The Portuguese Kid

C-

This alleged romantic comedy by John Patrick Shanley (Outside Mullingar, Doubt) at Manhattan Theatre Club is about as buoyant as a lead balloon and as original as a Trump joke, of which, alas, there are a few. Jason Alexander (Broadway Bound, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway) plays Barry Dragonetti, a second-rate lawyer in Providence, RI who employs his overbearing mother (Mary Testa; The Government Inspector, Xanadu) as his receptionist. Twice-widowed Atalanta Lagana (Sherie Renee Scott; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Front Page), who has known Barry since she rescued him from a Portuguese mugger when they were teenagers, wants him to sell her house, if they can agree on his commission. Barry has recently married a despondent young beauty Patty (Aimee Carrero; What Rhymes with America) who had been cruelly jilted by her boyfriend Freddie Imbrossi (Pico Alexander; What I Did Last Summer, Punk Rock). Atalanta’s latest boy toy, it turns out, is of course, none other than Freddie. Even the dimmest wit can figure out how this will turn out. That would be fine if the process of getting there were amusing or surprising. It isn’t. There are some funny one-liners, but far fewer hits than misses. Scott was the only one who appeared to be having a good time. The others acted as if they wished they were somewhere else. I know I did. The revolving sets by John Lee Beatty and the costumes by William Ivey Long were up to their usual high standards. I wish I could say the same about the efforts of the playwright, who also directed. If your requirements for mindless entertainment are very modest, they may be met. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no interimssion.

The Front Page *** B-

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s much revived and adapted 1928 comedy is back on Broadway in a lavish, star-studded production led by Nathan Lane as editor Walter Burns and John Slattery as reporter Hildy Johnson. A slimmed-down John Goodman plays Sheriff Hartman, Jefferson Mays is the hypochondriac reporter Bensinger, Holland Taylor is Mrs. Grant, Hildy’s intended mother-in-law, Sherie Renee Scott is Mollie Malloy, the doxy with a heart of gold, and Robert Morse is Mr. Pincus, the befuddled messenger. And those are just the actors listed above the title! When minor roles are filled by the likes of Dylan Baker, Patricia Connolly, David Pittu and Lewis J. Stadlen, the casting can only be called profligate. The action takes place in the press room of the Criminal Courts Building in Chicago, which overlooks the gallows where an alleged Communist who killed a black policeman is scheduled to be hanged in several hours. The repartee among the reporters fills most of the first act, which takes a long time to build up steam. Things get livelier in the second act after the doomed man escapes. There is snappy dialogue and madcap physical comedy. The play really comes to life when Nathan Lane finally makes his entrance late in Act II. A touch of tragedy struck a discordant note. The third act ties up loose ends nicely. The actors are in top form, most of all Mays and Morse. I was slightly disappointed with John Slattery, an actor I have long admired but who seemed a bit old and a bit off as Hildy. In some ways, the material seemed dated: the print media no longer command the attention they did in 1928 and are no longer the exclusive province of men. Other things seemed all too timely: there are still trigger-happy cops, civic corruption and cynical courting of the black vote. The set design by Douglas W. Schmidt is excellent and the costumes by Ann Roth are spot-on. Jack O’Brien’s direction is fluid, but he has not yet found a way to enliven the first act. It was an enjoyable, if not memorable, opportunity to return to the era when plays could have three acts and more than two dozen roles. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes, including two intermissions.

Whorl Inside a Loop **

Sherie Rene Scott and Dick Scanlan, who brought us “Everyday Rapture” a few years ago, are back at Second Stage with another work inspired by actual events. In 2011 the two of them gave a one-day workshop on personal narrative for a class of convicted murderers at an upstate prison. It was so successful that they kept coming back to develop the prisoners’ narratives into a show that was presented for a prison audience. Now they have turned a fictionalized version of that workshop into a play. Scott plays The Volunteer, an actress whose less than noble reasons for being at the prison to teach a 12-session workshop are not at first revealed. Worse, after pledging to the men that their stories would not leave the room, she proceeds, in secret, to use them to develop a play for the public. There is a half-baked subplot that has Hillary visiting the prison to see a performance. The prison scenes alternate with considerably less successful scenes outside in which the prisoners crudely impersonate Scott’s husband, son, lawyer, producer, hair stylist and Hillary. One wishes that the authors had stuck to the prisoners’ narratives, which are quite powerful and well-performed. The other parts of the play are muddled and dilute the impact. A twist at the end that raises the question of who is actually telling whose story didn’t quite work for me. I had trouble separating Scott’s performance from the unsympathetic character she portrays. The rest of the cast — Derrick Baskin, Nicholas Christopher, Chris Myers, Ryan Quinn Daniel J. Watts, Donald Webber Jr. — is excellent and the core material is worthwhile. Too bad they didn’t just go with that. Michael Mayer co-directed with Scanlan. Incidentally, the title refers to a rare fingerprint pattern. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes; no intermission. 

P.S. Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theatre has to be the least audience-friendly theater built in the last 20 years. The seats are narrow and low, the padding is thin, the legroom minimal and there are no handrails on the center aisle. To sit for more than an hour was punishing.