Travels with My Aunt **

Keen Company is currently presenting Giles Havergal’s clever stage adaptation of Graham Greene’s light 1969 novel about Henry Pulling, an uptight, recently retired suburban banker and his freewheeling Aunt Augusta. They meet after a gap of 50-years at the funeral of Henry’s mother, who, his aunt soon informs him, was not really his mother. Augusta soon embroils Henry in her complicated amoral life and takes him along on a trip across Europe. The present man in Augusta’s life is Wordsworth, a Sierra Leonean who is absolutely devoted to her. Augusta is determined to rescue an ex-lover Mr. Visconti, a former Nazi collaborator who, despite taking all her money, still holds her in his thrall. The gimmick on which Havergal’s adaptation is based is that four hard-working actors (Thomas Jay Ryan, Jay Russell, Dan Jenkins and Rory Kulz), identically dressed in three-piece suits and bowlers, play the 20+ roles. The role of Henry is divided among the four of them. Ryan has only one additional role, the important one of Aunt Augusta, while the others all have multiple roles. Russell’s roles range from Tooley, a college girl to O’Toole, a CIA man who just happens to be her father. Jenkins appears as both Wordsworth and Visconti. Kulz has small roles, most memorably that of a wolfhound. When the second act takes us to Paraguay, the actors change to white suits and straw hats. It’s clever, but the trick grows tiresome before long. You can figure out the ending at least an hour in advance. I found the material too thin to hold my interest for over two hours. Apparently, Havergal has approved a 50-minute one-act version which sounds about right to me. Steven C. Kemp’s set shouts “low budget,” but it gets the job done. Jennifer Paar’s matching costumes are delightful. The direction by Keen artistic director Jonathan Silverstein is competent. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including intermission.

10 out of 12 **

Is it a coincidence that two promising playwrights named “Anne” or “Annie” have written lengthy plays set in a workplace that involves show business? First Annie Baker gave us The Flick, about the employees of a run-down movie theater. Now Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns: a Post-Electric Play) has penned a sly comedy about the actors, creative staff and backstage crew preparing for the opening of a play in a downtown Manhattan theater not unlike Soho Rep, where the show is playing. The production’s concept is a clever one: each audience member is given a listening device to follow the conversations of stage manager (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) and crew during the upcoming play’s tech rehearsal. For those not in the know, in which group I include myself, the “tech” is a long, tedious process in which all the elements of the play including lighting, sound design, costumes and set are finalized. The play’s title refers to the union rule that people may not work more than 10 hours in a 12-hour period. The actors in the play-within-a play (Gibson Frazier, Nina Hellman, Sue Jean Kim, David Ross and Thomas Jay Ryan) must deal with a director (Bruce McKenzie) who makes Hamlet look decisive by comparison. As the long rehearsal drags on, the work falls further and further behind schedule. Boredom and fatigue take their toll. Tempers flare and egos burst. Seeing Ryan lose his cool is one of the play’s greatest pleasures. It all ends with a Kumbaya moment that seemed only partially earned. While I admired the concept, I had problems with the execution. There are frequent boring passages, which I realize is part of the point, but nevertheless taxed my patience. There were many entertaining moments too but the fractured structure never came together for me. David Zinn’s set and Asta Bennie Hostetter’s costumes work well and Les Waters’s direction is sharp. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including intermission.

