Long Lost

C-

There seems to be something about Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I at City Center that inspires scenic designers. Some of the finest set designs I have seen in New York have been at that theater. For this production John Lee Beatty (Rabbit Hole, Junk) does not disappoint; the marvelous set he has designed for Donald Margulies’s (Dinner with Friends, Sight Unseen) new play has three revolves and creates four distinct attractive environments. Unfortunately, the “magic” effect of MTC’s Stage I on set designers does not seem to apply to playwrights. I have seen too many clunkers with great sets here, including this one. Margulies offers yet another version of the story of the black sheep returning to his family and stirring up trouble. In this instance the black sheep is Billy (Lee Tergesen; Rapture, Blister, Burn), a drug addict and alcoholic whose many misdeeds include “accidentally” burning down the family farmhouse with his parents inside. Billy turns up unannounced in the New York office of his younger brother David (Kelly AuCoin; The Wayside Motor Inn, “Billions”), a prosperous consultant married to Molly (Annie Parisse; Clybourne Park, Becky Shaw), an ex-lawyer who now runs a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Their son Jeremy (Alex Wolff; All the Fine Boys) is home from Brown for Christmas. David’s first impulse is to kick Billy out of his office, but Billy tells him that he is dying of cancer and has no place to go. David reluctantly brings him home to their plush Manhattan co-op, much to the chagrin of Molly. Billy tries to establish rapport with Jeremy. Secrets are revealed, some of which are surprising, others not so much. The final scene takes us in an unexpected direction, but by then it is too late. The characters are so underwritten that it is hard to care much about their fate. The actors do a respectable job trying to breathe life into their roles. Daniel Sullivan’s (The Little Foxes, Good People) direction is fluid, but even he cannot elevate trite material. The costumes by Toni-Leslie James (Bernhardt/Hamlet, Come from Away) befit the characters well. Enjoy the sets; there’s not much else to engage you. Running time: one hour 35 minutes; no intermission.

All the Fine Boys

F

Maybe I would have reacted less harshly to this new play at The New Group had it not been the second play I had seen in a week dealing with inappropriate sex between adults and the underage. Maybe not. It is awful enough in its own right. We meet two 14-year-old girls, Jenny (Abigail Breslin, who played Little Miss Sunshine in the film) and Emily (Isabelle Fuhrman), hanging out in Jenny’s basement with a stack of videos for a sleepover. Although he play is set in 1980’s South Carolina, there is little sense of time or place. At least we are spared ersatz Southern accents. Their inane conversation drags on and on with he girls discussing the various boys at school, and Jenny observing that the ones Emily likes are beyond her reach. The play then alternates scenes of Emily and Adam (Alex Wolff), an artsy high school boy she has a crush on, with scenes of Jenny and Joseph (Joe Tippett, of Indian Summer and Familiar), a man twice her age that she inexplicably goes home with. One girl gets more than she set out for; the other gets less. The most glaring flaw in the play is the cartoonish depiction of Jenny as a grotesque figure with an unlimited appetite for junk food. The long scenes of her and Joseph are hard to watch. The staging is awkward with characters from the previous scene lingering on the set until after the next scene begins. It’s a stretch to believe the two women are teenagers, but that’s probably a blessing. I admire their gutsiness in taking on their roles. The set by Amy Rubin is appropriately ugly with dark deep-pile carpeting covering the floors and the walls and a much-used sofa. Tom Broecker’s costumes are apt. Playwright Erica Schmidt can’t blame the director for the outcome: she directed. Running time: one hour 40 minutes, no intermission.

NOTE: If the play weren’t bad enough, the seats in the Ford Studio at Signature Center are wood laminate with no upholstery.