This Day Forward *** B-

It’s good to have another Nicky Silver play onstage at the Vineyard Theatre, which has nurtured his work for over 20 years. Few playwrights can spin hilarity out of tragic circumstances as well as Silver. Perhaps his most popular play is The Lyons, with its deeply dysfunctional Jewish family that included an overbearing mother (a role Linda Lavin was born to play), a tyrannical father, a conflicted gay son and a less-than-appreciated daughter. If you enjoyed The Lyons, you will feel right at home here. The first act, set in 1958 in a room at the St. Regis, features a bridal couple whose wedding night is thrown into disarray by the revelation of a secret. In the second act, we learn how the consequences of that night have played out 46 years later. The dialog is often brutally funny. To say more would be to reveal too much. The entire production is topnotch. The cast of six (Andrew Burnap, Michael Crane, Holley Fain, Francesca Faridany, June Gable and Joe Tippett), some doubling roles, are all superb. The sets for both acts, by Allen Moyer, are perfection. Kaye Voyce’s costumes suit their characters well. J. David Brimmer’s  fight direction is worthy of note. Longtime Silver collaborator Mark Brokaw directs with a sure hand. With Silver, the style sometimes threatens to overwhelm the substance, but that is a flaw I can accept. Running time: 2 hours, including intermission.

Dot ***

Hard as it may be to envision a hilarious comedy about a family facing the mother’s descent into dementia, that’s exactly what Colman Domingo has written in his new play at Vineyard Theatre. Dotty Shealy (Marjorie Johnson) is the matriarch of a middle-class black family who have lived in their West Philadelphia row house since 1954. The father, now deceased was a successful physician. Her eldest child Shelly (Sharon Washington), now in her mid-forties, is an attorney and a single mother. Middle child Donnie (Stephen Conrad Moore), now 40, is a gay freelance music critic in New York, where he lives with his activist white husband Adam (Colin Hanlon). Youngest child Averie (Libya V. Pugh) is a brash would-be entertainment whose 15 minutes of YouTube fame has led only to a cashier’s job at Shop Rite. Fidel (Michael Rosen) is a sweet-natured unlicensed health care aide from Kazakhstan who takes care of Dotty three days a week. Jackie (Finnerty Steeves), a white neighbor who was Donnie’s high school sweetheart and who fled to New York when she learned he was gay, has suddenly returned to town and has joined them for their Christmas celebration. There is much hilarity, but the underlying situation of Dot’s deterioration is no joke. During the second act, the play bogs down a bit with some didactic moments and some sentimentality. The ensemble cast work well together. Scenic designer Allen Moyer is a triple threat: he offers a pointillist front curtain depicting the exterior of the family home, a first act kitchen that really looks lived in, and an attractive living room for the second act. Costume designer Kara Harmon has dressed the characters aptly. Director Susan Stroman shows that her talent is not limited to musicals, although she does manage to slip in a delightful dance duo for Dot and Adam. Despite the play’s flaws, the overall effect is very winning. The audience loved it. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including intermission.

Gigantic **

This musical with a book by Randy Blair and Tim Drucker, music by Matthew roi Berger and lyrics by Blair has been kicking around in various forms since 2009. As “Fat Camp,” it won Best of Fest award at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in a production directed by Alex Timbers. In 2012 American Theatre of Actors revived it with several cast changes and a set by Beowulf Boritt. Why talents such as Timbers or Boritt were attracted to this pedestrian show and why Vineyard Theatre decided to give it a third New York outing are mysteries to me. The antics at a summer camp for overweight teenagers are a slender {pun not intended} thread for a full-evening musical. During the second act, the authors try frantically to liven things up with a production number featuring a dozen or so life-size dancing animals that bears no relation to anything else in the show. Likewise, as part of the color war, one team, with no rationale whatever, performs a scene from “The Crucible” dressed in Pilgrim costumes made from trash bags. The energetic, appealing cast give it their all. They are all good, but Bonnie Milligan, Larry Owens and Leslie Kritzer stand out. The music is generic pop-rock, with many songs sounding almost alike to me. I might have appreciated the music more had it not been blasted at levels that were painful to bear. The woodsy set by Timothy R. Mackabee is quite attractive and Gregory Gale’s costumes are inspired. The choreography by Chase Brock is lively and the direction by Scott Schwartz is smooth. Too bad the the quality of the material does not match the high level of the production. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including intermission.

