The New Englanders

B

In Jeff Augustin’s (Little Children Dream of God) absorbing new play at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage II, we meet a handful of residents of a picture-perfect New England town, plus one interloper. The central character is Eisa (Karla Young; Pretty Hunger), the 17-year-old mixed-race daughter of an interracial same-sex marriage. The Caucasian father is Samuel Stein (Patrick Breen; Next Fall, Fuddy Meers), a tech salesman whose job takes him out of town on alternate weeks. He sees life through rose-colored glasses that show him only what we wants to see, uninfluenced by reality. Aaron (Teagle F. Bougere; Socrates, Beast in the Jungle), the African-American biological father and primary parent, wanted to be a writer but ended up stifled in a dead-end part-time newspaper job. Now that Eisa is leaving the nest, Aaron would like to move to the city, but Samuel resists. The couple have spent many a session with an unseen feckless therapist whose platitudes have been of little benefit. Growing up different in a virtually all-white environment has made Eisa hard-edged and willful. She is eager to start a better life at NYU. Her unhappy English teacher Miss Charpie (Crystal Finn; Bobbie Cleary, Pocatello) thinks Eisa is her only bright student, but locks horns with her when she fails to complete an assignment. Aaron is visited by his Latino first love Raul (Javier Muñoz; Hamilton), with whom he broke up cruelly when they graduated high school. Raul has become a drifter, not putting down roots anywhere. His visit stirs Aaron’s thoughts about the road not taken. Atlas (Uly Schlesinger), who goes to high school with Eisa, works at a Chuck E. Cheese, where he sells pot on the side to earn money for college. He meets Samuel under rather implausible circumstances. Atlas is also eager to learn about the music that Eisa listens to. She’s a big Lauryn Hill fan, which would have meant more to me if I had heard her music. I guess the royalties would have been too high. The confrontation between Eisa and her teacher gradually escalates to dangerous heights. The consequences of Eisa’s actions lead Aaron to confront Samuel about the deep fractures in their marriage. My initial warm feelings grew cooler as the plot grew messier. Nevertheless, the play has much to recommend it. Seeing the dynamics of an interracial, same-sex marriage from the viewpoint of the child is enlightening. Getting a glimpse of the drug problem typical of small New England towns is timely. The lead actors are all very good. Ms. Young shows great promise. The role of Raul is too underwritten to show much of Mr. Munoz’s talent. Saheem Ali’s (The Rolling Stone) direction is smooth. Arnulfo Maldonado’s (Sugar in Our Wounds, School Girls) set is both attractive and functional. Dede Ayite’s (Slave Play) costumes are appropriate. I wish the last 15 minutes were better, but even with this reservation, the play is worth seeing. At the performance I attended, the audience was refreshingly diverse. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Linda Vista

B-

Tracy Letts’s 2017 comedy with dark overtones has arrived at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theater after a detour from Chicago to LA, with most of its original Steppenwolf cast intact. It’s his most entertaining, most commercial play since August: Osage County, but that is not entirely a compliment. While it has many hilarious and incisive moments, the whole somehow seems less than the sum of its parts. Dick Wheeler (Ian Barford; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), 50 years old and almost divorced, is a mess. He is bright, funny, opinionated, bitter and self-defeating. His list of dislikes is endless. Years ago he was a news photographer in Chicago, but he gave it up when he felt he lacked sufficient talent, moved to Southern California to be near his wife’s family and took a job as a camera repairman. When first seen, he is moving into a generic San Diego apartment with the help of his friend Paul (Jim True-Frost; August: Osage County). The beautiful view promised by the apartment’s (and the play’s) title is a stretch; if you crane your neck, you can see a sliver of ocean. Wheeler, as he prefers to be called, has known Paul and his wife Margaret (Sally Murphy; August: Osage County) since college. In fact, he actually dated her before Paul. The two of them conspire to get Wheeler to meet a female friend of theirs, Jules Ish (Cora Vander Broek), who is a life coach with a degree in happiness. They double date for an evening of karaoke, during which Jules sees through his abrasiveness to his underlying vulnerability. They end up in the sack, in what has to be the funniest sex scene I have seen on stage or film. Their budding affair is complicated by a late night knock on the door by Wheeler’s attractive young possibly pregnant neighbor Minnie (Chantal Thuy), whose abusive boyfriend has kicked her out. Wheeler invites her to spend the night on his couch. As they say, complications ensue. Another strand of the plot involves Wheeler's life at work where Anita (Caroline Neff; Airline Highway) the attractive young woman he works with, must daily endure the totally inappropriate behavior of their creepy boss Michael (Troy West; August: Osage County). On the positive side, the dialogue is snappy and the actors are uniformly strong, especially Barford and Vander Broek. Todd Rosenthal’s (August: Osage County) scenic design features a smoothly revolving set under a diorama of San Diego’s waterfront skyline. Laura Bauer’s (Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune) costumes really help define the characters. Dexter Bullard’s (Grace, Bug) direction is seamless. There is much to enjoy—a little too much; several of the scenes could use judicious trimming. The female characters would benefit from sharper definition. When it was all over, I wondered whether this character study of a difficult man really merited almost three hours. Be forewarned that there’s lots of nudity and strong language. I am glad I saw it but wish that there were more point to it. Running time: two hours 45 minutes including intermission.

