Noises Off

In what might be the most anticipated production of the season, Roundabout's 50th Anniversary, Noises Off hits the boards this week at the American Airlines Theatre.

I saw the last NYC incarnation of this gem 14 years ago - Click Here - with Peter Gallagher, Patti Lupone, Katie Finneran, TR Knight, Faith Prince, and Edward Hibbert.  Needless to say I have fond and vivid memories of the hilarity that ensued.  Of course when I saw the show for the first time I had no idea what was going to happen - this time around, I sort of knew what was going to play out.

This time around, the indomitable Andrea Martin (Dotty) brought her physical comedy to the stage.  Campbell Scott (Lloyd Dallas), tackles the prickly and frustrated director. David Furr (Garry Lejeune), Megan Hilty (Brooke Ashton), Kate Jennings Grant (Belinda Blair), and Jeremy Shamos (Frederick Fellows) tackle the interlopers.  Tracy Chimo (Poppy Norton-Taylor) and Rob McClure (Tim Allgood) tackle the stage crew roles and Daniel Davis (Selsdon) is the bungling alcoholic burglar.

Anyone who knows anything about Nothing On (the play within the play) knows it is a physical comedy inside the physical comedy Noises Off - Three progressively "worse" acts repeated with disastrously funny consequences.  Timing is more than half the battle and tuning the characters just right is the rest.  I'd say they did a great job at the first part - the timing and physicality was nifty. The set (Derek McLane) was quite literally exactly what I remembered it to be - as if they pulled it out of storage.  What the production lacked, I thought, was a sense of mad-cap pace and hilarity.  It was almost very deliberate and plodding.  Certainly Ms. Martin had moments of glory - mostly in Act I as she labored over the sardines and later when she got tangled in the phone cord.  I remember TR Knight having a bigger part than Mr. McClure - and I don't know why.   Ms. Hilty delivered those stilted and quite literally memorized lines perfectly - and by perfectly I mean at just about the most incorrect time and always mugging to the audience like her character is supposed to.   This time around Mr. Scott walked around the entire theater including the mezzanine with his booming director's voice and I don't remember Mr. Gallagher doing the same except for right down front.  There were plenty of stars in this production although none of them shone overly brightly.  There was plenty of talent and great timing in this production, but nothing transported me.  That could be a bit of the 2nd time around syndrome, or it just might possibly be that the production seemed a bit more farcical and deliberately physical than it needed to be.

In the end, it doesn't much matter.  The family behind me had no idea what was going to happen and half my fun was listening to their reactions in Act 2.  I enjoyed this production but not quite as much as I enjoyed my first one.

The Country House

A new play just arrived on Broadway courtesy of Manhattan Theatre Club and award winning playwright Donald Margulies. It's a dash of classic play, a dash of naughty, and a dash of funny.  Add it all up and you have a fairly solid run at a family drama.

It didn't bowl me over.  Those dashes I mentioned, well, a few could have been tablespoons or half-cups.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't compelling.   Perhaps it will grow tighter with time as I saw an early preview, but my gut tells me there just isn't enough to draw the audience much past the front door of the fantastic country house (Sets: John Lee Beatty) we see on stage.

Blythe Danner (Anna Patterson) is the matriarch of the family in question here.  The family is mostly actors.  Her daughter is dead and it's a year afterward and she's getting the clan together at the country house in Williamstown (they are actors, remember) for the the anniversary of her death including her son (Elliott Cooper) Eric Lange, her son-in-law (Walter Keegan) David Rasche and his new girlfriend (Neil McNally) Kate Jennings Grant, her granddaughter (Suzie Keegan) Sarah Steele, a hunky young Hollywood actor (Michael Astor) Daniel Sunjata.

There are a few twists and turns in the plot, an inside running joke about the theatre and actors, and of course a little naughty intrigue all surrounding that gorgeous and successful Hollywood actor.  Well cast, but it was a studio sized result when I was expecting a classic 6 or more given the level of talent on the stage.

The Lyons

A new play by Nicky Silver, The Lyons, strikes a bitter and bitingly funny tone that all too many dysfunctional families will likely recognize.  Never known for his innocuous dialogue or weak point of view, Mr. Silver puts death right in our faces this time as the patriarch of this family, Ben Lyons (Dick Latessa), is being consumed by cancer and near death in the hospital bed as his wife, Rita Lyons (Linda Lavin) and his children, Curtis and Lisa Lyons, (Michael Esper, Kate Jennings Grant) gather by his side.  From the very first moments, you realize this last visit is going to be anything but peaceful and quiet.

Ms. Lavin shines.  Her lines are peppered with bullets - most every one hitting a bulls-eye - each acknowledged with her trademark puckered lips, or a sharp glare.  The disappointment and anger of her entire married life boils to the forefront in these last few days.  Her children show up - each damaged in their own deep, sad, and personal ways over the years and bring no comfort to either father or mother - nor to each other.

Mr. Silver's play starts out in classic comedic form in Act I, but after a brief intermission Act II takes a few detours that take the audience by surprise - and especially Scene 2 in Act II, which seems to bring little relevance to the story and while cleverly acted by Mr Esper and Mr Wooddell (Brian), ended in an unnecessarily violent and disturbing confrontation.  Scene 3, which needed some link from Scene 2, returned us to the family drama more akin to Act I.  Add an unexpected detour and then it all wraps up.

Ms. Lavin's barbs, Mr. Latessa's rants, and their damaged children's pathos are all superbly and sharply executed.  If only Mr. Silver's story was as consistently impressive.  I think it's fair to say that if Ms. Lavin's name was not associated with this production, it would be far less enjoyable.  Nonetheless, it is - and therefore well worth the price of admission to see this stage veteran consistently fire her weapon and hit her targets with aplomb.

The Marriage of Bette and Boo

Roundabout Theatre Company was smart to place this stink bomb at the end of their season.   You see, they already have their subscriber base to fill most theater and there is always a good percentage of tourists who will be fooled into seeing an off-Broadway show for cheap in August.  What I do like about this show is the idea and concept.  The concept that we all really do have problems in life, our families are all f-'d up and marriage and religion are only superficially observed.  There's something in just about every character that most people (unfortunately) can relate to.  It's a farce, of course, so everything is exaggerated, but that's the point.  However, the execution simply falls flat on stage.  

I did not get the privilege of seeing Victoria Clark (one of the few reasons i really did want to see it) but her understudy (Lizbeth McKay) was brilliant, nonetheless.  Julie Hagerty's (Morning's at Seven, The Odd Couple) character, Soot, was side-splittingly funny.  John Glover (The Paris Letter) played a marginal drunk.  I enjoyed Charles Socarides (Awake and Sing!) as Matt, the narrator and central character to the story. He swiftly kept the story moving and provided the needed background to the story unfolding before us.

Walter Bobbie has done a substantial job at keeping this stink bomb moving along swiftly and crafting the farce.   Unfortunately, this one belongs on Saturday Night Live or Comedy Central.