Evening at the Talk House

D+

It sounded so promising: a New York premiere of a work by the provocative and often amusing Wallace Shawn with a cast that includes Matthew Broderick, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker (remember them in L.A. Law?), John Epperson (Lypsinka), Larry Pine, Claudia Shear (Dirty Blonde) and Shawn himself. The cast also includes a fine young actress previously unknown to me, Annapurna Sriram. Upon entering the Romulus Linney Theater at Signature Center, the audience sees a cozy area that looks like the living room of a private club, filled with overstuffed chairs and ottomans, a leather sofa, a large coffee table and an upright piano. It took me a split second to realize that the attractive woman offering a tray of marshmallows, gummy bears and colored sparkling water was Eikenberry, looking barely a day older than she did on L.A. Law. For several minutes (too long in my opinion) the actors mix with the audience before the play. Most of those gathered at the theatrical club were associated with a play that opened ten years before  — Robert, the playwright (Broderick); Tom, the star (Pine); Bill,  the producer (Tucker); Ted, composer of the incidental music (Epperson); Annette, the wardrobe mistress (Shear); Nellie, the struggling club’s proprietor (Eikenberry) and Jane, her assistant (Sriram). An unexpected guest is Dick, an old actor (Shawn) who had been turned down for a part in the production ten years ago. Robert opens the play with a very long (at least 10-minute) monologue, during which we learn that much has changed in the past 10 years. Theater has practically disappeared. The country has become vaguely dystopian with quarterly predictable elections and frequent blackouts. Robert and Tom have abandoned serious theater for the lucrative world of television comedy. Bill has become a successful agent. Ted, Annette and Jane have had to scramble to make ends meet, filling in by participating in a government program to target people “who mean to do us harm.” Dick is staying at the club temporarily after a beating from his “friends.” Despite the underlying menace, the guests prattle on about tv shows and other gossip. One topic is the mysterious recent poisoning of at least two actors. The lights go out, but the talk continues. The play grinds to a halt with an ending that seems almost arbitrary. Somewhere lurking inside this disjointed mess lies an interesting play. I wish Shawn had waited until it emerged. Derek McLane did the wonderful set and Jeff Mahshie, the fine costumes. New Group artistic director Scott Elliott directed. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

Sylvia ***

Twenty years after its debut at Manhattan Theatre Club, A.R. Gurney’s charming but inconsequential play has finally made it to Broadway. It presents the playwright in a much more favorable light than any of the three Gurney plays that Signature recently mounted. Annaleigh Ashford’s performance as the eponymous canine is sheer delight, reason enough to see the show. As Greg, the man with a midlife crisis who is instantly smitten with Sylvia when she plops into his lap in Central Park, Matthew Broderick is the best he has been since “The Producers.” The ever-watchable Julie White strikes all the right notes as Greg’s wife Kate, who does not want a dog to upset their newly-empty nest or her budding career as a teacher bringing Shakespeare to uptown middle school students. Robert Sella is a triple threat as Tom, another dog owner in Central Park; Phyllis, Kate’s friend from Vassar days whose struggle to stay on the wagon is threatened by Sylvia’s enthusiastic attentiveness; and Leslie, the androgynous couple counselor Kate and Greg visit. As Sylvia becomes more entrenched and gets more attention from Greg than his wife does, a showdown looms. I’m sure you can guess the outcome. The play’s conceit is really too slender for a work that runs over two hours, but director Daniel Sullivan does an excellent job of hiding that. The triple casting of Sella is droll, but seems cut from a different cloth than the rest of the play. David Rockwell’s set offer a lovely scene of Central Park with the essentials of a park-view apartment that materialize when needed. Ann Roth’s costumes are excellent; the ones for Sylvia are truly inspired. You may forget the play five minutes after it ends, but you will likely enjoy it while you're watching it. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including intermission. 

It's Only a Play ***

This much-revised comedy by Terrrence McNally, which is breaking box office records on Broadway, has a stellar cast including Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, F. Murray Abraham and Rupert Grint (from Harry Potter films), plus promising newcomer Micah Stock. Lane and Channing are at the top of their form, rattling off a nonstop series of bitchy zingers, many of them theatrical insider jokes that flatter the audience by making them feel in the know. Abraham, as an acerbic critic, reveals a manic comic side that I never knew he had. Mullally was out so I can’t comment on her; understudy Isabel Keating seemed flightier than necessary. Rupert Grint, as a hotshot British director who claims to crave failure, has to cope with a poorly written role and a hideous costume. Stock, who resembles a young Jim Parsons, holds his own in a long, hilarious scene with Lane. And then there’s Matthew Broderick as the author of the play whose opening night is being celebrated. He copes reasonably well with difficult material in Act One — a lecture on the depressing state of Broadway theater and a prayer for those involved in the business — but seems to retreat into a shell of blandness in Act Two. The fun is greatly abetted by an over-the-top set design by Scott Pask and hilarious costumes, including the outerwear of unseen celebrities from other Broadway shows, by Ann Roth. Director Jack O’Brien occasionally lets the pace lag. The wisp of a plot is about the anxieties of waiting for reviews on opening night, a somewhat dated concept in the age of instantly accessible reviews on newspapers’ digital sites. The second act fizzles more than it fizzes. McNally would have done well to follow one of the theatrical trends he deplores in the Act One lecture — 90-minute plays without an intermission. A string of one-liners, no matter how funny, does not stay fresh for two hours and forty minutes. It’s too much of a good thing.

Nice Work If You Can Get It ****

(Please click on the title to see the full review.)
I am baffled by the middling to negative reviews this Gershwin musical has received, because I thought it 's wonderful. Joe DiPietro's tongue-in-cheek book cleverly blends about 20 Gershwin songs into a delightfully absurd plot loosely based on Oh Kay! The almost uniformly excellent cast (more about that later), stunning sets by Derek McLane, gorgeous costumes by Martin Pakledinaz, lush orchestrations by Bill Elliott and endlessly inventive choreography by Kathleen Marshall, who also directed, offer a lot to enjoy. Kelli O'Hara is marvelous as singer, dancer and comedienne. Michael McGrath stands out among a strong supporting cast that includes Judy Kaye and Estelle Parsons. The only weak link is Matthew Broderick; his singing and dancing are competent, but his signature nebbishy persona has lost its charm for me. I guess his name still sells tickets. With a stronger male lead, the show would be an unqualified success. As it is, it still provides a most pleasant evening. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes including intermission.