Last chance to see The Brothers Size, a five-star show closing this Sunday
—2 min read—
At The Shed in Hudson Yards, the play by Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, The Brothers Size, unfolds like a ritual, a fable, and a party all at once. Tickets go between $45 and $80 and any seat in the house is a good spot.
In just 90 minutes, three actors and a live musician build a world where grief and humor, myth and memory, crash against each other in waves.
That energy starts before the play itself. Munir Zakee, a live percussionist stationed downstage, greets the audience with minimalist but potent rhythms that turn the typical pre-show bustle into something alive and electric. Ushers, staff, and theatergoers alike seem swept up in it. Even the “silence your phones” announcement lands differently—it asks us to remember our loved ones, living and lost. The room shifted into the present instantly, washing all of us in the feeling that the play had already begun.
A story of conflict between two brothers takes the audience through some hazy waters. One that goes back all the way to the days when the oldest notices his share of parental love is about to be split when his younger brother is born. Then, the burden to be a mentor, a protector, and a provider turns into guilt when the youngest doesn’t turn out the way his brother modeled. Instead, he becomes a free-spirited, overly trusting, and loving man who cannot avoid trouble.
They navigate the challenges of many black men in today’s America — a justice system that looks to punish instead of to assist, records that are never overcome, threats and judgments.
“We asked so many questions in 2020 about what it might look like if we didn’t have prisons anymore, what could a justice system look like without incarceration? Is there real rehabilitation?” said the playwright and writer of the movie Moonlight, @. “And this little play of mine hopes to ask those questions. And then it’s up to us, together, to figure out if there are any real answers.”
McCraney’s writing is as musical as it is poetic, swinging between lyrical reflection and comic riffs at breakneck speed. Characters narrate their own stage directions, letting us glimpse not just what they’re doing and thinking, but where they’ve been and where they’re heading.
“When you’ve got performers who are like great jazz artists, as we do,” said Tarell. “You have to make sure(…) you have enough eight counts to back them up.”
Elegba (Malcolm Mays, @), a third piece that disrupts the brothers’ already dysfunctional dynamic, gets a job at a funeral home and claims that working with the dead is better than working with the living — an amazingly ironic line to hear in a theater performance. The audience howled. Moments later, Oshoosi (Alani iLongwe, @)muses about photographs of men abroad who look like him, expanding the play toward a haunting, existential vision that shows up again later in the story.
The cast has the kind of chemistry you creatively pray for in a tight three-hander. Andre Holland (@) grounds the show as Ogun Size, steady and powerful, his performance the metronome that lets the other two riff around him. Alani iLongwe gives Oshoosi Size a thrilling unpredictability—comic, tragic, playful, restless, often all in the same breath. And Mays’s Elegba, with his quiet, melodic delivery, feels like a haunting chord threading through the chaos. Altogether, they navigate the complex material with effortless synergy. Honestly, I haven't seen a trio combine this much joy and mastery working together since 🏀Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green won the chip three years ago.
The actors’ movements are at times a party, then immediately followed by stiffness and tension, while the audience roots for all sides of the fight. Photo by Marc J. Franklin, @. Courtesy The Shed.
The staging deepens the whole sense of ritual. A salt circle spilled onto the perimeter of the floor, the sudden lighting shifts, and costumes that hover between prison blues and everyday workwear all reinforce the play’s duality—grounded in realism, pulsing with myth. Even the off-white Chuck Taylors, the blue cargo Dickies and the subtle variations of blue-collar shirts they all wear speak to the sameness and differences their characters have.
“What could a justice system look like without incarceration? Is there real rehabilitation?” asks Tarell to his audience. Photo by Marc J. Franklin, @. Courtesy The Shed.
I saw the production twice. The Brothers Size is theatre in its purest form. Treat yourself and go see some magic.
The show is closing on Sunday, Sep. 28th.
Find tickets from $45 here