Scotland, PA

C

Although Billy Morrisette’s 2001 film of the same name received mostly negative reviews, it nevertheless became a minor cult classic. It was a parody of Shakespeare’s Scottish play that reset the locale to a greasy spoon diner in a sleepy Pennsylvania town. Now Roundabout Theatre is presenting a musical version with a book by Michael Mitnick (Sex Lives of Our Parents) and music and lyrics by Adam Gwon (Ordinary Days). The results are mixed. Mac (Ryan McCartan; Heathers) and Pat (Taylor Iman Jones; Groundhog Day), a couple working at the diner, feel unappreciated by owner Duncan (Jeb Brown; Beautiful) and decide to go after what they feel they deserve. Their dream turns out to be very much like a certain chain with golden arches. Mac is goaded on by three stoners, led by the delightful Alysha Umphress (On the Town), who replace the traditional three witches. The couple’s dimwitted friend Banko, played by Jay Armstrong Johnson (On the Town), is a hoot. Will Meyers plays Duncan’s unhappy son Malcolm who has a surprising secret. When the bodies start to pile up, detective Peg McDuff (Megan Lawrence; Holiday Inn) investigates. The music and lyrics are serviceable with only a song or two that stands out. The book gets most things right but muddles the stoners’ prophecies. Anna Louizos’s (School of Rock) set is clever and Tracy Christensen’s (Sunset Boulevard) costumes are spot on.  Lonny Price (Sunset Boulevard) directs with assurance. There is nothing specifically wrong with the show; it just is instantly forgettable. The two leads are adequate but are upstaged by Umphress and Johnson. If you want an evening that isn’t too taxing and are a musical fan, you might enjoy this show. Running time: two hours 15 minutes including intermission.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning

C-

Before you look it up, The Fourth Turning is the title of a book about historical cycles much admired by Steve Bannon. The four Catholic conservatives at the center of Will Arbery’s (Plano) new drama at Playwrights Horizons hope to play a leading role during the coming era. They are gathered in Wyoming to celebrate the inauguration of a beloved professor as president of their alma mater. I looked forward to gaining some insight into the conservative mind, but I left mostly disappointed. The protagonists are a motley crew; not one of them is someone I would want to have a beer with. Justin (Jeb Kreager; Oslo), who is about ten years older than his former classmates, was married and in the military; he is teaching at the college but is having doubts about his present life. Kevin (John Zdrojeski; Before We’re Gone) is a feckless underachiever given to self-pity over not having a girlfriend and, when we meet him, very drunk. Teresa (Zoe Winters; White Noise) is a hard-edged assertive Bannonite who works in media in New York. Emily (Julia McDermott), enfeebled by a mysterious illness, is the daughter of Gina (Michelle Pawk; Hollywood Arms), the new college president. When Gina puts in an appearance to greet her former students, she does not give them the pat on the back they crave. In a post-performance talkback, the playwright revealed that, as I suspected, the characters are based on actual people. Unfortunately, he does not present them in a way that makes them easy to care about or to explain the origins of their points of view. 

The play manages to violate three of my theater commandments:

1. Thou shalt not shine bright lights in the audience’s eyes. Rather have a scrim over the stage, the production prevents you from seeing the stage beforehand by dazzling you with very bright lights. If you have a seat near the front, I advise you be seated as close to curtain time as possible so you won’t be assaulted by the lights.

2. Thou shalt not startle the audience with sudden, very loud noises. Three times we are blasted by a horrendous sound, the source of which is never revealed.

     3.  Thou shalt not run for more than two hours without an intermission. 

I might have been more willing to forgive these sins against the audience if the play had been more enlightening. 

