From the Sublime to the Ridiculous and Back Again

Once again Marin Ireland blows up the stage, this time in "Blue Ridge" at the Atlantic Theatre.  The play itself by Abby Rosebrock is pretty good at addressing addiction and interpersonal relationships in a halfway house in Tennessee but we are thrown for a curve at the end which leaves us hanging because it is not addressed.  Up to this point the direction by Taibi Magar, who directed the suburb "Is God Is" at Soho Rep last year, nails it.  I'm not sure she knew exactly what to do with the ending here.  The performances are all rock solid, but it's Marin Ireland who rocks their world and breaks our heart as a woman so angry and yet so passionately caring.  I continue to feel that I would walk through fire to see her in anything. 

"About Alice"at TFNA is Calvin Trillin's gift to his late wife Alice Trillin.  As directed by Leonard Foglia, the sturdy Broadway director of weepies such as "On Golden Pond" and "The Gin Game," Jeffrey Bean and Carrie Paff embody Calvin and Alice Trillin decently but they are hardly as dynamic as the real people they portray.  I suggest you read Trillin's book of the same name instead.

"Minor Character" at the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theatre is yet another telling (there have been several recently) of Chekov's "Uncle Vanya," this time incorporating three different translations simultaneously. A shout out is due to the dramaturg Elliot B. Quick for his skillful work melding together the three translations. Presented by New Saloon and directed by Morgan Green, the production is equal parts Richard Forman, Elevator Repair Service, and Bedlam: wacky and experimental but still true to Chekhov's original.  The cast is uniformly excellent and up to the task but I must single out New Saloon member Madeline Wise who can currently be seen on the HBO comedy series "Crashing."

Also at The Public is "Sea Wall/A Life" which consists of two monologues given by Jake Gyllenhal and Tom Sturridge. Although I'm fond of the work of both actors who do an excellent job here, both monologues, by Simon Stephens ("Heisenberg") and Nick Payne ("Constellations") respectively, are slight  and don't delivere the desired punch I imagine the playwrights intended.  The subject of both is loss of a child.  I have seen this addressed to perfection three times in modern literature, in Ian McEwan's "A Child in Time," in Richard Ford's "The Sportswriter," and in the little know "The Disappearance: A Primer of Loss" by Genevieve Jurgensen.  Either play, directed by Carrie Cracknell whose recent heralded production of "A Doll's House" at The Royal Court was airlifted to BAM, might have been served better on their own in fleshed out full-length versions.  But certainly go for the nuanced and deeply felt performances. 

"Hurricane Diane" at NYTW is a hoot and a holler and pretty insubstantial overall but great fun to watch.  This new take on a Dionysus story, written by Madeline George and directed by the always reliable Leigh Silverman, is set in Monmouth County, New Jersey with a cast that includes the transgender actor Becca Blackwell as Diane (read Dionysus). The four suburban housewives whose lives will be disrupted by Diane during the course of the play are types: Kate Wetherhead as the mousy one, Michelle Beck as the black, career driven one, Danielle Skrassstad as the Guido Jersey Shore type and Mia Barron (recently of "The Wolves" at Playwright's Realm and as Joan Didion in "The White Album" at BAM) as Carol the uptight take-no prisoners focus of the play.  Diane,  a landscape gardener, sets out to seduce each of the women and create chaos in their front lawns as well as their lives.  Mission is predictably accomplished and the audience is greatly entertained.   

My favorite theatre-going experience so far this year has been the premier of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's 40 minute "Verklarte Nacht" at the Barishnikov Arts Center.  Dance, not theatre, but theatrical nonetheless.  For me De Keersmaeker embodies what is best in dance at the present time now that Pina Bausch has passed on to that great dance studio in the sky.  Think of her as Bausch with very little sense of humor.  Her work jolts, eviscerates and constantly surprises.  Her dancers are gorgeous to watch, beautifully trained, precise in their movements,and elegantly use the stage.  I especially liked Bostjan Antoncic, a Slovenian dancer who joined De Keersmaeker's company Rosas in 2005.  At first he comes off as being two big and brawny to be a dancer but slowly seduces us with the magic of his body and the fluidity of his movements.   This is not to take away from the other dancers, Cynthia Loemij who has been with Rosas since 1991 and Igor Shyshko, a Rosas member since 2000. What I liked best about De Keersmaeker's choreography in this piece were the moments when the dancers almost touch, moments that are electric.  I left the piece in a dreamlike state and have not been able to stop thinking about it.  Come back soon Anne Teresa!

