Alexis
Soloski

July 30, 2014

Gentrification has come to Harlem: the wine bars, the refurbished brownstones, the swanky potato chips at the corner bodega. You can catch a close-up view of that kind of transition onstage in Seth Zvi Rosenfeld’s play Handball, in Marcus Garvey Park. Handball, produced by SummerStage, takes place in an unnamed neighborhood. It might be North Brooklyn or the South Bronx or even the Harlem blocks around Marcus Garvey. The action plays out on a similar patch of ground, the center of contention between the locals who use it for handball and dominoes and the new arrivals who want to build dog runs and flower gardens. “It’s bogus at the highest of levels,” a longtime resident tells an incomer. “Go back to Westchester.” He replies, “I’m actually from Connecticut.” A production of Urban Theater Movement, the play owes a debt to Stephen Adly Guirgis’s gaily profane odes to city life. The characters also include several teenagers and a local politico, all jockeying for control of the same plot of grass and concrete. The script is somewhat distended. Scenes go on too long, and structure sags so that Mr. Rosenfeld can insert more jokey exchanges.