“The Property,” a new play by Ben Josephson, is the story of a woman, two men she has loved and one man she is tempted to love, and the teenage son she stifles with good intentions. Irene, once carefree and artistic but now a low-level corporate manager alarmed by the erosion of her family’s financial security, imposes two measures to shore the family up. She rents out a property — the garden cottage that has been her current husband’s retreat — to a teacher who infatuates her. Then she inveigles her ex, who is her son’s vehemently estranged but influential father, into launching the boy on a lucrative career path. What emerges is the transformation of five people on edge, and constrained by an increasingly ungenerous world, into selves that would horrify the selves they once had been. New Light Theater Project will present the play’s world premiere directed by Robert Kalfin, founder of the Chelsea Theatre Center (winner of five Tony Awards, four Tony nominations and 21 Obies), who has directed widely on Broadway and Off-Broadway and was named a Legend of Off-Broadway by the Off-Broadway Alliance in 2015.

June 16 to July 14, 2018 (opens June 21)
Tue at 7:00 PM, Wed-Sat at 8:00 PM; matinees Sat at 2:00 PM & Sun at 3:00 PM. No performances July 1-4.
Tickets $40-50, Box office: Telecharge, (212) 239-6200, www.thepropertyplay.com or www.telecharge.com

The Property, produced by New Light Theater Project and now playing at The Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row is an innocent light-hearted play with a bubbling cauldron of simmering rage just below the surface. Written by Ben Josephson and efficiently directed by Robert Kalfin, the story is disarmingly simple and allows the fantastic company of actors room to play, debate and charm us, as they make their way through an alarming two-year journey that reveals their darkest selves. The standout performance is by Sam Tsoutsouvas as Vernon, the eldest member of the dysfunctional, warring family; we’re won over within the first minute he steps onstage. Tsoutsouvas is always good; he’s one of that core group of actors here in New York City who never disappoints. I’ve seen him numerous times, he’s disarmingly charismatic, foppish, wily and everything you’d want in an aging lothario who wantonly implies that he still has the goods when the lights go out. Tsoutsouvas’ Vernon gets away with bawdy, audacious, sometimes horrifying moments of self-revelation, happily placing himself in less flattering light. In another rendition of this play, it might be fascinating to see more of this character’s s …Read more