The End of Longing

D+

The final play in MCC’s season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre marks the debut of Matthew Perry (TV’s Friends) both as playwright and as New York stage actor. I wish I could say that his dual debut were more auspicious. MCC’s promotional material describes this “bittersweet comedy” as follows: “An alcoholic, an escort, a self-diagnosed neurotic and a well-intentioned dimwit walk into a bar... “ That would be the forlorn Perry, the luscious Jennifer Morrison (ABC's Once Upon a Time), the hilarious Sue Jean Kim (Aubergine) and the laid-back Quincy Dunn-Baker (The Wayside Motor Inn). In a rapid succession of short scenes, we learn what happens when they pair off into two unlikely couples. I could not get past the implausibility of a gorgeous, smart woman settling for a downbeat older lush. The pairing of an tightly-wound texting addict with an easygoing construction worker was only slightly more plausible. The play’s prevailing levity turns darker near the end, but then reverts to a predictable happy ending. Kim and Dunn-Baker do wonders to flesh out their basically one-note characters. Morrison does reasonably well with the thankless task of making her character seem believable. Perry is a notch below the others. While a failure on many levels, the play does have some good one-liners. Derek McLane’s revolving set cleverly lines the walls and even the ceiling with squares of wine and liquor bottles. Sarah Laux’s costumes are apt. Lindsay Posner's direction is brisk, perhaps to prevent us from having too much time to think about the play’s flaws. Matthew Perry is apparently still a big draw; after the play the street was crowded with people outside the stage door. Running time: one hour 45 minutes; no intermission.

Man from Nebraska

C

Four years before Tracy Letts wrote Pulitzer Prize winner “August: Osage County,” he wrote another play that was nominated for the Pulitzer, this one. After seeing the play, I can understand why it took over 13 years to reach New York. It is a play that will provoke wildly divergent reactions. What some will regard as alternately droll and touching, others will find merely banal and tedious. My own reaction falls somewhere in between. I never pass up a chance to see the work of actor Reed Birney (“The Humans”), playwright Letts or director David Cromer (“The Band’s Visit”). Birney plays Ken Carpenter, a 60-something insurance man from Lincoln, Nebraska who faces a sudden crisis of faith. We see him and his wife Nancy (Annette O’Toole) on a typical Sunday on the way to church, during the service, at a cafeteria, visiting Ken’s physically and mentally declining mother (Kathleen Peirce) at her nursing home, watching tv and going to bed. During the night Ken begins weeping uncontrollably and tells Nancy that he no longer believes in God. His uptight married daughter Ashley (Annika Boras) is less than supportive. Reverend Todd (William Ragsdale) counsels Ken to take a vacation alone. He decides to go to London which he had enjoyed 40 years before when he was in the Air Force. On the flight, he meets Pat (Heidi Armbruster), a predatory divorcee with a taste for bondage who seduces him. At his hotel, he strikes up a friendship of sorts with the lovely black bartender Tamyra (Nana Mensah). Eventually he meets her sculptor flatmate Harry (Max Gordon Moore) and takes lessons from him. Back at home, lonely and depressed Nancy starts spending a lot of time with Reverend Todd’s father Bud (Tom Bloom). Ken’s reception upon his return is uncertain. The play’s episodic structure does not seem organic. Birney, as always, is superb. Mensah is also strong. O”Toole, to me at least, seemed mannered. The set by Takeshi Kata makes full use of Second Stage’s wide stage, with furniture lined up against the back wall brought forward as needed. The top two-thirds of the back wall is covered by sometimes illuminated clouds that are both fluffy and ominous. The costumes by Sarah Laux suit their characters well. Particularly in the first act, director Cromer lets scenes breathe longer than some can easily tolerate. I predict that you will have a strong reaction to the play. Whether it will be negative or positive is the question. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes, including intermission.

The Band's Visit *** B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting this musical adaptation of the popular 2007 Israeli film about an Egyptian police band that inadvertently becomes stranded overnight in an isolated town while on a goodwill visit to Israel. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and the book is by Itamar Moses (Bach at Leipzig). The songs are well-integrated into the story with much of the music being performed by actors playing band members. The book, faithful to the screenplay almost to a fault, incorporates large chunks of dialog from the film. It is virtually impossible to develop 20 characters in any depth in 95 minutes even without making time for a dozen songs. In some cases, we get a bare sketch, but in others, the characterization actually goes deeper than in the film. The show is greatly enhanced by a fine cast and high production values. Katrina Lenk makes an excellent Dina. John Cariani (Something Rotten!) brings richness to the role of Itzik. Ari’el Stachel is just right as the band’s young hunk Haled. George Abud and Sam Sadigursky are standouts as actor-musicians. Last but not least, Tony Shalhoub brings dignity and compassion to the role of Tewfiq, the bandleader. The evocative scenic design by Scott Pask (Something Rotten!) makes effective use of a revolving stage. Sarah Laux’s (The Humans) costumes fit their characters well. The direction by David Cromer (Tribes, Our Town) is fluid and assured. The result is an intimate, engaging show with an edge of poignancy. I could not suppress a twinge of regret over how badly the situation in Egypt and Israel has deteriorated since 1996, the year in which the story is set. Running time: one hour, 35 minutes; no intermission.

