Our Mother's Brief Affair

Hot off the press, Richard Greenberg's tender relatively new work hits Broadway's nail square on the head.  An almost perfect fit for the subscription theater crowd.  An old Jewish mother losing her memories and her two distant, yet loving children tango back and forth seamlessly through the present and past memories and try to bring meaning and definition to their lives, each in their own way.

Linda Lavin (Anna) is the matriarch.  Staunch, ignored, marginalized, Jewish, and mildly bitter.  Greg Keller (Seth) is an obituary writer - lonely, preppy yet schleppy, nebbish, and gay. Kate Arrington (Abby) is the less than happy, hippie, gentle, and lesbian.  Ms. Lavin is the perfect choice to play a Jewish mother lording over her children in a loving yet authoritative and sarcastic sort of way.  Mr.  Greenberg seems well skilled at constructing the damaged, delicate, off-balance, and less than perfect family.   His language is rich and often the choice of words is argued over and debated in the dialogue.  It's smart and swift.  His ability to effortlessly sail through the story-telling is large.  Sometimes it's too large and we get bogged down - such as the latter half of Act II.

It turns out that Anna has indeed had what the title suggests - a brief affair.  Her children may or may not have been aware of it but they are grappling with it now. Her son is having the most difficulty coming to grips with the reality of the beans his mother is spilling.  The affair is quite a shocker.  Well, it's a shocker only after they employ a theatrical device to turn up the lights break the 4th wall and have the two children explain to the audience what their mother just admitted to.  I doubt many people would simply recognize the name David Greenglass.  The use of this abrupt device - is used to a lesser extent throughout the show - as this is really a memory play, a story told by the two children intermixed with flashback scenes from their life.

Tender, tough, heartbreaking, funny, and warm all at the same time.  In the end, the message is summed up by Anna to her son by explaining all she ever wanted was to be remembered.

Too Much Sun

 Fresh off her last off-Broadway turned Broadway run, The Lyons, Linda Lavin joins up once again with playwright Nicky Silver once again at the Vineyard Theatre for Too Much Sun, a full length family drama filled with humor and wit.

Linda Lavin (Audry Langham), a once successful, aging actress who is fed up with her diminished roles walks off stage of her seemingly silly engagement as Medea in Chicago and retreats to her daughter's beach house to regroup.  What unfolds is a family drama tangled up with the neighbors in more ways than one.  Mr. Silver's pen is sharp and witty, but his plot is unnecessarily complicated for the story being told and feels a bit like he wrapped it all up in the last 5 minutes.  It's not only the sun that's too much in this production.

All these rabbit holes aside, the show was extremely well acted and directed.  Jennifer Westfeldt (Kitty) and Ken Barnett (Dennis) are Lavin's daughter and son-in-law who are dragged unwittingly into her lair.  Richard Bekins (Winston) and devilishly handsome Matt Dickson (Lucas) are their beach house neighbors also both separately drawn into the family drama and have a drama of their own going on.  Audry's agent's assistant, Matt Dellapina (Gil), was hysterically entertaining and neurotic but involvement overall seemed contrived - especially at the end.

As I write this, I wonder if the character of Lucas even needed to have a storyline with Dennis or if the neighbors storyline needed to be so developed.  I guess we needed parts of it.  The play may have been shorter and punchier if it focused solely on Ms. Lavin's unfortunate yet comical situation.  But alas, perhaps that may have seemed too much like a simple 30 minute sit-com if it were.

From a construction perspective, the play had a prologue which seemed to work, but then there was an Entr'acte after the intermission that seemed a bit awkward.  All told it was a bit choppy overall, but the purposes were served.  A little lighting glitch was dealt with professionally and expeditiously and frankly was a reminder that theatre is live and shit happens.

As with all she seems to do, Ms. Lavin shines and her comedic timing is impeccable, but alas, I doubt this one will transfer to Broadway like the last one did.  In any case, she's one of those people who could read me the phone book and I'm positive I'd be mesmerized.

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.

Follies

Although a fully staged production, it appeared to me to be nothing more than an enhanced concert version of Stephen Sondheim's luxurious score at the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.  The construction of the show is quite cumbersome to begin with - old people enter, begin to reminisce, younger versions of their characters appear in the dialogue, one by one they all have "moments" in the spotlight.  The story struggles to keep moving forward because we are constantly having to look back at how it all started to understand why we are where we are.  Then come 4 fantasy follies numbers that chop up the 2nd act and finally back to a quick wrap-up in reality.

