Apologia

B

If you are a Stockard Channing fan like me, you will enjoy this 2009 play by Alexi Kaye Campbell (Pride), which was revived for her in London last year and has now landed in New York at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre. In my opinion, no one plays a smart, sharp-tongued woman of a certain age better than Ms. Channing (Other Desert Cities, Six Degrees of Separation, A Day in the Life of Joe Egg). In this instance, she plays Kristin Miller, a renowned art historian and social activist who fled the U.S. for London when she was 20 and has never looked back. At her country cottage, she is celebrating her birthday with a dinner for her two adult sons — the composed international banker Peter (Hugh Dancy; Venus in Fur, Journey’s End) and the emotionally fragile would-be writer Simon (also played by Dancy); Peter’s girlfriend Trudi (Talene Monahon; Bobbie Clearly, Log Cabin), a perky earnest Christian from Nebraska whom Kristin has not met before; Simon’s girlfriend Claire (Megalyn Echikunwoke), a stunning television actress with whom he has been living for over a year; and Kristin’s longtime gay best friend Hugh (John Tillinger, best known as director of plays by Orton, McNally, Gurney and Miller). The facts that the oven is not working and that Simon has not arrived bode ill for what turns out to be a worthy entry in any “Dinner party from Hell” contest. Kristin does not approve of her gifts — an African mask from Peter and Trudy and a beauty cream from Claire. Only Hugh’s gift of an old photograph of a youthful protest pleases her. An innocent question by Trudi about why Kristin chose Giotto as her favorite artist elicits a long, showy monologue. Kristin has recently published a memoir, entitled Apologia, about her career, in which she has not even mentioned her sons, an omission that pains them both. We learn that when they were 7 and 9, their father essentially kidnapped them, but Kristin made no attempt to get them back. Emotions boil over and everyone goes to bed. In the middle of the night Simon arrives, his left hand injured by broken glass from a fall. As Kristin tends his wounds, he torments her with a drawn-out story about what happened the night she failed to pick him up at the Genoa train station when he was 13. He says that his main childhood memory of her is her absence. In the morning, after all her guests have left, Kristin is forced to confront the consequences of her choices. As a showcase for Ms. Channing’s prodigious talents, the play succeeds. If, however, you start to look at things too closely, there are many flaws — contrivances such as identical cellphones, cliches such as a wise-cracking gay friend, gimmicks such as double-casting, borrowings such as the scene between Simon and Kristin which strongly recalls one in The Seagull, improbabilities such as Simon and Claire being a pair, and omissions such as information about her late husband and the reasons he took their sons away. As a serious consideration of whether a woman can have it all, it breaks no new ground. Nevertheless, the opportunity to see Ms. Channing in action definitely outweighs all these shortcomings for me. The other actors are fine as well. Dane Laffrey’s (Once on the Island, Bad Jews) set is cozy and appropriately book-filled. Anita Yavich’s (Venus in Fur, The Legend of Georgia McBride) costumes, especially Claire’s dress, are very good. Daniel Aukin’s (Skintight, Admissions) direction is unfussy. If Ms. Channing is a draw for you, you will be content. Running time: two hours 15 minutes including intermission.

Venus in Fur **

After all the buzz about last year's off-Broadway production of David Ives' play, I arrived at Manhattan Theatre Club's Friedman Theater prepared for 90 minutes of kinky fun. Nina Ariadna, as the mysterious woman who arrives to audition for the role of Vanda in an adaptation of Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novel about sadomasochistic love, is sensational. She effortlessly commands the stage and captures all the character's many facets. My only complaint is that she swallowed a few lines. Hugh Dancy is fine as the playwright/director who is first scornful toward and then enthralled by her. The power balance of their relationship seesaws until the final revelation of her identity. Not even Ives' cleverness or Walter Bobbie's smooth direction is enough to keep the play from sagging for seemingly long stretches. John Lee Beatty's set is appropriately spartan and Anita Yavich's costumes are wonderful. Had this been a 30-minute sketch, I would have been thoroughly delighted, but at almost two hours, I found it tediously repetitive. The extra 10 or 15 minutes it picked up on the way uptown could not have improved it. I was delighted to get to see Ariadna and Dancy, but was disappointed in the play.