Gloria ****

No one can accuse Obie winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, An Octoroon) of repeating himself. Each of his three plays that I have seen creates its own world completely unlike that of the other two. His latest play, now at Vineyard Theatre, draws upon his experience working at the New Yorker for a few years. For the first 45 minutes, the play seems to be a witty workplace satire about assistants at a prestigious magazine. Then the mood abruptly shifts, to put it mildly. To say more would spoil your experience. The remainder of the play depicts the effects of a life-changing event on some of the people who experienced it and raises this question: when something newsworthy happens, who “owns” the story? The playwright also paints an unflattering picture of today's media scene in which stories become mere fodder for the ravenous film/television/social media/publishing beast. In Act One we meet three editorial assistants — Dean (Ryan Spahn), Ani (Catherine Combs) and Kendra (Jennifer Kim); Miles (Kyle Beltran, who made such a strong impression in Fortress of Solitude), a college intern; Lorin (Michael Crane), a somewhat older fact checker; and the title character (Jeanine Serralles, recently in Verite), a socially awkward longtime employee from another department. Each character is vividly sketched and the dialogue rings true. The first act is literally a tough act to follow. In the second act, all the actors except Crane play one or more new characters. The excellent cast is adept at changing roles. One of the play’s strengths is that, at any given moment, I had no idea where it was heading. The scenic design by Takeshi Kata captures the sterility of the modern cubicled office. The costumes by Ilona Somogyi are unobtrusively apt. Evan Cabnet’s direction is rock solid. In case there was any doubt, Jacobs-Jenkins demonstrates that he belongs in the first rank of contemporary American iplaywrights. Running time: 2 hours including intermission.

Brooklynite **

This new musical about superheroes in Brooklyn, now in previews at the Vineyard Theatre, has lots of talent behind it. Composer/lyricist/ book co-author Peter Lerman has won both a Jonathan Larson Award and a Stephen Sondheim Young Artist Citation. Director and book co-author Michael Mayer brought us “Spring Awakening.” Choreographer Steven Hoggett’s many successes include “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” and “Once.” The story is based on characters created by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. The cast includes Nick Cordero, so impressive in “Bullets over Broadway,” and the always entertaining Ann Harada. The production is lavish by Vineyard standards. Donyale Werle’s modular set creates several diverse locales, Andrea Lauer’s superhero costumes are wonderful, as are Andrew Lazarow’s projections. With all this talent, why did I find the show curiously flat and uninvolving? I think the main problems are the book and the music. The story of six superheroes created when an asteroid hit Gowanus and the nebbishy hardware store clerk who would like to join their ranks works better for a comic book than an off-Broadway musical. Except for a couple of songs, the music seemed merely serviceable. The cast, led by Matt Doyle and Nicolette Robinson, do their best to animate cardboard characters. The other recent musical about Brooklyn, “Fortress of Solitude,” was superior in every way. With its story of Brooklyn superheroes and in-jokes about that borough, this show might have been more suitable for some Williamsburg venue than for the Vineyard. I think a younger audience would appreciate it more. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes including intermission.

