Lift. 59E59 (see Off Broadway). By Walter Mosley. Directed by Marshall Jones, III. With Biko Eisen-Martin, MaameYaa Boafo. Running time: 2hrs 15mins. One intermission.
Lift: In brief
Stranded in a skyscraper elevator during a disaster, two coworkers share uncomfortable truths about themselves in the first full-length play by popular crime novelist Walter Mosley (Devil in a Blue Dress). Marshall Jones III directs the NYC premiere for 59E59's new 5A series.
Lift: Theater review by Raven Snook
Celebrated African-American crime novelist Walter Mosley, best known for his hard-boiled Easy Rawlins detective series, makes a decidedly uneasy transition from page to stage with Lift. Save for a brief prologue that oozes with obvious setups, the repetitive and overlong piece takes place inside a broken elevator in a bombed office building, where two imperiled African-American strangers have familiar discussions about race, class, culture and sex as they try to figure a way out.
Biko Eisen-Martin and MaameYaa Boafo are likable and attractive as young, upwardly mobile singletons Southmore and Tina, but they can’t overcome all the telegraphed “reveals” substituting for character development and plot. Worse, Mosley throws in extraneous drama as disembodied voices from other damaged elevators share their woes. Lift, which debuted earlier this year at New Jersey’s Crossroads Theatre Company with the same cast and creative team, aims to be suspenseful, but its biggest mystery is how it ever transferred to NYC.—Theater review by Raven Snook
THE BOTTOM LINE A veteran novelist stalls in a new medium.