And so we bid farewell to 2018...

The hilarious one-man show "My Name is Gideon" was worth the trek to The Brick performance space in Williamsburg.  Normally, Gideon Irving does the show in peoples' living rooms and spends the night.  He has taken the show across Australia and now plans to take it across the U.S. on horseback.  Does he ride?  Well... he's a Jew from New York so ...  But he is holed up in Utah on a Mormon ranch, as I write, learning how to ride.  The show, a lifetime's work for this 32 year old, is a mix of song, magic, slapstick and narration with a grab-bag full of props, set pieces and musical instruments.  He engages the audience often and with the uncanny ability of not making this critic feel stupid while participating.  Still, most of the songs are his own and I longed to hear him burst into a Sondheim with his marvelous voice.

Heather Raffo's "Noura" directed by Joanna Settle at Playwright's Horizons is a Christmas tale of sorts.   A Christian Iraqi family in New York are celebrating the holiday, the wife Noura (echos of "A Doll House") yearning for the Iraq she knew, her doctor husband wanting to forget the past and their very assimilated teenage son happy playing video games.   Also present are  Noura's childhood Muslim best friend and a young woman recently arrived from Iraq who they are sponsoring.  There's a mystery at the heart of the play that is ultimately devastating for all. 

At BAM Steven Berkoff's "Greek," a retelling of Oedipus set in present day Tuffnell Park, North London, has become a delightfully strange opera composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage and adapted by Turnage and Jonathan Moore with a libretto by Berkoff. I have to give a nod to the bright modernist set by Johannes Schultz and the wacky costume design by Alex Lowde. But it's the four singers who do the work, each playing a variety of roles except for Alex Otterburn who has his hands full with Eddy (Oedipus).  They are by turns raunchy and affecting and all-together entertaining.  Turnage forges his own "operatic path between modernism and tradition, by means of a unique blend of jazz and classical styles."

"Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw" at BAM Harvey is unbelievably amateurish. Adapted from the novella by Henry James by James Gibbs and directed by Marianne Weems the Builder's Association production makes for an excruciatingly tedious evening at the theatre. While there are some interesting visual affects none of the actors are very good so it's hard to stay engaged. In addition, the multimedia show forces us to watch closeups of the actors onstage via huge screens which are not always in sync.  I suggest you see the 1961 Deborah Kerr film instead.

Another dud at the BAM Harvey is David Rousseve's homage to Billy Strayhorn which is neither interesting as a dance piece nor a memorial to Strayhorn.  I don't want to fault the dancers.  Their choreography is minimal and they are often forced into narration in order to move the story along, something dancers are not often equipped to do.  Rousseve also throws civil rights footage up on screens whenever possible.  Unfortunately his footage is often not from the periods he is portraying from Strayhorn's life on stage.  Strayhorn deserves a better hommage than this uneven and disjointed production offers.

Best for last: As with a glass of fine Kentucky Bourbon, Elaine May in Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery" at the Golden Theatre gives a performance to savor.  In her 80's Ms. May still has what it takes and then some.  She is the aging matriarch of a neurotic New York family who still runs a largely unsuccessful gallery just off Washington Square. I was reluctant to see the play having been less than awed by Lonergan's recent revival of "This Is Our Youth" on Broadway and "The Medieval Play" at he Signature.  However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to see May in what may be her last turn on the stage under the direction of the always fine Lila Neugebauer who most recently directed an outstanding production of Albee's "At Home at the Zoo" at the Signature.  The story is slight and on the surface not very interesting, an elderly woman slipping into senility is attended to by her grandson, daughter and son-in-law as well a young and seemingly untalented artist who talks her into a last show at the gallery and becomes her part-time care-taker.  It's an all star cast with Lucas Hedges, Joan Allen, David Cromer, and Michael Cera but, really, there is no play without May who hasn't lost any of her chops since her early days with Nichols and May so if you're lucky enough to snag a ticket while it's still on Broadway, do so.

