With a splash of light and burst of music Incognito explodes onto the stage and there you are on this incredible ride for the next 90 minutes. Doug Hughes’ direction of Nick Payne’s brilliant script is so spot on, so meticulous and moving at the speed of light that there is no room for you to exhale. The actors, all four of them, play a total of 26 characters with no costume changes just their voices, body language and attitude melding seamlessly from one character to another. It is a tour-de-force for these incredibly skilled performers. They’re jawing dropping good.
The set is minimal, just 4 chairs because Ben Stanton’s lighting is so sublime that it is all that is needed for us to imagine the other worlds. David Van Tieghem’s sound design – primal rock and roll. I could use extra super adjectives here and there again and again, but really all you need to know is that this is why we have theatre; this is its magic, its lesson, its humanity.
I don’t really want to tell you more. Not this time. I want you to go and see it. This is the off-Broadway scene as it should be, intimate and at the same time expansive, thought provoking, exciting and surprising. See Geneva Carr and Charlie Cox and Heather Lind and Morgan Spector simply blow your mind. And that is what the play is about – your mind. Oh, I’ve already said too much.
Don’t read anything about it. Just go, with a friend if you can and then go out after for a drink or coffee and sit and talk about what you saw, how you feel, what adjectives you would use to describe your experience.
Manhattan Theatre Club presents the American premiere of Incognito, the new play written by Nick Payne (Constellations) and directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes (The Father, Doubt, Outside Mullingar).
The cast of Incognito features Tony Award nominee and Theatre World Award winner Geneva Carr (Hand To God), Charlie Cox (Netflix’s “Daredevil”), Heather Lind (AMC’s “Turn: Washington’s Spies”), and Drama Desk Award nominee Morgan Spector (Ironbound).
The creative team for Incognito features Scott Pask (scenic design), Catherine Zuber (costume design), Ben Stanton (lighting design), David Van Tieghem (original music & sound design), J. David Brimmer (fight director), Peter Pucci (movement direction), and Stephen Gabis (dialect coach).
