The Great Leap--Immensely Entertaining 

By Joseph Cervelli

I must say that I am not familiar with playwright Lauren Yee’s previous works which I now regret after viewing the highly satisfying and original “The Great Leap” at the Atlantic Theater Company. 

I was slightly unsure about attending since it seemed the play deals with basketball which I know about as much of as nuclear physics. Yet, I was completely taken in from the very first scene,  since the play is about determination in setting and fulfilling your goals along with some surprises along the way. While the play’s conclusion is a bit contrived it by no means spoils the vast enjoyment throughout and is helped immensely by a superior cast of four exceptional performances. 

The play begins in 1989 with the basketball coach for the University of San Francisco, Saul (played with mastery skill by Ned Eisenberg) who has been invited to bring his team to Beijing for an exhibition game. The manic and quite funny high school senior Manford (a wonderfully convincing Tony Aidan Vo), wants to play point guard for the team. His height is a problem so the foul mouthed Saul refuses despite Manford’s constant begging him. Saul has enough problems with a not very amicable divorce and problems in seeing his daughter.  We later find out that the young man’s mother has passed away and he is living with this “cousin” Connie (an excellent Ali Ahn) who is not really related but her father is the superintendent of their building. There is little mention of what happened to Manford’s own father in the first act. In a flashback to 1979 we see Saul (at first, you might not immediately  recognize the impressive Eisenberg with a toupee and shorts looking years younger as he is supposed to ) who was invited to Beijing to help teach the Chinese team some American techniques. There he meets the humble translator Wen Chang (a superb BD Wong) who has a difficult time trying to translate Saul’s epithets and vile comments which prove to be more amusing than offensive. 

Things turn more serious in the even better second act when Saul agrees to bring Manford to Beijing in which complications develop. Wen Chang has become the basketball coach and suddenly the new Chinese players are now about seven feet tall. Not exactly what Saul nor Manford anticipated.

What Lee has done under the decisive direction by Taibi Magar is not only to build the suspense of what will happen during the basketball game (staged thrillingly in almost a stationary position) but Manford getting caught up at the time the students were marching and being killed in Tiananmen Square. David Bengali’s projection designs are extremely effective.

What is admirable is that Yee could have easily have had Wen Chang become a  condescending voice on the behavior of the  Americans but that is  not the case. There is some worthwhile and faithful philosophising but no preaching which is an easy pitfall. 

Hagar and the tremendous cast has pulled the audience into this show that slowly blossoms into a social conscience  that informs and entertains along the way.

        Tickets are available at the Atlantic Theater Company/Stage 2 330 West 16th Street or by calling 866.811.4111.


PHOTO CREDIT: Ahron R. Foster