Mary Page Marlowe

C-

After the glowing reviews the Steppenwolf premiere of Tracy Letts’ play received two years ago, I arrived at Second Stage’s Terry Kiser Theater expecting an absorbing evening. Alas, something essential seems to have been lost en route from Chicago, because this production, directed by Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves), left me wondering what the fuss was about. The play is built around two gimmicks: the title character is played by six actors (and a doll) and the 11 scenes from her life are presented out of sequence. The six who play Mary Page, in ascending chronological order, are Mia Sinclair Jenness (Matllda), Emma Geer (How To Transcend a Happy Marriage), Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”), Susan Pourfar (Mary Jane), Kellie Overbey (The Coast of Utopia) and Blair Brown (The Parisian Woman). Her parents are played by Nick Dillenburg (The Real Thing) and Grace Gummer (Arcadia) and her children by Kayli Carter and Ryan Foust (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Audrey Corsa and Tess Frazer (This Property Is Condemned) play her high school friends. David Aaron Baker (Oblivion Postponed) and Brian Kerwin (August: Osage County) are two of her husbands and Gary Wilmes (Chinglish) is her amorous boss. Marcia DeBonis (Small Mouth Sounds) is her shrink, Maria Elena Ramirez (Fish in the Dark) is her nurse and Elliot Villar (War Horse) is her dry cleaner. The play begins with a scene in which she is 40 and moves backward and forward almost randomly as far back as her infancy and up to her final months. Unfortunately, dividing her character’s scenes among six actors does not make her life story six times as interesting. Nor do the six actors create a convincing unity, at least not for me. Instead, they seem motivated to make the most of their relatively brief stage time. Subordinating their performance to a larger picture does not seem to be a priority. Perhaps this shortcoming will be overcoming during previews. The fact that three of the Mary Pages look roughly the same age made it difficult at times to place scenes in the correct sequence. A few of the scenes rise above the deliberate banality of the others. At times I thought I was watching a piece commissioned to provide as many roles as possible for the members of a repertory company. It was only 85 minutes long, but it seemed longer. When it was finally over, I was left scratching my head trying to figure out what made the Chicago production a hit, while this one, to me at least, is a miss. Perhaps it was Anna D. Shapiro’s direction or Carrie Coon’s acting that made the difference. In any case, the magic is missing. Kaye Voyce’s (Shining City) costumes are apt but Laura Jellinek’s (Marvin’s Room) sleek, curvy bilevel set seems somehow inapropos. The best I can say is that I am happy so many actors are employed thanks to this production. Running time: 85 minutes, no intermission.

Mary Jane

A-

No, it has nothing to do with marijuana. I’m not sure why Amy Herzog (4000 Miles, Belleville) chose that name for her title character, but anyone expecting her new play at New York Theatre Workshop to be a cannabis-related story will be disappointed. Everyone else should be stirred by this compassionate portrait of a young woman who must deal every day with one of life’s great tragedies, caring for a child who has been severely impaired since his premature birth. Alex, now two, cannot speak, hold his head up or eat solid food. His father could not deal with it and left. Fortunately the audience is spared the grief of seeing Alex. What we do see is several moments in the life of Mary Jane (a superb Carrie Coon; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, "The Leftovers") during which she interacts with various women: her super, Ruthie (Brenda Wehle; The Crucible); her conscientious visiting nurse Sherry (Liza Colon-Zayas; Between Riverside and Crazy); Brianne (Susan Pourfar; Tribes), the mother of a newly diagnosed child who turns to Mary Jane for advice about what to expect; Sherry’s college-age niece Amelia (Danaya Esperanza); Dr. Toros (Colon-Zayas again), Alex’s physician; Chaya (Pourfar), a Hasidic mother of seven; Kat (Esperanza), a music therapist; and Tenkei (Wehle), a Buddhist nun. Herzog captures the heroic nature of Mary Jane’s daily struggle without placing her on a pedestal. Coon’s naturalistic portrayal is immensely powerful. The other actors are strong as well. There are flashes of humor, but one does not expect a happy ending. The low-key final scene initially disappointed me, but, on further reflection, I decided that its tentativeness supported the play’s honesty. Laura Jellinek’s realistic set design of a cluttered apartment in Queens converts effortlessly to another completely different setting. Emily Rebholz’s costumes look appropriately lived-in. Anne Kauffman (Belleville, Marjorie Prime, Detroit, The Nether) directs with her usual skill. It was a heartbreaking, but also uplifting experience. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

Women or Nothing **

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Whether or not you will enjoy Ethan Coen's new comedy for the Atlantic Theater Company depends largely on how much disbelief you are willing to suspend for some snappy dialogue and a few laughs. For me, accepting the premise of a pair of affluent sophisticated lesbians hatching a lame plot to trick a man into supplying the sperm for the child they want was too much of a stretch. Their plan makes little sense and is divorced from anything remotely resembling reality. On the plus side, the four actors (Halley Feiffer, Susan Pourfar, Robert Beitzel and Deborah Rush) play well together and two of the four scenes work quite well. Unfortunately, the final scene is a letdown. David Cromer's direction gets the most out of the script. Michele Spadaro's lavish set design of a Manhattan apartment incorporates a strange mixture of styles. Sarah Laux's costumes are apt. The play shows progress over Coen's recent one-act efforts, but still lacks the off-kilter inventiveness of a Coen screenplay. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes including intermission. NOTE: Avoid Row B at Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater -- there is no rake between Rows A and B and the seats are not staggered.

Tribes ****

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Director David Cromer, whose production of Our Town at Barrow Street Theatre was so widely acclaimed, is back with an Olivier-nominated family drama by Nina Raine about deafness and language. Billy (Russell Harvard), the deaf youngest child of an intellectual family headed by retired academic Christopher (Jeff Perry) and would-be novelist Beth (Mare Winningham), is a very skilled lip-reader, but was deliberately never taught sign language. His seriously depressed brother Daniel (Will Brill) is writing a dissertation on the inadequacy of language. His sister Ruth (Gayle Rankin) is an unsuccessful opera singer. His self-absorbed parents and siblings may hear, but they don't listen. Billy's feeling of isolation when he is left out of their intellectual battles goes unnoticed. When he falls in love with Sylvia (Susan Pourfar), a young woman active in the deaf community who is herself going deaf and who teaches him sign language, Billy's feelings toward his family change dramatically. A subplot about him working for the court system reading lips from surveillance videos misfires. The cast is uniformly excellent. The set by Scott Pask makes good use of the limited space. Staging the play in the round (in the square, actually) works quite well. The play presents interesting arguments about whether embracing deaf culture is liberating or limiting. It is far from perfect, but it is thought-provoking and deeply felt. It's not for everyone, but I was glad I saw it. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.