BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Although Lincoln Center Theater’s Beaumont main stage is dark (awaiting the company’s spring revival of “The King and I”), its upstairs and downstairs theaters are brilliant with two new plays that are well worth seeing.

Sarah Ruhl’s “The Oldest Boy” and Kimber Lee’s “brownsville song (b-side for tray)” are different in their styles and content. Yet both are distinctive dramas by women that explore modern-day matters of life and death.

The latest work by the ever-surprising Sarah Ruhl, “The Oldest Boy” premiered on Monday in LCT’s downstairs Mitzi E. Newhouse space.

Fluently composed by Ruhl as an intriguing two-act drama with highly mystical overtones, the story regards an American couple. She is from Ohio, he is from Tibet. They are visited by Buddhist monks who believe their three-year-old son is the reincarnated soul of a great spiritual teacher.

The reincarnation concept is not alien to them. The boy’s father is a Buddhist and his mother, the play’s central figure and narrator, is a former Catholic who now is “kind of Buddhist.” Their child’s enthusiastic and correct responses to the monks’ examination uncannily indicate that he is the reincarnated teacher.

The monks now wish to take him back to a monastery in India to be enthroned as a high lama.

All right, parents, what would you do?

The play’s second act, which resolves the situation radiantly, is not as intriguing but director Rebecca Taichman’s excellent staging bolsters the drama with beautiful bits of Buddhist myth and pageantry.

An especially wise decision was to depict the child with a life-sized puppet. He is given a youthful voice by Ernest Abuba, who hovers at the puppet’s side as if he were the reincarnated soul within the boy.

The pure theatrical magic generated by the audience’s suspension of disbelief to accept the puppet as a child profitably transfers to the play as well as its production. Celestial lighting from Japhy Weideman, evocative music and sounds by Darron L. West, fine East-West costumes by Anita Yavich and the puppet design and direction by Matt Acheson are key factors to the show’s considerable charm.

Mimi Lien designs a spare, delicate setting to accommodate the little wonders of this delicate play. The moment when the mother’s mind expands to comprehend the mystery of it all is thrilling.

The role of the father is underwritten, but James Yaegashi gives his character a steadfast nature. An actress whose forthright appeal and heart-in-her-voice sensitivity is endearing, Celia Keenan-Bolger warmly embodies an Every-mom confronted by a mind-blowing possibility.

As the kindly lama who visits the couple, James Saito is especially touching when his character reunites with the soul of his beloved teacher.

Meanwhile, the company’s enterprising LCT3 division, situated up in the penthouse Claire Tow Theater, presents a contrasting drama that proves as heartbreaking as the play downstairs is glowing.

A sadly familiar story, “brownsville song (b-side for tray)” is Kimber Lee’s portrait of Tray, a Brooklyn teen who is senselessly killed in a gang incident. The playwright treats the tragedy in unexpected ways.

Beginning with an old woman’s wrenching lament, the 90-minute drama’s brief scenes smoothly shift back and forth in time over a year. The language is rich and expressive. No gunshots, either.

The family unit involves Tray (Sheldon Best), his feisty grandmother Lena (Lezan Mitchell) and a much younger half-sister Devine (Taliyah Whitaker). Estranged from them is Merrell (Sun Mee Chomet), Devine’s mom, an English teacher who became a junkie. Now out of rehab, the repentant woman is trying to restart her life. One of Merrell’s jobs is tutoring Tray towards obtaining a college scholarship.

Rather than being a depressing study in street violence, the play’s structure, characters and language ultimately fuse to provide a sense of spiritual victory over death.

The play is tenderly acted under the wise direction of Patricia McGregor, whose production is designed with gritty artistry by Andromache Chalfant (sets), Dede M. Ayite (costumes), Jiyoun Chang (lighting) and Asa Wember (sound). The urban environment that they create involve many contrasts in warm and cold, bright and dark, cozy and bleak and all of the shades between, which befit this complex yet lucid work by a highly gifted playwright.

“The Oldest Boy” continues through Dec. 28. “brownsville song (b-side for tray)” continues through Nov. 16. Lincoln Center Theater, 150 W. 65th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.lct.org.

PHOTO 1: Ernest Abuba and Celia Keenan-Bolger perform a scene from "The Oldest Boy." — CREDIT: T. Charles Erickson

PHOTO 2: Taliyah Whitaker and Lizan Mitchell perform a scene from "brownsville song (b-side for tray)."— CREDIT: Erin Baiano