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.

The Country House ***

Donald Margulies’s new play at Manhattan Theatre Club could well bear the subtitle “Variations on Chekhovian Themes.” Characters and situations from “The Seagull” and “Uncle Vanya” are borrowed, tweaked and conflated to produce a clever mash-up that works more often than not. The action takes place in the Williamstown home of Anna Patterson (Blythe Danner), an acclaimed actress of a certain age who is in town to play the title role in Mrs. Warren’s Profession. For the first anniversary of her daughter Kathy’s death, she is joined by her granddaughter Susie (Sarah Steele), a senior at Yale; her daughter’s widower Walter (David Rasche), a successful Hollywood director who has his new girlfriend Nell (Kate Jennings Grant), an actress, in tow; and Anna’s unhappy son Elliot (Eric Lange), an unsuccessful actor and would-be playwright. The family are joined by a surprise guest, Michael Astor (Daniel Sunjata), a television celebrity who has come to town to play The Guardsman. As a young actor, he had appeared with Anna and had an affair with Kathy; he is still catnip to three generations of women. Eleven years ago, Nell and Elliot had acted together in Louisville, leaving Elliot smitten with unrequited love for her. All this is laid out cleverly in the first act with amusing dialogue. And then things head south. The second act seemed formulaic and the third act, which hews too slavishly to Chekhov, did not offer any sense of resolution. The play is peppered with droll observations on the state of theater and film. The cast are uniformly excellent, John Lee Beatty’s set is luscious, Rita Ryack’s costumes are appropriate and Daniel Sullivan’s direction is smooth and assured. Although the destination was a disappointment, it was an entertaining ride for most of the journey. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission

Slowgirl ***

(Please click the title to see the complete review.)
LCT3 inaugurates its new Claire Tow Theater, built atop the Vivian Beaumont, with this new play by Greg Pierce. Becky (Sarah Steele) is a 17-year-old extrovert who leaves no unfiltered thought go unspoken. Sterling (Zeljko Ivanek) is her reclusive uncle who lives in a remote home in the Costa Rican jungle. Becky, fleeing the horrible consequences of a cruel prank against a developmentally challenged classmate, is visiting him for a week. Several years earlier, Sterling fled the United States for reasons that are gradually revealed. Although they had not seen each other in nine years, their shared alienation forges a bond as the week progresses. There are some awkward plot points and too many long pregnant pauses, but the play held my interest. Steele, who had impressed me in Russian Transport earlier this season, is quite good. Ivanek is fine in a much less showy role. The sets by Rachel Hauck are evocative, effective and technically impressive. Emily Rebholz's costumes are appropriate to the characters. Anne Kauffman's direction could use a little more energy. Running time: 95 minutes without intermission.

The Claire Tow Theater is a welcome addition to the local theater scene. A simple but elegant black box with 131 comfortable red plush seats, it has a lovely terrace overlooking the newly green roof of the Beaumont. All tickets are only $20.

WIth LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater is "reaching out to younger and more ethnically diverse audiences."  I assume their decision not to market Slowgirl to LCT members was part of this plan. Judging from this afternoon's audience, they are not reaching that goal. I was shocked that the theater was half-empty. I think they need a new marketing plan.

Russian Transport **

(Please click on the title to see the full review.)
An immigrant family struggling to achieve the good life in Brooklyn is thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a relative from the old country.  No, I'm not talking about "A View from the Bridge." In this New Group production,  the family are Russian Jews living in Sheepshead Bay and the arriving relative is the wife's younger brother Boris (Morgan Spector.) Misha, the hen-pecked husband (Daniel Oreskes), runs a struggling car service. When she is not bullying her family, domineering wife Diana (Janeane Garofolo) works in a store. Son Alex (Raviv Ullman), still in high school, drives for his father, works in a mobile phone store, and deals a few drugs on the side. He is unrelentingly nasty to his younger sister Mira (Sarah Steele), who dreams of attending a summer program in Florence and must be the first 14-year-old girl in history uninterested in getting her first bra or wearing makeup. Even before Boris arrived, I was not looking forward to spending 2 1/2 hours with these unpleasant people. Diana's brother Boris is a sinisterly seductive sociopath who immediately sets out to corrupt Alex and Mira. He enlists Alex as an initially unwitting driver to transport newly-arrived Russian girls to mysterious locations. He turns on the charm with Mira and shows her his gun. (No, Freudians, an actual gun.) The family members have at each other for 2 1/2 hours, as various secrets are revealed. Playwright Erika Sheffer is not adept at telling a story clearly. At intermission, people around me were arguing about what exactly happened in the final scene of Act One. There is another scene near the end of the play that takes place so quickly and in such darkness that it wasn't clear what actually transpired. Director Scott Elliott shares some of the blame here. The actors are excellent with the exception of Garofolo, who struggles a bit with the Russian accent. Spector is an absolutely chilling Boris. Steele and Ullman are both fine, but I thought that she looked older than her brother, not three years younger. Oreskes deftly avoids stereotype. The two-level set by Derek McLane captures Diana's concept of good taste. I am surprised by the mostly positive reviews the play received. The audience was far less enthusiastic.