"Thunderbodies" are us, "Mockingbird" is not and the divine Twyla Tharp

November has been a month for a lot of ambitious but deeply flawed plays with the exception of a dance performance that soared.

Kate Tarker's "Thunderbodies" at Soho Rep is a loud, messy play reminiscent of Ionesco's "Jack, or The Submission" and "Rhinoceros."  It is directed Lileana Blain-Cruz who is having a moment now, having just come off  the successful run of Marcus Gardley's divine "The House That Will Not Stand." at NYTW. It's hard not to love the actors, Specifically veteran actress Deirdre O'Connell as the monstrous Grotilde and Matthew Jeffers as Boy, Grotilde's son.  Jeffers was the only "light" in the recent revival of Caryl Churchill's "Light Shining in Buckinghamshire" at NYTW and he is mighty good here as well.  "Thunderbodies is about war and politics and no way out...  As usual there too much throwing garbage around the stage for my liking but it makes it's point.

The only good reason, and it is indeed an excellent one, to see Alexi Kaye Campbell's "Apologia" at The Roundabout is to see Stockard Channing flex her acting muscles.  I have to admit that I'll see her in anything.  She usually has better material to showcase her talent,  "Other Desert Cities," "Six Degrees of Separation," "Joe Egg" to list a few,  but her performance here as Kristin, an aging social activist who has just written a memoir, elevates the material. The other performances are pretty wan, including Hugh Dancy as both the sons who she has managed to completely leave out of her memoire (hence the crux of the play).  I have also have been less than impressed with recent work of director Daniel Aukin: "Admissions" at LTC and "Fulfillment Center" at MTC and Ranco Viejo at Playwright's Horizons.  He is either managing to trivialize good material or opting to direct less than excellent works.  Take your pick. 

"The Hard Problem" at Lincoln Center is a new but minor Tom Stoppard.  It's enjoyable but doesn't go deep the way his best work does.  Jack O'Brien is Stoppard's go-to director at LTC and although he does his best he can't raise the play to the level of "The Coast of Utopia" or "The Invention of Love."  A sticking point for me is that Stoppard's muse this time around is Adelaide Clemens.  This is yet another strong Stoppard role for an actress and Clemens just doesn't have the weight of, say, a Carey Mulligan (sorry Stoppard, but Carey is already taken by David Hare).  The play about an ambitious young woman with a secret in her past, rests on her shoulders and she's just too uninteresting an actress to pull us in completely.   Even so, an evening with Stoppard is always food for thought and time well spent.

"The White Album" at BAM is pointless. Mia Barron, who we last saw in  Sarah DeLappe's "Wolves" at Playwright's Realm, is convincing as Joan Didion although she bears absolutely no resemblance to her. But then, Vanessa Redgrave in "The Year of Magical Thinking" didn't either.  The staging by Lars Jan for his Early Morning Opera company with a literal glass house, smoke and mirrors and enactments is mostly unnecessary.  Read the book instead. 

Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Estienne's "The Prisoner" at Theatre for a New Audience is also disappointing.  Perhaps Brook, in his 90's, is losing the thread of how to tell a story.  This is parable, if you will.  A man is condemned to sit outside a prison in punishment for the unspeakable crime of having murdered his father.  But his crime is muddied by the fact that he killed his father because he caught him sleeping with his sister who he also desired and that he received his punishment from his uncle who stood idly by and did nothing and so on... I suppose the question is whether we need to be behind actual bars to be in prison.  Although culturally and ethnically diverse  the actors are not very interesting and fail to make us care. 

