What Do We Need To Talk About?

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Little did I imagine when I penned my last review exactly two months ago that it might well be the final one. Fortunately, I’m still here but live theater in New York isn’t. When it will return and which theaters will survive are questions that will probably not be answered for a long time. As March and April slipped by, the list of theatrical evenings I had looked forward to in vain grew longer and longer: Company, The Minutes, The Siblings, Sanctuary City, 72 Miles To Go, Nollywood Dreams, Caroline or Change, Intimate Apparel, Selling Kabul, Flying over Sunset, The Visitor, Take Me Out and How I Learned To Drive. Although several worthwhile filmed productions were made available either on television or online, they were not live theater. Leave it to Richard Nelson to come up with something original that bridges the gap between recorded and live. Tonight the Public Theater presented on their website the premiere and sole performance of Nelson's timely postscript to his four plays about the Apple family of Rhinebeck, What Do We Need To Talk About? When we meet the four Apple siblings — Barbara (Maryann Plunkett), Richard (Jay O. Sanders), Marian (Laila Robins), Jane (Sally Murphy) and Jane’s partner Tim (Stephen Kunken) — they are just starting a Zoom session. Richard is temporarily living with Barbara who has just returned from a near-fatal hospital stay. Tim is in isolation in the guest bedroom of the home he shares with Jane, who is too frightened to go shopping for groceries. Marian has dressed up for the call. For the next 70 minutes, we watch and listen as they talk about life today and tell each other stories. It is very much like observing them sitting around the kitchen table in the previous plays, but with the major advantage that you don’t have to struggle to hear them. If you haven’t seen the earlier plays, the details of their conversations will probably mean less to you, but I think the work can stand on its own merits. What a pleasure it is to be reunited with these sympathetic characters. Watching it sliced two ways, reminding us of what we are missing while holding out hope for what might lie ahead. It will only be available until May 4, so don’t delay.

A Parallelogram

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The folks at Second Stage Theater seem to be working their way through Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s backlist. Last season they brought Tracy Letts’s 2003 work The Man from Nebraska to town with (to me at least) middling results. Their latest import from Chicago is this 2010 dark comedy by Bruce Norris (The Pain and the Itch, Clybourne Park, Domesticated and The Qualms). I can happily report that the results are much better this time around. It’s hard to describe the play without giving too much away. Think Twilight Zone and Groundhog Day blended with a witty play about relationships. Although there are metaphysical elements involved in the premise, don’t let that worry you. You don’t need to understand them to enjoy the play. There is also a debate over free will vs. determinism and an attempt to answer the question of how we would behave if we knew the future. Did I mention that the play is also very funny? Bee (Celia Keenan-Bolger; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Oldest Boy) is a depressive woman in her 30s living with a somewhat older man, the maddeningly self-absorbed Jay (Stephen Kunken; Enron, Frost/Nixon, Rx, The Apple Family Plays, Nikolai and the Others), who has left his wife and children for her. The characters played by Anita Gillette (Chapter Two, The Big Meal, “30 Rock”) are identified as Bee 2, Bee 3 and Bee 4. Is one of them an older version of Bee, unseen by the other characters, who foretells Bee’s future and has a remote control that allows her to rewind time or even fast forward to the future or is she just a manifestation of some medical problem? Last but not least is JJ (Juan Castano), the Latino lawn boy who develops a rapport with Bee. The production is first-rate: the cast is uniformly excellent, the direction by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal, Grey Gardens) is sharp and the clever set by Rachel Hauck (Animal, Latin History for Morons) transforms wondrously. Jeff Mahshie’s (Next to Normal, She Loves Me) costumes are apt. The play has more to appeal to the intellect and the funny bone than to the heart. It runs a bit long too. But it you want to see a quirky example of superb stagecraft, I highly recommend it. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including intermission. 

Regular Singing ***

The fourth and final installment in Richard Nelson's saga about the Apple family of Rhinebeck, New York brings the series to a satisfying conclusion. I confess that I approached this one with a bit of trepidation, because, by the end of the third play, the pleasure of the Apple family's company was wearing a bit thin for me. In addition, two members of the superb original cast (Shuler Hensley and J. Smith-Cameron) were unavailable for the final play and I was uncomfortable about seeing new actors in their roles. Like the three previous plays, the action or, more accurately, the conversation is set on a day significant for American history. "That Hopey Changey Thing" was set on Election Night 2010; "Sweet and Sad" on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and "Sorry"on Election Day 2012. (I suggest you use the search box near the top right to read my reviews of the three previous plays.) This time the occasion is the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. The Apple siblings -- Barbara (Maryann Plunkett), a spinster schoolteacher; Marian (Laila Robins), also a teacher, whose marriage collapsed after her daughter's suicide and who now lives with Barbara; Jane (Sally Murphy, replacing Smith-Cameron), a writer who has recently moved to Rhinebeck with partner Tim (Stephen Kunken, replacing Hensley), an actor/waiter; and Richard (Jay O. Sanders), an attorney who has fled his failed marriage in New York for a job in the Cuomo administration in Albany -- and their Uncle Benjamin (John Devries), a former actor whose failing memory has landed him in an assisted living home, have gathered at Barbara's house, where Marian's ex-husband Adam lies dying upstairs. As they go over Adam's detailed plans for his funeral, they discuss many things, from the state of the country to their personal demons. There is no action in the usual sense, but there are occasional moments of great pathos. Murphy seemed a bit young to play Jane and was barely audible at times. Kunken, always a fine actor, fit in well as Tim. The four returning actors are as excellent as we have come to expect. It was a real pleasure to spend time with them again. Nelson as director serves his own material well. For one of the Public Theater's Lab productions, the modest set and costumes by Susan Hilferty are commensurate with the low ticket price. At one hour, 50 minutes without intermission, the play could use some judicious trimming.

