Children of a Lesser God

C+

The years have not been kind to Mark Medoff’s drama about deafness. Since it arrived on Broadway in 1980, there have been better plays, e.g. Tribes, and better films, e.g. Sound and Fury, on the subject of deafness and deaf rights. I would assume that it won its Tony and Olivier more for the seriousness and, at the time, novelty of its subject matter than for its artistic merit. In any case, it’s back on Broadway in a Roundabout production that has been imported basically intact from a Berkshire Theatre Group run. Joshua Jackson (Smart People, "The Affair") plays James Leeds, a speech instructor at a residential school for the deaf. When the school’s head, Mr. Franklin (Anthony Edwards; A Month in the Country), asks him to work with Sarah Norman (Lauren Ridloff), a graduate of the school who is still on campus as a maid, Leeds promptly falls in love with her. He tries unsuccessfully to persuade her to learn lip reading and to attempt to speak. He visits her mother (Kecia Lewis; Leap of Faith, Marie and Rosetta), who placed Sarah in the school as a child and has basically turned her back on her. Orin Dennis (John McGinty; Veritas), a student who has learned to read lips and speak, has been Sarah’s close friend for years and is jealous of her relationship with Leeds. Lydia (Treshelle Edmond; Spring Awakening) is a childlike student who has a crush on Leeds. When James and Sarah marry, the outlook is uncertain. In the second act, the play turns polemical when Orin tries to enlist Sarah to join him in an action against the school for job discrimination against the deaf. Edna Klein (Julee Cerda) is the attractive lawyer whom Orin recruits. Much of the second act is clunky. Mr. Franklin, James, Sarah and Mrs. Norman get together for an unlikely bridge game. The polemic and the personal compete awkwardly for our attention. Near the end, there is a big cathartic scene that, for many, will have made the long buildup worthwhile. The strongest argument for seeing this revival is the powerful performance by Ms. Ridloff. It is easy to see why James would be so attracted to her. Mr. Jackson gives a creditable performance in a demanding role, although I would have liked a little more variety. Mr. McGinty is strong as Orin. Kecia Lewis is impressive as Sarah’s mother. Mr. Edwards and Ms. Edmond do their best with cartoonish roles. The direction by Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, Fences) is assured, but I wish he had made a few cuts. I did not care for Derek McLane’s (The Parisian Woman, The Price) set, which features several blue door frames painted a garish salmon pink on the inside and several tree trunks. The costumes by Dede Ayite (School Girls, Mankind) are fine. There are surtitles above the proscenium arch which you will not be able to read if you are sitting in the first few rows. Running time: two hours 25 minutes, including intermission.

Smart People **

I really wanted to like Lydia Diamond’s play at Second Stage. It isn’t often that we get a chance to witness four attractive intellectuals with Harvard ties talking about the important issue of racism in America. It’s even more unusual when the discussion is punctuated by lots of humor and simulated sex. Nevertheless, I found the play somewhat unsatisfying. Diamond’s structure uses a lot of short, fragmentary scenes, often for one character addressing an unseen second person. Some of these scenes, e.g. Brian (Joshua Jackson), a white neuroscience professor criticizing his students; Valerie (Tessa Thompson), a black actress reading for an audition; Jackson (Mahershala Ali), a surgical resident arguing with his superior; Ginny (Anne Son), a shopaholic Asian-American psychologist browbeating a salesperson, are amusing, but the fragments do not fit together all that well. The whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts. The center of attention is the fallout from a research study by Brian demonstrating that whites are hard-wired to react negatively to blacks. Ginny points out that Asians, Native Americans and Hispanics are usually left on the sidelines in a discussion of race. It is unclear whether Jackson’s problems with authority are more rooted in racism or in his hot temper. I felt that the sex scenes and the gratuitous brief male frontal nudity were thrown in to grab the audience’s attention between didactic moments. The action begins in 2007 and ends with the inauguration of Obama in January 2009. While there is one scene about campaigning for Obama, the significance of his election did not seem related organically to the rest of the play. The stunningly attractive cast make their characters lively. Among the characters, I thought that Ginny was by far the most interesting and found myself wishing that the play had been focused on her. Ricardo Hernandez’s streamlined minimalist set was efficient if not visually interesting. The projections by Zachary G. Borovay seemed generic, contributing little to the production. Paul Tazewell’s costumes suit the characters well. The direction by Kenny Leon seemed a bit slack. I do give the playwright credit for writing a play that is likely to provoke lively discussion. Running time: one hour, 55 minutes including intermission.