Laura Jellinek’s (The Treasurer) set is so dimly lit that it is hard to make out. The costumes by Sarafina Bush; Pass Over) are apt. Director Danya Taymor (“Daddy,” Familiar) does not succeed in turning dross to gold.

Running time: two hours, ten minutes; no intermission.

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The Height of the Storm

C+

You may remember a play by Florian Zeller from a few seasons back, The Father, starring Frank Langella as an older man named Andre sinking into dementia. It captured the fractured nature of the experience and provided a great role for Langella. Now Manhattan Theatre Club has imported, virtually intact, the West End production of another Zeller play about a different elderly man with an increasingly tenuous relationship to reality. As if to imply that it is a riff on the earlier play, the play’s central character is again named Andre and again has daughters named Anne (Amanda Drew) and Elise (Lisa O’Hare, the only actor new to the cast). One important difference is that this Andre has a wife of 50 years named Madeleine. The fact that Andre and Madeleine are played by Olivier winners Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins is the main reason to see this elusive drama. There is a death in the family. Depending on which scene you are watching, your perception of who it is that died may shift. Andre was a noted author whose papers Anne is searching in the hope of finding a rumored diary. Madeleine meets a woman (Lucy Cohu) who claims to have been close to Andre many years before when he and his alleged friend Georges founded a literary journal and invites her for tea. Andre denies any knowledge of Georges. Anne is separating from her husband. Her younger sister Elise, who has a history of poor choices in men, introduces her new beau (James Hillier), who may or may not be an estate agent scheming to get Andre to sell his house. A floral arrangement arrives without a card. Anne’s perusal of the found diary provides shocking information that involves Georges. Andre finds the card that got separated from the flowers and reacts strongly. Unfortunately neither the contents of the diary nor the message on the card are shared with the audience. There is a touch of Pinter in Zeller’s technique.  Each time the scrim descended between scenes, the lady next to me asked whether the play had ended. The good news is that both Pryce and Atkins are at the top of their form, so if your primary goal is to see them in action, you will not be disappointed. However, if you do not like puzzlers that force you to make up your own version of the story, you will be frustrated. Judging from British reviews, many found the play extremely moving. Alas, I am not one of them. Anthony Ward’s set and costumes are evocative. Jonathan Kent’s direction is assured. Running time: one hour 20 minutes; no intermission. It seemed longer.

The Great Society

C

If you saw Robert Schenkkan’s (The Kentucky Cycle) earlier play about the LBJ years, All the Way, I suspect that, for a multitude of reasons, you will be disappointed in the sequel, now at Lincoln Center Theater, which picks up the story at LBJ’s inauguration in 1965 and ends with Nixon’s in 1969. The play is overstuffed with episodes that cover the fight to pass a voting rights bill and other Great Society legislation, the ongoing struggle for civil rights complicated by fractures in the leadership and recalcitrance of Democratic politicians both in the South and North, the developing war in Vietnam and the protests it provoked, and examples of LBJ’s skilled arm-twisting techniques. No wonder there is little room for any depth of characterization. It’s a bit like a live Cliff Notes version of the era. I wished that the author had opted for less breadth and greater depth. With 22 actors, most of whom play multiple roles, it is occasionally hard to tell who’s who. Then there’s the matter of casting. While Brian Cox (That Championship Season) is a fine actor whose work I have often admired, the role of LBJ does not fit him like a glove; if you saw Bryan Cranston’s LBJ, you may have trouble adjusting to Cox’s. In addition, his attempt to find the right accent made the first few moments of the play almost unintelligible. Gordon Clapp (Glengarry Glen Ross) is believable as J.Edgar Hoover, but, as written by Schenkkan, the role is one-note. Barbara Garrick (The City of Conversation) has the thankless task of playing a colorless version of Lady Bird. David Garrison (Hollywood/Ukraine) is livelier both as Gov. Wallace and as Nixon. The ever-reliable Marc Kudisch (Girl from the North Country) is fine as Mayor Daley. Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), always eminently watchable, is a convincing Robert Kennedy. Richard Thomas (The Little Foxes) is rather stolid as Humphrey, but that seems suitable for the role as written. The usually fine Frank Wood (Side Man) is unconvincing as Sen. Dirksen. As MLK Jr., Grantham Coleman (Buzzer) lacks sufficient fire. David Korins (Hamilton) has designed an austere circular set with bleacher-like seating at the rear and dugout-like seating on the sides. The selection of which actors sit in these seats during various scenes seemed rather arbitrary. Props appear as needed. Projections by Victoria Sagady (All the Way) help set the scene. Linda Cho’s (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) costumes seem appropriate to the period. Director Bill Rauch (The Clean House) keeps things moving, but to little cumulative effect. While the earlier play dug deeper into its characters, this one skims the surface. All in all, it was quite disappointing. Running time: two hours 40 minutes including intermission.

