tells us). He regales Red with a story about the summer he spent on an Oklahoma farm where he learned to kill the meat he was going to eat. Red asks if the end of the story is that he’s a vegetarian now and if so, she’s going to Swipe Left. Later Stuart will not know what hit him. (Or bit him.)
As Wyrd progresses, we learn more about the sisters. They each know a lot about the person they have just met. Of all the lifeforms that Snow has lived, her favorite was a barnswallow. Red started the plague in Europe. (The medieval one, not Covid. Although, who knows….) War threatens, but Iras says it’s not a flood or a war in the air; it’s not a war between nations. it’s a war between people. “The war is us.”
Wyrd is sometime charming, often scary, but quite entertaining. Director Robinson moves a lot of action in minimal space—a small studio theater. Tinlin, Manuel and Flynn are solid performers as the three sisters, as are Prince and Fowler as their foils.
Director Sonya Robinson says in a program note that Wyrd was informed by Trump’s first term, and “the frighteningly rapid onset of MAGA ideology.” But it was clearly still the before times. Before Covid, before the political horrors we are living with today. It feels easy to despair, Robinson says, but “ultimate despair can’t exist without our consent.” Going to see storefront theater in a tiny space where you can relax and laugh or cry with others is one way to fight despair. Wyrd is a witch play for hard times..
Elly Burke is scenic and costume designer (and there are many costume changes). Lighting is by Amina Gilbert with sound design by Pierce Howard. Props and magic by Hannah Loessberg. Stage manager and technical director is Jon Yawn.
Wyrd by Lazy Susan Theatre Co. continues at the Greenhouse Theater Center through October 26. Running time is 95 minutes with no intermission. Find tickets and info for performances Thursday-Sunday.
Photos courtesy Lazy Susan Theatre Co.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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