If the subway is the great equalizer, then so is the sauna, where social classes often dissolve into a shared state of vulnerability. On a humid, rainy evening, theatergoers gathered at the iconic Russian and Turkish Baths in the East Village to experience a blend of both worlds.
Attendees, young and old, shed their street clothes for swimsuits and simple navy robes. Their destination: a unique staging of “Dutchman,” a play dramatically set inside a sweltering, un-air-conditioned subway car. This marks the second time this powerful production has transformed the 10th Street bathhouse. In 2013, Rashid Johnson, primarily known as a visual artist and filmmaker, first adapted and directed Amiri Baraka’s incendiary 1964 play about race and sex, and, inspired by his own weekly visits to the bathhouse, staged it in a sauna.
“It felt so natural,” Johnson said of the dramatic setting. “It’s almost strangely obvious.”
Now, this potent one-act play returns for a five-night run, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of Performa, New York’s renowned performance-art biennial. The revival also aligns with Mr. Johnson’s first major museum survey, currently on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum through mid-January.
“I wouldn’t dare have an expectation for an audience to receive anything in any sort of specific way,” Mr. Johnson stated. “I would like for them to be really present. And I think I’ve created a condition, and the circumstance, to which that presence is almost guaranteed.”
This is certainly not a show for the faint of heart. The script contains racial slurs hurled multiple times, and the temperatures inside the Russian Room far exceed typical home thermostats—so much so that one could quite literally faint.
At the end of the show, theatergoers erupted in cheers, then immediately filed out of the sauna and into the refreshing cold plunge. It truly offered a physical as well as emotional release.
“Somewhere in the 150s,” Dmitry Shapiro, a co-owner of the baths, reported after checking the temperature in the Russian Room. While lower than the usual 194 degrees, it was still hot enough to dry out beef for jerky.
The evening commenced in the bathhouse’s restaurant, where attendees, sans phones, mingled in their matching wrap-tie robes. They chatted beneath a menu of “Russian Home Cooking,” featuring daily specials like “beer shrimp,” tuna salad, and Anna’s borscht.
“I think even the way we’re entering into this is part of the experience,” commented Alexandria Pang, 35, a global luxury brands director and a member of Performa’s young visionaries steering committee. “There’s a vulnerability to it.”
Mr. Johnson began by asking the room for a single clap, commanding attention. He then playfully warned that everyone would soon be “on top of each other” and advised more seasoned sauna-goers to seek higher seating, explaining, “Heat rises. It’s a simple science lesson.”
Attendees carefully clutched the railing as they descended the stairs, wary of slipping, into the cavernous baths. The play itself unfolded across three distinct spaces: the Turkish Sauna, a quieter rest area, and finally, the Russian Room, the spa’s crown jewel.
The group of 40 tightly packed onto wooden benches. The actors, illuminated only by flashlights, performed at the very center of the room, mere inches from the audience’s faces.
“Dutchman” introduces Clay, a Black man, who encounters Lula, a white woman, on a train. What begins as flirtation quickly devolves into a tense, aggressive exchange, a veritable pressure cooker of emotions.
The show, a taut 45 minutes, features dialogue so sharp it practically bites, matched only by the biting heat. It stars just two actors: Jerod Haynes and Tori Ernst.
For Ms. Ernst, it’s a return to the role of Lula, which she first played in the 2013 staging. “It’s sort of that old saying of like, ‘Wow, this piece is still relevant, how amazing and how sad,’” she reflected. “I think that that’s really struck me this time around.”
Ms. Ernst, with her hair in a high ponytail and clad in a red bikini, red lipstick, and a black mesh dress, taunts Clay with seductive advances. Her performance then swings into wild monologues, oscillating from the dismissive, “You’re a well-known type,” to the surreal, “You look like death eating a soda cracker.”
As the heat intensified, shoulders slumped, plastic water bottles crinkled as guests sought relief, and some audience members even shed their robes entirely.
By the time the performance reached the Russian Room, Lula’s initial flirtation had shed all eccentricity. She shrieked, moaned, and cooed in a baby voice, spewing rabid racist remarks.
The tension was palpable, agitating everyone in the room. Breathing grew more labored. Suddenly, audience members began splashing water bottles onto themselves. One man closest to the sauna stove stood up, then sat back down, pacing vertically as he seemingly deliberated leaving before ultimately deciding to endure the experience.
“The heat is the main character,” Haynes observed. “It forces you to confront what’s in front of you.”
As Clay’s presence seemed to grow, the audience visibly withered. When he finally erupted, his uncontained rage accelerated like a salad spinner. Droplets of sweat and spittle flew from his mouth and hands, mingling with the room’s oppressive humidity.
The audience, once passive observers, had transformed into fellow subway passengers, wiping their brows alongside Lula and Clay. In the climactic finale, they became something far darker: silent witnesses to a murder.
As Lula’s knife clattered to the ground, the audience was left both stunned and ready to applaud. The actors, after collecting bouquets of roses, took their bows.
“Now let’s get out of here,” Haynes exclaimed, adding an expletive, prompting cheers from the theatergoers as they filed out of the Russian Room and into the cold plunge.
Daniel Humm, the restaurateur behind Eleven Madison Park, accustomed to saunas, described the experience as “uncomfortable, which was the point.”
“It was intense,” his wife, “Succession” actress Annabelle Dexter-Jones, added. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
As people wrung out their towels, Matthew Filbert, 31, sat on a bench, staring into the distance.
“I’m just trying to digest it, honestly,” he concluded.