Spotlight on Plays: Barbecue

Robert O’Hara recently gained a lot of attention (not to mention a well-deserved Tony Award nomination) for his direction of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play. He’s also a writer and amongst his plays is Barbecue, which had its world premiere at The Public Theater in 2015.

Barbecue is this week’s offering in the Spotlight on Plays series from Broadway’s Best Shows. The streaming reading becomes available on December 10th and will remain available through Monday, December 14th.

This is a very funny play that has an early twist you don’t see coming. Reviews of the play have often given away that twist, but I say, the less you know the better.

On a very basic level the play is about a family intervention disguised as a barbecue. They are all there to help one family member who has a substantial drinking problem. Things from there don’t go quite as the characters planned, nor as the audience thinks they will. And there are more twists ahead.

Christopher Isherwood, writing in the New York Times, had issues with the second act, but admitted, “Mr. O’Hara, the author of last season’s audacious Bootycandy, has a heat-seeking imagination when it comes to style and structure.” (There are spoilers in his review, so if you want to be surprised, don’t read it.)

I enjoyed the play when I saw it at the Geffen Playhouse in 2016. That production was directed by Colman Domingo who appears in this reading.

The rest of the cast includes Carrie Coon (2013 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Kimberly Hébert Gregory (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark), Annie McNamara (Tony nominee for Slave Play), S. Epatha Merkerson (Come Back Little Sheba), Laurie Metcalf (Three Tall Women), David Morse (The Iceman Cometh), Kristine Nielsen (Present Laughter), Tamberla Perry and Heather Simms – both of whom appeared in Barbecue at The Public Theater.

Tickets are only $5 with proceeds benefitting The Actor’s Fund.

Photo: Robert O’Hara (Courtesy Playwrights Horizons)