Review: A Throuple Springs From an Old Flame in Danger and Opportunity

An opportunity to fail isn’t something that most of us look for, but it’s a principle that Nietzsche said could lead to a more fully realized life. Philosophy professor Christian (Ryan Spahn) thinks a lot about that idea in Ken Urban’s insightful and intimate Danger and Opportunity, one of the most riveting off-Broadway plays of the season.

In the cozy living-room-size theater of the newly opened East Village Basement, Urban and director Jack Serio immerse us in the lives of three people who find themselves involved in one of those mostly taboo romantic arrangements once called a ménage à trois but now known more inelegantly as a throuple. Sitting within arm’s length of the action, we get a suspenseful, fly-on-the-wall look at how their relationship fares once the initial excitement wears off and real problems intrude.

It begins with an innocent-enough visit from Margaret (Julia Chan), Christian’s college friend whom he hasn’t seen in over 20 years. Christian’s husband, Edwin (Juan Castano), pours them wine in their comfy New York apartment (impeccable set design by Frank J. Oliva) as Margaret teases Christian about his trademark cardigans (spot-on collegial apparel by Avery Reed) and they tell stories about their glory days. A few bottles in, Christian confesses that he and Margaret once had a sexual relationship, and after another glass or two, he admits to still having fantasies about her when he and Edwin are having sex.

Instead of brewing coffee and calling it a night, Edwin says he’s kinda turned on by that, and the three have what they think will be their one-and-only hookup. But over time they grow more intimate, Margaret moves in, and I-love-you’s are exchanged. Even though Edwin and Christian’s friends can’t understand why two gay men are throupling with a woman (another man would have been just fine), they establish a life together over the course of six months. But when Margaret gets some unexpected news from her doctor, they wonder if their threesome can sustain the pressures of a fourth.

As he did in his nail-biting two-hander A Guide for the Homesick, Urban susses out the truth with short scenes that keep us on edge for 90 minutes (Stacey Derosier uses a quick flicker of lamplight to signal the passage of time along with music by Avi Amon). And Serio keeps the pace brisk so that we barely get a breath between one revelation and the next.

The show’s real excitement, though, comes from three terrific actors at the top of their games, all of them turning in stunningly authentic performances in a theater that allows us to see every twitch of the eye and subtle half-smile. Spahn looks every bit the beleaguered professor who’s struggling with the realization that he’s middle-aged and still not sure what he wants out of life. With smiling eyes that can narrow with laser focus, Chan gives a tender yet fierce performance as the 40-something Margaret negotiating the emotional challenges of her nontraditional relationship as she approaches the end of her childbearing years. And Castano blows us away with his openminded yet secretly diffident millennial, moving smoothly through the room with the confidence of youth while hiding a vulnerability that threatens to shatter the Instagram perfection of his image.

Aside from the stellar performances, the play transcends the specifics of the characters’ lives and speaks to the difficulties of any romantic relationship; you don’t have to be gay or polyamorous to find yourself asking questions like, How often do we say yes to things that we know aren’t right for us? Do we stay together because we’re afraid of being alone? Why does the end of a relationship often feel like a personal failure? Embracing the possibility of fucking it all up, Nietzsche might say, is how we learn to live with each other—and ourselves.