By Matthew Wexler
There’s an odd moment in The Disappear, when a modestly successful Gen Z actress challenges a film director who could catapult her career on the authorship of a line from King Lear. Could it have been Mary Sidney instead of Shakespeare? Who gets credit—whether for creative endeavors or a failing marriage—is a running theme in Erica Schmidt’s new Off-Broadway play. Unfortunately, it’s one of many seeds that fail to germinate in the playwright’s self-described “seriocomedy about making art while the world is falling apart.”
Schmidt also directs, assembling an adept cast, including Hamish Linklater as Benjamin Braxton, the insolent man-child director, Miriam Silverman as his more successful wife, Mira, and Madeline Brewer as the actress who unapologetically leverages her youth and beauty for a chance at a breakout role. But it’s Dylan Baker (The Good Wife) as a British film producer, whose drunken stroll down memory lane steals the show. Too bad there’s no place to go.
Set in a farmhouse in the Hudson Valley as Ben nears completion of his next script, Schmidt nods to the artistic and familial woes found in Chekhov’s The Seagull with a bit of Noël Coward theatrics thrown in for good measure. The resulting stylistic mish-mash offers an occasional chuckle, but, as written, Linklater’s excruciatingly self-absorbed Ben borders on verbally abusive, and one wonders why anyone puts up with him, no matter how talented he is. (Sound familiar?)
Themes of a self-destructing world creep their way in by way of the couple’s angsty teen daughter, Dolly (Anna Mirodin), who plants an “apology garden” in an effort to offset her carbon footprint, while the movie’s co-star, Raf Night (a charismatic Kelvin Harrison Jr.), arrives on the scene to spark Mira’s dormant desires.
In its final scene, amid a thunderous storm, The Disappear reaches for a moment worthy of Shakespearean tragedy (or whoever was writing in his name). The intention is admirable, but the ecosystem Schmidt builds can’t support this much life. She’s assembled actors capable of making us care. If only the play would let them.
3 out of 5 stars
It wants better content.
Fast facts: ‘The Disappear’
Erica Schmidt’s The Disappear has no shortage of ideas—climate anxiety, creative authorship, marital collapse—but the overgrown script never gives its talented cast room to breathe.
- Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, New York City
- Running time: Two hours and 15 minutes with one intermission
- Performances through February 22, 2026
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