The Effect **

My hopes were high for this London import that garnered the Critics Circle Award for Best New Play for its 2013 National Theatre production. I much admired playwright Lucy Prebble’s clever Enron and have almost always enjoyed David Cromer’s work as a director (Tribes, Our Town). Furthermore, the topic certainly sounded intriguing — an experimental study on an antidepressant that might act as a love drug. Nevertheless, something seems to have been lost crossing the pond, because I fail to see what the fuss was about. I note that the running time at the National was 45 minutes longer than the version now at Barrow Street Theatre — 2 3/4 hours vs. two hours — so it’s possible they trimmed too much. However, even at its present length, it seemed at times repetitive. We meet two of the experimental subjects, Connie (Susannah Flood), a rather straight-laced psychology student, and Tristan (Carter Hudson), a free-spirited drifter, who are supposed to spend 4 weeks under observation as they take the drug in a double-blind study with a control group on placebos. They are supposed to forgo sex and cellphones. It comes as no surprise that they break both rules and fall in love. The question is whether it is “real” or just the effect of the drug and whether the answer actually matters. We also meet Dr. Toby Sealy (Steve Key), the big pharma honcho who has hired the depressive Dr. Lorna James (Kati Brazda) to run the study. As it turns out, they have a history. I mostly enjoyed the first act, but was disappointed when the playwright turned to melodrama midway through the second. The play raises many interesting questions such as whether pharmaceutical experiments justify deceit, whether antidepressants are a good or bad thing, and what it is that makes us us, without providing easy answers. Hudson and Brazda are both superb. I found Flood’s alternately nasal and shrill voice hard to listen to. Key seemed to change affect too suddenly. The set design by Marsha Ginsberg is flexible and looks just like a hospital. Sarah Laux’s costumes are unobtrusive. Cromer’s staging leaves some actors awkwardly frozen in position during a rather lengthy scene for others. This play is certainly an improvement over last year’s somewhat similarly themed Placebo at Playwrights Horizons, but that is faint praise. NOTE: Avoid seats in row B; there is no elevation over row A.

The Humans ***

Stephen Karam’s new play joins a long list of theater works and films about Thanksgiving family dinners from Hell. The very Irish Blake family are gathered in the Chinatown apartment into which younger daughter Brigid (Sarah Steele) and her boyfriend Richard (Arian Moayed) have just moved. The blue-collar parents Erik (Reed Birney) and Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell) have driven in from Scranton with Erik’s demented mother Fiona (Lauren Klein) for the occasion. Older sister Aimee (Cassie Beck), an attorney in Philadelphia, is also there. In the wake of 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy, Erik is upset that Brigid’s ground-level-and-below duplex apartment is both in a flood zone and near Ground Zero. During the course of dinner, we learn some of the other fears that afflict the family members. Economic insecurity continues to play an important role in all their lives. Thwarted careers, health issues, fragile relationships, recurring nightmares and other problems beset them as well. The characters seem very real and the authentic dialogue illustrates their skill at pushing each other’s buttons. The playwright has chosen to make the apartment, with its sudden loud noises and its abruptly failing lighting, a metaphor — a rather clumsy one, in my opinion —for the entropy in the characters’ lives. Karam treats his characters with compassion. The acting is very strong and the situations are mostly easy to empathize with. However, the play loses steam toward the end and the final moments were a disappointment. Nevertheless, its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The bilevel under-furnished apartment set by David Zinn provides an apt background for the action. I didn’t even notice Sarah Laux’s costumes, which is a good thing. Joe Mantello’s direction is confident without being showy. While I don’t feel that the play is on a par with Karam’s excellent “Sons of the Prophet,” it still has much to recommend it. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

NOTE: Try to avoid seats in the first few rows because you will be too close to see a substantial part of the set’s upper level.

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.

Really Really **

(Please click on the title to see the complete review). 
MCC Theater is to be congratulated for bringing the work of a promising young playwright to New York. In this intriguing but ultimately frustrating drama now in previews at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 26-year-old playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo offers a blistering view of the Me Generation. The plot revolves around what actually happened at a drunken college party at the house of Cooper (David Hull), a slacker who is on the rugby team. Leigh (Zosia Mamet from "Girls"), a student whose boyfriend Jimmy (Evan Jonigkeit) is away for the weekend, claims she was raped at the party by Davis (Matt Lauria), a campus heartthrob who shares the house. He has no memory of what transpired. We question her claim because she has already lied about being pregnant to hang on to her wealthy boyfriend, she has a slutty reputation, and she sees her accusation as a way out of poverty. Also, Davis has a sterling reputation as a good guy. As the situation develops, we learn the responses of Davis's career-minded teammate Johnson (Kobi Libii), Leigh's cynical sister Haley (Aleque Reid) and her earnest roommate Grace (Lauren Culpepper). The relentlessly self-serving message of the speeches Grace gives as president of the Future Leaders of America is a counterpoint to the plot. By play's end, almost everyone has revealed a dark side that changes our perceptions. It's never boring, but a little too schematic. There is one puzzling plot development in the second act that makes no sense at all. The play is ill-served by David Korins' set design that involves frequent shoving of furniture back and forth and doesn't really capture the differences between the two student homes. Sarah Laux's costumes are suitable to each character. David Cromer's direction was not up to the high standard he set with "Our Town" and "Tribes." Running time: 2 hours including intermission.