All the stars on stage seemed as if they rehearsed alone in a room and for the first time stepped foot on stage together.  No chemistry.   No palpable feeling they were coming back to revisit memories.  Just actors singing songs and saying lines.  Perhaps you were one of the early and loud-clappers that sat next to me?  By this I mean the throngs of freaks who were there to burst out into applause 8 seconds before everyone else and before the songs were over just because Bernadette Peters was somewhere near the stage and may have hit a note that sounded marginally good.   With that said, most of the performances were pretty good.  But we still have the first problem - no chemistry.  Without that, the show is just a pastiche of concertized Broadway numbers under a rose colored spotlight.

Bernadette Peters (Sally) and Jan Maxwell (Phyllis) were OK.  Not great, but OK.  Linda Lavin, however, knocked Hattie out of the park - Broadway Baby was her number to deliver and was honestly the best number of the entire show.  Elaine Paige, on the other hand, was terrible.  I'm Still Here should be a rousing, crowd stirring number by the time it's finished.  She's got the right first name for the song - but a Stritch, she is not.  Ron Raines (Benjamin) and Danny Burstein (Buddy) seemed oddly miscast although Ron's vocals were in fine form.  Mr. Burstein only seemed to hit it out the park when he was in his sweet spot - character acting - performing his follies number - Buddy's Blues.

Overall, the show was disappointing, although to see any of these actors perform is a treat.  This production just didn't seem to pull it all together.  Regret.  It was both the theme of the show and my evening as well.

Other Desert Cities

Perhaps the working title of this play used to be How to Ruin a Family in 12 Easy Steps.  Boy oh boy, What a punch this play packs!  The brilliant playwright Jon Robin Baitz is back from his brief detour to Hollywood and very glad we should be.  Under the direction of Joe Mantello, this production hits all the high notes in all the right places - comedy, religion, social commentary, drama and politics - all within the confines of the (very) white, upper middle class Palm Springs, California home of the Wyeth family.

Take all those powder-keg ingredients and toss in a top notch cast - Linda Lavin, Stockard Channing, Stacy Keach, Elizabeth Marvel, and the very sexy Thomas Sadowski and you've got a 2 1/2 hour weapon of mass destruction on your hands.   How did news of this stellar cast escape the news media, PR people, and me?.   I'm just glad my good friend, Donna, sent me the Playbill offer and I could end the year on such a high quality note as seeing this cast perform this play.

So what's it about?  It's about family, secrets, lies, love, protecting, and possibly at the same time, potentially destroying your children and your entire family.  In many ways, this play is like an season of Brothers and Sisters concentrated into two power-packed acts.  I mention this specifically because I was thinking about the similarities in format and style the entire time I was watching the family drama unfold.  I only realized afterwards as I was reading my playbill that Jon Robin Baitz actually wrote for the series for a season.  Now it all makes sense.

There are a few minor points that I'd like to see clarified in the text - one being the time frame - it's not until you really do the math that you realize the incident they are all dancing around happened in the 1970's (most of the audience spent the intermission discussing the math of how old the characters all were) and the other has to do with the ending.  No spoilers - but let's just say it was not clear to me right away what Mr. and Mrs. Wyeth actually did - it happened too quickly and was not clearly articulated.  It was perhaps the most important revelation of the entire play and it was done too quickly, I had about 3 versions of what was running in my head in parallel for a while.

Whether you like the family drama format, the actors, or the playwright - (or maybe all of the above) - Run, Don't walk - over to the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center and catch a performance of Other Desert Cities. It's currently in previews with an opening night slated for January 13th.  I think this one will be around for a while.  I could even imagine a Broadway transfer being discussed.  Hey - if God of Carnage can do it, this one is a shoe in.

Collected Stories

A charming and poignant evening in the theatre.  Seeing Lavin on a Broadway stage is a pleasure.  The role of Ruth Steiner was one she was born to play.  She brought an ethnic and comedic touch that few others could bring.   Sarah Paulson turned in a transformative performance - going from a shy, insecure undergrad to a successful award winning published author.

The dilemma presented in this story is one argued through the ages - Who owns a story?  Who has the right to tell it?   Ruth and Lisa wove a complex relationship - one of teacher and pupil and another as surrogate mother and daughter.  Playwright Donald Margulies prods the audience to take sides, makes you ask yourself where to draw the line.  He presents both sides of the story but it's highly likely you'll walk out of the theatre with an opinion on one side or the other.

Who's side will you take?

Hollywood Arms

http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=13416

The Tale of The Allergist's Wife

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Allergist%27s_Wife