Too Much Sun ***

While Nicky Silver’s new play starring Linda Lavin at The Vineyard may be a disappointment to those expecting a variation on his hit play The Lyons, It can still provide a lot of enjoyment to those willing to consider it on its own merits. Although it offers another juicy role for Lavin, it has quite a different spirit from the earlier play. This time out Lavin plays Audrey Langham, an actress of a certain age who has a meltdown performing Medea in Chicago and shows up, unannounced and unwelcome, at the beach house where her estranged daughter Kitty (Jennifer Westfeldt) and her husband Dennis (Ken Barnett) are spending the summer. Kitty is an unhappy schoolteacher and Dennis is an ad man who has taken the summer off to write the Great American Sci-Fi Novel. The next-door neighbors are Winston (Richard Bekins), a wealthy widower, and his gay teenaged son Lucas (Matt Dickson) who sells weed to the locals. They are joined by Gil (Matt Dellapina), the assistant to Audrey’s agent, who has been sent to bring Audrey back to Chicago. Over the course of the summer, new relationships blossom as old ones wither, with a few surprises along the way. The balance tips toward more drama and less humor, although there are many funny moments. Some of the characters are insufficiently developed and there are some awkward structural flaws (Silver seems unable to resist including at least one blackout with a character addressing the audience). The set by Donyale Werle is quite attractive and Michael Krass’s costumes are fine. Mark Brokaw’s direction is assured. The play's final line is memorable. Despite the play’s flaws, I found it consistently enjoyable.

Arlington **

This chamber musical by Victor Lodato (book and lyrics) and Polly Pen (music), now in previews at the Vineyard Theatre, is basically an hour-long solo song cycle. To qualify that, the actress and pianist do join forces for a few critical moments and much of the music is more like a long recitative than a series of songs. The piece depicts a day in the life of a young woman from a military family whose husband is away at war in an unspecified desert country. Hyperactive and loquacious, Sara Jane (Alexandra Silber) gradually reveals her feelings about war in general and her husband's role in it in particular. We see her preparing for a visit by her mother who has just had her third plastic surgery and, later, recovering from that visit. I wish we had met the mother; it might have livened things up a bit. The pianist (Ben Moss), hidden behind a scrim, occasionally portrays the husband. A revelation near the end makes some of Sara Jane's behavior seem quite reprehensible. It's a real tour-de-force for Silber, who, except for occasional diction problems, performs well. Moss's role, though relatively small, is important and he is very good. The creative team has impressive credentials: Lodato is a successful novelist/playwright and Guggenheim fellow; Pen has previously succeeded at the Vineyard with Bed and Sofa and Goblin Market; Carolyn Cantor directed the highly praised After the Revolution. Unfortunately, much as I admire what they were aiming for, I found the results of their collaboration less than satisfying.

The Landing **

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"Be careful what you wish for" seems to be the moral of the three playlets that comprise this chamber musical now in previews at the Vineyard Theatre. Whether it's a young boy who needs a friend, a bored housewife who wants a link to her fantasy world of late-night gangster movies, or a gay couple hoping to adopt the perfect child, getting one's wish does not turn out well. If you were wishing for a show with music by John Kander (most recently Scottsboro Boys and Curtains), lyrics and book by promising playwright Greg Pierce (Slowgirl) and a talented cast led by David Hyde Pierce (Greg's uncle), the same might apply to you. The evening is curiously flat. "Andra," basically story theater with a little music added, goes on much too long. "The Brick," the most inventive and lively of the three, could use some trimming too. The final piece, "The Landing," is sketchy and its theme problematic. The shortcomings of the material are almost compensated for by an excellent cast -- Pierce, Julia Murney, Paul Anthony Stewart and appealing child actor Frankie Seratch. There is not as much music as I would have expected and what there is not top-drawer Kander. The evening is by no means terrible, just not very interesting. The simple, functional set design is by the busy John Lee Beatty. Talented director Walter Bobbie makes the most of what he has to work with. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes; no intermission.

The North Pool ***

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When Dr. Danielson (Stephen Barker Turner), the vice-principal of a large public high school, summons Khadim Asmaan (Babak Tafti), a Middle-Eastern-born transfer student, to his office at the end of classes on the final day before Spring Break, Khadim has no idea why. For the next 85 minutes, they engage in an escalating verbal duel. Danielson is not the one-note bureaucrat he first appears to be and Khadim is not just a cocky student he is badgering. Joseph effectively holds the audience is his grip as he springs a series of surprises that keep changing our perception of the two characters. The play almost never heads in a predictable direction. The story has too many subplots for its own good and some of them are less than plausible. Nevertheless, the play is well worth seeing for the gripping performances of Turner and Tafti. Donyale Werle's set is the perfect recreation of a high school office and Paloma Young's costumes are just right. Director Giovanna Sardelli certainly knows how to build and maintain tension.