Novenas for a Lost Hospital

B-

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is presenting the world premiere of this ambitious environmental piece by Cusi Cram celebrating the 161 years of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village and mourning its closure to make way for expensive condominiums. The evening begins in the courtyard of St. John’s-in-the-Village Church with a prologue that combines ritual ablution, chants, instrumental music and dance. The audience then moves next door to the Rattlestick space which has been configured with pews on three sides surrounding an array of hospital privacy screens displaying moments from the hospital’s long history. Each attendee receives an electric votive candle for use later in the evening. During the play proper, we meet Elizabeth Seton (Kathleen Chalfant), who founded the order that opened the hospital, two nuns who served there during the early years and an early surgeon. We also meet two nurses and a doctor from the hospital’s later years when it became a major care center for AIDS patients, as well as Lazarus (Ken Barnett), a patient who miraculously survives two near-death experiences, and JB (Justin Genna), a talented choreographer, who meet in the AIDS ward and become a couple. There are assorted other characters from various periods in the hospital’s history. The play draws parallels between the hospital’s role in the cholera epidemic of the 1840s and during the AIDS crisis. There are recriminations over the series of terrible decisions that led to the hospital’s closure and a lament over the impermanence of all things in New York City. The evening concludes with a ceremonial march past the new condos to the nearby NYC Aids Memorial where the votive candles are deposited. It’s a noble attempt to pay tribute to an important part of local history. The narrative is perhaps too ambitious in the number of stories it tells and runs a bit too long. The story of Pierre Toussaint (Alvin Keith), a freed slave who becomes an important NYC philanthropist, while fascinating, does not seem to be integral to the hospital’s history. Nevertheless, it all makes for an unusual evening and is to be commended for offering something different. Furthermore, it’s always a treat to see Ms. Chalfant onstage. I am not sure how much interest it holds for those who do not live in the Village and those who were not touched directly or indirectly by the AIDS crisis. Rattlestick artistic director Daniella Topol directed. Running time: two hours 20 minutes.

Eureka Day

A-

Eureka Day is the rather aspirational name of the Berkeley private school where this enjoyable, thought-provoking play by Bay Area playwright Jonathan Spector is set. After winning several awards on the West Coast, it has arrived at Walkerspace in SoHo for its New York premiere in a  first-rate Colt Coeur production. We meet the school’s executive committee in the midst of their first meeting of the school year. Headmaster Don (Thomas Jay Ryan; 10 out of 12, The Amateurs) strives to keep the group’s process flowing without offending anyone. Suzanne (Tina Benko; Nantucket Sleighride, Describe the Night) is the strong-willed chair who gives lip service to the equality of group members. Brash Eli (Brian Wiles) rarely lets someone else finish a sentence lest one of his own thoughts go unspoken. Quiet Meiko (K.K. Moggie; Daphne’s Dive) usually keeps her emotions bottled up. Carina (Elizabeth Carter) is an African-American who holds the rotating position on the committee reserved for new parents. The topic under discussion at the first meeting is whether the already lengthy drop-down menu on the online admissions application needs an option for "transracial adoptee." Initially, it seems that the playwright is offering yet another satire of group dynamics and political correctness gone amok similar to that seen in “Miles for Mary” last year. However, Mr. Spector has bigger fish to fry. After being introduced to the characters’ foibles at the first meeting, we see how these play out when a crisis strikes the school — a case of the mumps. When the health authorities demand that the school prevent unvaccinated students from attending, the large number of antivaxxer parents are incensed. To mollify everyone, Don sets up a Facebook Live component at their next meeting, during which all parents can share their thoughts. Their online comments, projected on a wall, range from totally off-topic to hysterically funny to downright nasty, leading the meeting into utter chaos. After intermission, the play takes a serious turn, which I will not spoil for you. As strong feelings rise to the surface, discussions become more contentious. Will the school find a way to meet the crisis? Come and see. The play is well-written, well-acted, well-designed (set by John McDermott, costumes by Lux Haac) and well-directed (by Colt Coeur artistic director Adrienne Campbell-Holt.) It is all too rare to encounter a play that is funny, timely, fair-minded and stimulating. Unfortunately, it is scheduled to close September 21. I hope it finds further life on another New York stage. Running time: two hours including intermission.