Shows for Days ***

Douglas Carter Beane’s comedic memoir, now in previews at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitizi E. Newhouse Theater, recounts the events of the year the playwright turned 15 in a suburb of Reading, Pennsylvania and joined a local community theater where he discovered his place in the world and first experienced sex and unrequited love. His story is not particularly original or well-told and he panders shamelessly to an audience largely composed of gays and Jews.  The second act is a mess with plot developments that are downright implausible. However, if you forget about the plot and sit back to enjoy an almost nonstop series of hilarious one-liners, you will have a very good time. It helps tremendously that the young Beane, known here as Car, is played by the always-appealing Michael Urie (Buyer & Cellar) and that the theater’s artistic director Irene is the iconic Patti LuPone. We also meet Sid, the theater’s lesbian co-founder and manager (a wonderful Dale Soules); Clive, the company’s flamboyantly gay lead actor (a delightful Lance Coadie Williams); Damien, a handsome actor/waiter who is bisexual (Jordan Dean); and Maria, the young actress (Zoë Winters) whose role is notably underwritten. John Lee Beatty’s set combines an open stage with a back wall over-cluttered with props. The costumes by William Ivey Long are a good part of the fun. Jerry Zaks’s direction does not aim for subtlety.  The opportunity to see Urie, LuPone and a fine supporting cast keeping the zingers flying went a long way, at least for me, to overcome the play’s weaknesses. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including intermission.

The Mystery of Love and Sex ***

About an hour into the first act of Bathsheba Doran’s new play at LCT’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater, I began to wonder whether the playwright suffered from AD/HD. Roughly every 10 minutes, a new plot line arrived, seemingly out of left field. By the end of this overstuffed dramedy, I felt like a guest at a dinner party where too many courses were served. Fortunately, we have four fine actors — Tony Shalhoub, Diane Lane, Gayle Rankin and Mamoudou Athie — onstage to guide us through the many twists and turns. Howard (Shalhoub) is a successful Jewish author of mysteries. Lucinda (Lane) is a southern belle who met him at Yale, converted to Judaism and married him. Charlotte (Rankin) is their neurotic daughter who turned down Yale to attend a Southern college with Jonny (Athie), her friend since childhood. Charlotte and Jonny may or may not be falling in love. Howard is opposed, but alleges that it is not because Jonny is black. Among the semi-digested themes that are hurled at us like pitches from a batting machine are conscious and unconscious racism, sexism and homophobia; the angst of confused sexual identity, the self-centeredness of writers, Jewish-Black relations, intermarriage, same-sex marriage, strained marriage, the tricky relationships between parent and child, the porous border between friendship and love, the chances for a fresh start. Lest our interest lag, the author throws in a little semi-gratuitous nudity — twice. Andrew Lieberman’s simple set has a wall of curtains at the back that are tugged this way and that from time to time. The actors have to shlep a lot of furniture between scenes. The overlong first act had a few false endings that were greeted by applause because the audience thought the act was over. Kaye Voyce’s costumes are fine. The ubiquitous Sam Gold directed. It is far from a good play, but nonetheless an entertaining one, thanks largely to the appealing cast and several comic moments. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission.

Golden Boy ***

(Please click on the title to see the complete review.)
Lincoln Center Theater's lavish 75th anniversary production of this Clifford Odets classic is now in previews at the Belasco Theatre. The cast of 19, directed by Bartlett Sher, features such stalwarts as Tony Shalhoub, Danny Burstein and Jonathan Hadary, whose topnotch performances were, for me,  the main reason to see the play. Lucas Caleb Rooney, Dagmara Dominczyk and Michael Aronov are fine as Joe Bonaparte's brother, sister and brother-in-law respectively. Anthony Crivello is appropriately menacing as Eddie Fuselli. Yvonne Strahovski (Hanna on Dexter) makes an impressive debut as Lorna Moon. Danny Mastrogiorgio seemed a bit shaky as Joe's manager. And then there's Seth Numrich as Joe. Let me just say that he is not an obvious choice for the part. He is too big to be plausible as a welterweight, he doesn't look remotely Italian and his acting is outclassed by his fellow cast members. It is a tribute to the overall excellence of the production that this weakness does not seriously harm it. Michael Yeargan's multiple sets are excellent and Catherine Zuber's costumes are superb. I was surprised that the play did not seem as dated as I had expected and that Odets had managed to keep his usual sermonizing mostly in check until the third act. The ending is rather flat. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the evening more than I expected to. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes, including two intermissions.

Theater Recommendation: 4000 Miles ****

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Amy Herzog's play received universal acclaim during its brief run at the Duke last summer. It will be moving into the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in mid-March with the original cast for a limited run. If you missed it the first time, be ready to order tickets as soon as they go on sale -- February 6 for LCT members, February 12 for the general public.

Here is my review from last June:

The title of this new play by Amy Herzog, in an LCT3 production at the Duke, refers to the distance 21-year-old Leo (a strong Gabriel Ebert) has traveled on a cross-country bicycle ride that ends with his unexpected 3 a.m. arrival at the West Village apartment of his 91-year-old grandmother Vera Joseph (the incomparable Mary Louise Wilson). [The character of Vera, a devoted Marxist, also appeared in Herzog's recent well-received play After the Revolution]. Leo has been traumatized by the death of his best friend en route, a less-than-enthusiastic reception by his girlfriend Bec (Zoe Winters), a student at Columbia, and family problems back home in St. Paul. Grandmother and hippie grandson gradually overcome their differences and grow close. Greta Lee is hilarious as Amanda, a Parsons student Leo brings home one night. The characters are vivid, the dialogue is believable and the back story is interestingly complex. One can quibble over a few plot devices, but Herzog is clearly a talented playwright. The set by Lauren Helpern perfectly captures a slightly worn apartment that hasn't changed much in 50 years. Daniel Aukin's direction in unobtrusively fine.