Now. Here. This. **

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The appealing quartet (Hunter Bell, Susan Blackwell, Heidi Blickenstaff & Jeff Bowen) whose [title of show] was a big hit at the Vineyard Theatre a few years ago are back with a new show. I wish I could say that lightning struck twice in the same place. Alas, what seemed fresh and cute the first time around seemed to me stale and trite this time out. The book puzzlingly tries to link Merton's philosophy of the importance of staying in the present moment to the group's excursion to the Museum of Natural History, where each recalls moments from his or her past. Though I was unimpressed by a lab production last year, I was hopeful that further work might improve the show. The production values are now first-rate, with an excellent projection design by Richard DiBella. Michael Berresse's smooth direction and clever choreography cannot hide the thinness of the material by Bell & Blackwell or the mediocrity of Bowen's music. I would be remiss not to report that the vast majority of the audience looked under 30 and appeared to be having a wonderful time. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes without intermission.

Outside People **

Is there room in New York for a second play about an American experiencing culture shock in today's China? The producers at Vineyard Theatre and Naked Angels apparently think so. We now have Zayd Dohrn's new play opening at the Vineyard. It does not really share much in common with "Chinglish." The comedy is much darker here. Each of the characters is in some sense an outsider -- Malcolm (Matt Dellapina) is an extremely neurotic schlemiel from Hoboken whose Chinese former roommate at Stanford, David (Nelson Lee), has invited him to visit and possibly live in Beijing. David's years in America have alienated him from his roots and left him with a taste for non-Chinese women. His current girlfriend Samanya (Sonequa Martin-Green) is the daughter of an African diplomat, raised in China, who will never be considered Chinese. On Malcolm's first night in town, David fixes Malcolm up with Xiao Mei (Li Jun Li), an attractive girl from the countryside trying to make it in the big city, with whom Malcolm promptly falls in love. Even the audience is at times an outsider, because there are a couple of scenes where the Chinese dialogue in not translated. The motivations for what transpires are complicated and not always made clear. The cast is excellent and the situation is sufficiently intriguing that my hopes were raised. Ultimately, I found it just good enough that I wish it had been better. Evan Cabnet's direction is smooth and the sets by Takeshi Kata are attractive and functional. Running time: 90 minutes without intermission.

Note: Dohrn, the son of Weather Underground members Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayers, should know about being an outsider -- he was raised in hiding for his first four years.

The Lyons ***

Since I didn't much like Nicky Silver's black comedy when I saw it in a lab production at the Vineyard Theatre last season, I had low expectations when I returned today to see the finished product. I was pleasantly surprised. The humor has been sharpened, the pathos has been deepened, and Silver displays more sympathy toward his characters. While I still have some misgivings, I thought it played much better this time around.

Terminally ill patriarch Ben Lyons (Dick Latessa). who has been a distant husband and father; his embittered wife Rita (Linda Lavin), who looks forward to widowhood; divorced daughter Lisa (Kate Jennings Grant), who met her ex at an AA meeting; and gay son Curtis (Michael Esper), an unsuccessful writer who has never let his family meet his lover, all go at each other in Ben's hospital room. The nurse (Brenda Pressley) appears now and then to check on Ben. Later, when Curtis goes apartment hunting with hunky realtor/actor Brian (Gregory Wooddell), there are unanticipated consequences. The final scene, back at the hospital, provides vivid proof that being surrounded by one's family can be the loneliest place of all.  Mark Brokaw's direction, Allen Moyer's sets and Michael Krass's costumes are all on the mark.

When Linda Lavin turned down the chance to move to Broadway with "Other Desert Cities" in order to play Rita Lyons at the Vineyard, many people were surprised. Smart move! This is a role that she was born to play and is much juicier than her smallish part in the Baitz play. If you are a Lavin fan and/or a Nicky Silver fan, you will have a good time at "The Lyons."

Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes including intermission