Dan Cody's Yacht

B+

The title of this stimulating new play by Anthony Giardina (The City of Conversation) now at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I is a symbol of opportunity waiting to be seized lifted from The Great Gatsby. Kevin O’Neill (Rick Holmes; Junk, Lives of the Saints) is a financial manager in a wealthy Massachusetts suburb. Cara Russo (Kristen Bush; The City of Conversation, Kin) is his slacker son Conor’s (John Kroft) English teacher, who lives in the blue-collar town across the river. When we meet them, Kevin is trying to bribe Cara to raise the grade on his son’s essay. He also wants her to vote against a proposal to merge the two school districts. He berates her for not doing all she can to improve the prospects of her bright plus-size daughter Angela (Casey Whyland; Billy Elliot) and invites her to his monthly investment club where she meets his friends Geoff (Jordan Lage; Race, The Penitent) and Pamela Hossmer (Meredith Forlenza; 1984, The Winslow Boy) and Alice Tuan (Laura Kai Chen; Much Ado about Nothing). He persuades her that by investing her savings with him, she will be able to afford moving across the river so Angela can attend the better school and improve her chances of getting into a private college. Cara’s blue-collar friend Cathy (Roxanna Hope Radja; Frost/Nixon) whose daughter is friends with Angela cautions Cara not to make the move. Later, when Cara’s investment account takes a dip, a crisis arises. Kevin proposes a shady solution. Something that Kevin and Cara have in common is that they are both single parents. The play raises interesting questions about what a parent should be willing to do for a child’s sake. One puzzle is what Kevin’s motivation is in wanting to help Cara and her daughter. They have a strong chemistry which, since Kevin is gay, is not built on sex. Kevin’s character is a complex mix of the noble and ignoble. The actors are uniformly strong. Giardina has written a series of good scenes for two characters: Kevin and Cara, Kevin and Conor, Kevin and Angela, Cara and Angela, Cara and Cathy, Angela and Conor. He raises issues of income inequality, privilege, ambition, ethics and willingness to take risks. The play loses some of its energy toward the end as the playwright paints himself into a corner. For most of its length though, it is both engrossing and entertaining. John Lee Beatty’s (Doubt, Proof) scenic design makes effective use of a revolving set. The costumes by Catherine Zuber (My Fair Lady, Junk) befit their characters. Doug Hughes’ (Junk, The Father) direction is smoothly unobtrusive. Running time: two hours five minutes including intermission.

The City of Conversation ****

The latest offering of Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse is Anthony Giardina's engrossing new political/family drama spanning the period from the Carter years to the Obama inauguration as seen through the household of Hester Ferris (the magnificent Jan Maxwell). Hester, her married lover Chandler (Kevin O'Rourke) and her widowed sister Jean (Beth Dixon) are active in liberal Washington causes. In her Georgetown home, she hosts dinners where politicians of different views are able to meet for unfettered conversation. The arrival home a day earlier than expected of Hester's lone child Colin (Michael Simpson) after studies at the London School of Economics, with a Reaganite girlfriend Anna (Kristen Bush) in tow, is a double surprise for Hester. She and the nakedly ambitious Anna immediately lock horns. A Kentucky senator (John Aylward) and his wife (Barbara Garrick) have been invited to dinner to try to win his vote for a bill to require resignation from segregated country clubs for judicial appointment. When Anna breaks tradition and intrudes on the men's after-dinner conversation, Hester's plans are thwarted. Eight years later, Colin is working for a Republican senator and wife Anna has a job in Reagan's Justice Department. Both are working hard to assure Robert Bork's appointment to the Supreme Court. Hester takes care of their son Ethan (Luke Niehaus) during the day and tries to subvert his parents' conservative influence. Despite her promise to her son not to interfere, Hester is actively campaigning against Bork. When Anna finds out, she presents Hester with a terrible choice. How that works out is revealed in the final scene, set on the night of Obama's first inauguration. A new character, Donald (Phillip James Brannon), a black graduate student of American political history, appears in that scene. I won't give any more away. The play has its problems. Some of the relationships, e.g. between Hester and Chandler and between Hester and Jean, are underdeveloped. Its depiction of the difficulties in balancing the political and the personal is a bit extreme. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to listen to intelligent, often witty conversation about matters of substance. The play provides a marvelous role for Maxwell and she makes the most of it. The rest of the cast are fine too. John Lee Beatty's set and Catherine Zuber's costumes establish the right tone. Director Doug Hughes brings out the play's strengths. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes including intermission.

Taking Care of Baby**

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British playwright Dennis Kelly's faux documentary is now at Manhattan Theatre Club's Studio at Stage II for its New York premiere. An initial advisory that all the dialogue has been lifted from actual transcripts is deliberately garbled a couple of times later, perhaps as a clue that it is all fiction. The play crosscuts between Donna (Kristen Bush), a mother who has been jailed for murder after the death of her two young children; her mother Lynn (Margaret Colin), a politician whose positions change as often as the wind direction; the controversial Dr. Millard (Reed Birney), who has posited a disease that causes oversensitive women to murder their children; and Martin (Francois Battiste), Donna's traumatized former husband. Peripheral characters include Mrs. Millard (Amelia Campbell), Lynn's campaign manager Jim (Ethan Phillips) and an odious, sexually addicted reporter (Michael Crane.) Talking head interviews alternate with reenactments. The acting is top-notch, especially by Bush, Colin and Birney. I wish that the rapid alteration of fragmentary scenes did not diminish the momentum so that none of the individual stories was adequately developed. Despite the fine acting, the play's concept was more interesting than the execution. Erica Schmidt's direction seemed unfocused and uninvolving. Running time: two hours, fifteen minutes including intermission.

The Common Pursuit **

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I would be curious to know why director Moises Kaufman, known for his superb work on landmark plays like Gross Indecency, The Laramie Project and I Am My Own Wife, was drawn to one of Simon Gray's lesser plays. In any case, he has no magic tricks up his sleeve for this Roundabout production at the Laura Pels. The oft-told tale of idealistic youth, in this case six students at Cambridge setting out to publish a literary magazine, gradually losing their ideals to compromise and betrayal is not told particularly well. While I have nothing against talky plays as long as the dialog is interesting, little of it sparkles here. The competent American cast (Kristen Bush, Kieran Campion, Josh Cooke, Jacob Fishel, Tim McGeever and Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) manage their Oxbridge accents fairly well but the effort shows, particularly early on. The characters are not portrayed with sufficient vividness for the audience to care very much what happens to them. Perhaps that is why at least 10% of the audience did not return after intermission. By the time the play finally springs to life halfway through the second act, it is too little too late. Derek McLane's set is quite attractive and Clint Ramos' costumes are evocative. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes including intermission.