A Month in the Country **

Turgenev’s theater masterpiece has a peculiar history. Written in 1850, a good 50 years before the Chekhov plays it prefigures, it was not produced until 1872 and did not receive proper recognition until the Moscow Art Theatre took it up, at Chekhov’s urging, during the early 1900’s.   It never achieved the popularity of the plays it inspired. Here in New York, Roundabout presented it three times — in 1976, 1979 and, on Broadway, in 1995 in a production directed by Scott Ellis. I saw the 1995 production, which starred Helen Mirren in her Broadway debut. (She almost made me forget that she was a 50-year-old playing a 29-year-old.) Despite the star-studded cast, which also included F. Murray Abraham, Ron Rifkin and Alessandro Nivola, Times critic Vincent Canby panned the production. I recall my reaction as being less negative, although I was disappointed that it didn’t make me re-experience the pleasure I had reading the play. Now CSC has revived the play in a brisk production starring two current television stars, Taylor Schilling of “Orange Is the New Black” and Peter Dinklage of “Game of Thrones,” and a former one, Anthony Edwards of “ER.” The results are wildly uneven. While Schilling looks perfect for the alluring but chilly Natalya, her interpretation does not dig very deep. Dinklage, on the other hand, makes Rakitin a touching figure. Edwards is properly obtuse as Natalya’s husband Arkady. (Turgenev specifies his age as 36, only 7 years his wife’s senior, but, once again, he has been cast as much older.) Megan West, who plays the murdered girl on “How To Get Away with Murder,” struck me as too perky and childlike in the early scenes, but got better as the play progressed. For me, the weakest link was Mike Faist as Belyaev, the young tutor whose presence destabilizes the household; he lacks the looks and charm to make his attractiveness plausible. The ever watchable Elizabeth Franz makes the most of the role of Arkady’s mother. Thomas Jay Ryan, as the cynical Dr. Shpigelsky, almost steals the show; his proposal to Lizaveta (Annabelle Sciorra) was, at least for me, the play’s highlight. Director Erica Schmidt rushes the play along to its detriment. I was appalled at the interjected scene of Natalya and Belyaev ripping each other’s clothes off, because there is absolutely no basis for it in the text. Tom Broecker’s costumes are fine, but Mark Wendland’s set is strange. A low wall, similar to a courtroom barrier, surrounds the stage. The back wall is a birch forest, which has to be the most cliched shorthand for a Russian setting ever. An oppressive large box overhangs the entire stage, semitransparent in front, which fulfills no function that I could think of unless it is supposed to suggest how confined their world is. The program lists the son as Koyla, instead of Kolya — twice. To his discredit, the Times critic repeated the error. I suppose it’s better to have a flawed production of an important play than none, but it’s a close call. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes including intermission.

The Lady from Dubuque **

(Please click on the title to see the entire review.)
When the new play Edward Albee was writing for Signature Theatre wasn't ready in time, they bravely -- or foolishly -- decided to replace it with this play, Albee's most notorious flop, which ran for 12 performances on Broadway in 1980. It is indeed a very strange play, uncomfortably blending black humor and pathos. Three suburban couples are playing 20 Questions in the home of Sam (Michael Hayden) and Jo (Laila Robins). Lucinda (Catherine Curtin), a friend of Jo's since college, and her husband Edgar (Thomas Jay Ryan) are treated with contempt by the others. The thrice-married Fred (C.J. Wilson) keeps telling prospective wife #4 Carol (Tricia Paoluccio) to shut up as she tries unsuccessfully to fit in. There is much bickering with occasional asides to the audience. Jo is terminally ill and in great pain, a circumstance that she uses as a license to treat everyone horridly. After the guests leave and the hosts go to bed, Elizabeth (Jane Alexander), an enigmatic older woman of regal bearing and her mysterious black companion Oscar (Peter Francis James) suddenly appear. When Sam discovers the pair in his living room the next morning, Elizabeth tells him that she is Jo's estranged mother. He refuses to believe her. The party guests from the previous night reappear and resume their bickering. Jo unquestioningly accepts the comfort offered by Elizabeth. Is she Jo's mother, the angel of death, or just the lady from Dubuque? Your guess is as good as mine. The play alternates hilarity with inscrutability and tragedy. Jo's piercing screams of pain will not leave my memory soon enough. It is not top-drawer Albee, but I was glad to have the opportunity to see it. I won't go so far as to recommend it though. The cast is fine, except that Hayden's performance seemed a bit overheated. David Esbjornson directed. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes including intermission.