Nikolai and the Others **

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Judging from his new play at Lincoln Center Theater, Richard Nelson does not believe that less is more. He gives us 18 characters to keep track of over a span of 2 hours, 40 minutes, with a ballet excerpt thrown in for good measure. 15 of the characters are Russian emigres involved in the arts, including choreographer George Balanchine (Michael Cerveris), composer Igor Stravinsky (John Glover), conductor Serge Koussevitsky (Dale Pace), actor Vladimir Sokoloff (John Procaccino), set designer Sergey Sudeikin (Alvin Epstein) and, last but not least, Nikolai Nabokov (Stephen Kunken), a minor composer who is working for the U.S. government spreading largess to win the cultural Cold War. They, their wives, ex-wives and admirers are gathered on a Spring weekend in 1948 in rustic Connecticut to celebrate the ailing Sudeikin's name day and view a rehearsal of Orpheus, Balanchine and Stravinsky's current collaboration. The remaining three characters are the dancers Maria Tallchief, Balanchine's current wife (Natalia Alonso), and Nicholas Magallenes (Michael Rosen), and an uninvited guest "Chip" Bohlen (Gareth Saxe), a U.S. diplomat who keeps an intimidating eye on important Russian emigres. The play is most successful in capturing the pathos of those cut off from their cultural heritage, nostalgic for their homeland, clinging together, insecure and fearful in their adopted country. The rehearsal scene gives some insight into the creative process and provides us with some gorgeous dancing. The ballet sequence also provides a welcome respite from the nonstop conversation, table setting and clearing and eating. The role of the wives (Blair Brown, Kathryn Erbe and Betsy Aidem) is mainly to look after their men. The dancers don't get much respect either. During the course of the weekend, Nikolai comes to regret abandoning composing for his job helping fellow emigres and feels the sting of ingratitude. The acting seemed a bit flat, but with such a large cast, there is not much opportunity to develop deep characterization. David Cromer directs with a sure hand. The shabbiness of Marsha Ginsberg's set is deliberate, I assume. Jane Greenwood's costumes seem appropriate. Even though I was predisposed to like the play because of my interest in Balanchine and Stravinsky, I found it less rewarding than I had hoped. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes including intermission.

The Columnist **

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It's wonderful to see John Lithgow back on Broadway in David Auburn's new biographical play about Joseph Alsop, now in previews in a Manhattan Theatre Club production. Lithgow's Alsop is arrogant, egotistical, irascible, untroubled by self-doubt, yet not without charm. Boyd Gaines ably plays his brother Stewart. Margaret Colin is less impressive in the somewhat underwritten role of Alsop's wife Susan Mary. Grace Gummer (who is the spitting image of sister Mamie) brings a welcome warmth to the role of Abigail, Alsop's stepdaughter. Stephen Kunken makes a fine David Halberstam. Brian J. Smith, despite being saddled with a thick Russian accent as Andrei, makes a good impression. Marc Bonan has a walk-on as Abigail's visiting friend Philip. The scenic design by John Lee Beatty is attractive, as are the costumes by Jess Goldstein. Daniel Sullivan's direction is unobtrusive. The weak link, alas, is playwright Auburn. The play has a certain connect-the-dots, made for television biopic quality about it. The highs aren't very high and the lows aren't very low. One of the main plot points turns out to be a red herring (or, in this case, a Red herring). Nevertheless, Lithgow's performance makes it essential viewing. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.

Rx ***

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Kate Fodor's new satire now in previews at Primary Stages has a lot going for it -- intriguing situations, sharply drawn characters, snappy dialogue, a flexible set, and smooth direction. The main characters are Meena Pierotti (Marin Hinkle), the editor of a trade publication about cattle and swine who so hates her job that she signs up for the clinical trial of a drug to combat workplace depression that is being conducted by the nerdy Phil Gray (Stephen Kunken), a researcher at Schmidt Pharma. Other characters include Allison (Elizabeth Rich), Phil's compulsively rigid boss: Simon (Michael Bakkenen), Meena's hunky boss; Frances (Marylouise Burke), a flaky widow that Meena meets in the underwear department of a nearby store where Meena flees when she has to cry; Richard, a Pharma marketing executive, and Ed, an absent-minded Pharma researcher (both played by Paul Niebanck). The cast is uniformly strong. The plot covers many bases: the ethics of the pharmaceutical industry, cruelty to animals in the food industry, job satisfaction, rekindling interest in life at an advanced age, the placebo effect, and even foot fetishism. Perhaps there are a few themes too many, because they don't fit together all that well and the result, at least for me, was a fuzzy focus. Perhaps they will smooth some of the rough edges before opening night. I hope so, because there is much to enjoy despite the play's flaws. Ethan McSweeny directed. Running time: 1 hour, 45 mintues, without an intermission.