On the Shore of the Wide World

D+

2006 must have been a really dismal year for London theater if this tepid family drama by Simon Stephens could win the Olivier award. I will grudgingly express admiration to the Atlantic Theater for their commitment to bringing three of his plays to New York although I wasn’t too impressed with the other two -- Bluebird and Harper Regan — either. However, I liked them better than Punk Rock at MCC or Heisenberg at MTC. Even his Tony-winner The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was an adaptation of someone else’s novel and owed a lot of its success to its brilliant staging. Therefore, I approached the present play with low expectations. They were met.  We meet three generations of the Holmes family of Stockport, the suburb of Manchester where Stephens grew up — grandparents Charlie (Peter Maloney) and Ellen (the always watchable Blair Brown), their son Peter (C.J. Wilson) and his wife Alice (Atlantic stalwart Mary McCann) and their two grandsons Alex (Ben Rosenfield) and Christopher (Wesley Zurick). There is also Alex’s girlfriend Sarah (Tedra Millan), his friend Paul (Odiseas Georgiadis), Peter’s client Susan (Amelia Workman) and Alice’s new friend John (Leroy McClain). We follow the Holmes family over the course of a year that is punctuated by tragedy. The play has a seemingly endless succession of short scenes that generated very little interest for me. I don’t require sympathetic characters, but I expect to feel some involvement which was lacking here. I looked at my watch often. There is lots of regret, missed opportunity and lack of communication. The fine cast, which struggles uncertainly with the accent, deserves better than this. The set design by Scott Park makes efficient use of space. Sarah Laux’s costumes are apt. Director Neil Pepe does his best with material that is basically inert. Running time: two hours 35 minutes including intermission. Seating advice: Avoid Row B at the Linda Gross Theater because it is not elevated above Row A.

The Penitent

D

I wish I could say that David Mamet’s new play at the Atlantic Theater Company marks his return to greatness. While it’s by no means his worst, it falls far short of his best work. It is about a psychiatrist Charles (Chris Bauer) who suddenly gets religion when a young patient commits a terrible crime. Although he has frequently testified as a mitigating witness for the defense, he refuses to do so in this instance. The boy accuses him of antipathy toward gay people, a charge supported by a newspaper piece misquoting the title of an article he wrote as “Homosexuality as an Aberration” instead of “Homosexuality as an Adaptation.” The bad press leads to worse for Charles. Meanwhile, his wife Kath (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet’s wife) does not understand his position. The stilted opening scene between them really gets things off to a bad start. We next see Charles with his friend/lawyer Richard (Jordan Lage), who urges him to relent and testify. The second act begins energetically with a scene between Charles and an attorney (the fine Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) deposing him who knows his way around the Old Testament. In the final scene, we learn the cost of Charles’s allegedly principled stand and, to my great annoyance, find out information that casts everything that preceded it in a new light.Tim Mackabee designed the minimalist set — a table and two chairs and two angled walls. Laura Bauer designed the costumes. Perhaps there was some deep significance I missed in the fact that Kath alternated between jeans with holes in the knees and jeans without holes. Atlantic’s artistic director Neil Pepe (Marie & Rosetta, Hold on to Me Darling) directed. The press, the legal system, psychiatry, religion, marriage and friendship all take a beating. There are no winners here, including the audience. Running time: 85 minutes including intermission.

Hold On to Me Darling ***

It’s good to see Kenneth Lonergan get his playwriting chops back in this new comedy at Atlantic Theater Company, his best work for the stage since Lobby Hero in 2001. Timothy Olyphant (“Damages” and “Justified” on TV) plays Strings McCrane, a 39-year-old comically self-absorbed country western singer and movie star who reexamines his life upon the death of his mother. When he heads back home to rural Tennessee for the funeral, he decides to cast off the trappings of celebrity and try the simple life. It may not turn out well for him, but it certainly pays off for the audience. The satire is broad and the dialogue, frequently hilarious. Jenn Lyon from “The Wayside Motor Inn” plays Nancy, the seemingly good-hearted masseuse he meets at his hotel. Adelaide Clemens is Essie, the second cousin twice removed that he encounters at the funeral. C.J. Wilson is Duke, his big brother, with whom he has a volatile relationship. The rarely unemployed Keith Nobbs (“The Legend of Georgia McBride”) plays Jimmy, his overly devoted, long-suffering personal assistant. Jonathan Hogan is Mitch, a figure from the distant past who suddenly reappears. The actors are uniformly excellent. The play could benefit from some trimming as it’s a bit too slight for its length. The second act loses steam and the final scene does not seem to fit very well. Walt Spangler (“Between Riverside and Crazy”) once again comes up with a terrific revolving set that includes seven distinct locations. The costumes by Suttriat Anne Larlarb help greatly in creating the characters. Neil Pepe’s fluid direction keeps everything moving smoothly. It’s a little too much of a good thing, but I’m not complaining. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes including intermission.

3 Kinds of Exile **

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
John Guare's strange hodgepodge for the Atlantic Theater Company throws together three pieces loosely connected by the theme of exile. The first piece "Karel" is an extended anecdote about a man with a seemingly incurable rash, who, at the age of 12, had been sent to England with the Kindertransport and had remained there. Martin Moran tells the slight but interesting tale well.

The second piece "Elzbieta Erased" is a reworking of a one-act play Guare wrote for Atlantic's 25x10 series a few years ago about famous Polish actress Elzbieta Czyzewska. The author, playing himself, and charismatic actor Omar Sangare, portraying several characters including the actress, give us the highlights of her life -- a successful career in Poland, following by expulsion after her marriage to David Halberstam and her years in America, repeatedly dogged by bad luck. Her story is fascinating, but the telling is a bit too long.

If only there were an intermission at this point, one could escape "Funiage," a biographical sketch about absurdist novelist and playwright Witold Gombrowicz, who spent much of his adult life in Argentinian exile. Guare has chosen to emulate his subject's style with an absurdist approach incorporating Brechtian touches. It's hard to sit through. Against all odds, David Pittu as Gombrowicz acquits himself honorably. The rest of the ensemble shall remain nameless. Neil Pepe directed. The talent the playwright once exhibited with House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation and Lydie Breeze is not apparent here. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.