"To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Shubert, adapted by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Bartlett Sher,  feels like a better than average television drama.  Which makes sense since in addition to the much loved "West Wing" Sorkin created "Newsroom" in which Jeff Daniels starred, as he does here. Daniels doesn't have to compete with Gregory Peck but he is still no Atticus Finch.  He fails to make us see the goodness and decency of the man.  Instead we get a scolding father and self-righteous lawyer.  I found Celia Keenan-Bolger believable as the 12-year-old Scout even though I have an intense dislike of seeing adult actors portray children on stage.  She brings layers to her performance lacking from the other performances. Too many of the characters are stock: the white trash accuser, the drunk with a heart of gold, the fair and jovial judge and so on.  The whole play feels rickety, like a summer stock show thrown up in a week or two.  Still, the night I went, there was a standing ovation.  I wasn't surprised considering how much the both the book and the movie have become such a part of our cultural narrative.  The audience wanted to love it so they did.

Twyla Tharp at the Joyce delights with "Minimalism and Me" an instructional piece on her earliest dances narrated by Tharp herself.  She remounts her earliest works from 1965 to 1971 and we see the progression of her choreography leading up to the perfect "Eight Jelly Rolls" from 1971.  As ever, Tharp has and eye for picking exquisite dancers and it's such a treat to see Tharp step out at 77 and dance for a few moments. Heaven.

OK!

"Oklahoma" directed by Daniel Fish at St. Ann's Warehouse is a mixed bag.  To begin with, the Rebecca Naomi Jones who plays Laurie is such a downer that none of it makes sense.  No Shirley Jones she. We have to fall in love with Laurie for the play to click.   On the other hand, I am absolutely in love with the actor who plays Curly, Damon Daunno, who was also rock-star magnetic in Hadestown at NYTW (but totally wasted in the dreadful "The Lucky Ones" at Ars Nova).  And Mary Testa brings much needed energy as Aunt Eller. The rest of the performances are pretty stock including the wheelchair bound Ali Stroker as Ado Annie.  Then there is the excruciating dream sequence, a ballet in the original production and movie but here a  modern dance number choreographed by John Heginbotham  that features lots of prancing and writhing around on the floor. No.  My heart went out to the lovely young dancer Gabrielle Hamilton.  I've also left out attributing the production to  Rodgers and Hammerstein because the current staging couldn't be further from their musical.  I did love the old-timey band of barn dance musicians on stage but much of the singing can only be described as caterwauling, a waste of some excellent vocal talent.  And the blood-splashed ending was more grotesque than I'm sure the original creators had in mind. The production dragged on in spots, specifically the darker moments with Jud Fry. We don't need to be literally kept in the dark for a long stretch, a few minutes would have done the trick. Or maybe the whole play should have been done in the dark?

A very slight play that I don't really recommend unless one is exploring ones queer identity is "Plot Points In Our Sexual Development" by Miranda Rose Hall at the LTC3.  The director Margot Bordelon made a lot of busy work for the two very fine actors, Jax Jackson and Marianne Rendon, for what is essentially a series of monologues about their growing and developing awareness of their sexuality and how it effects their relationship.

Daniel Alexander Jones as Jomama Jones in his "Black Light" at Greenwich House is pure cabaret. Jomama Jones along with her band and back-up singers entertain with a show that is pure camp.  It does addresse racism in the patter between songs  but I preferred Jone's full length autobiographical play "The Book of Daniel" which dealt with the same issues and felt more complete as a play.  But bravo!

I'm not an opera connoisseur but the staging of the 1981 Philip Glass opera "Satyagraha" BAM about Gandhi was nonsensical.  The opera is about Gandhi's years in South Africa, from 1893 to 1914 where he formed his guiding philosophy of "truth force" ( Satyagraha ) and fought for the civil rights of Indians.  This Swedish import incorporates the marvelous Cirkus Cirkor into the Folkoperan opera.  The circus acts are presumably meant to be an echo of the relationship between risk and payoff in Gandhi's life and the emphasis of the Bhagavad Gita on delicate balance but are ultimately distracting and ... no... not great. So much walking on balls and business with blocks of wood and a big pile of yarn. The libretto, adapted by Constance DeJong from the Bhagavad Gita, a classic of Hindu scripture and a foundational guide for Gandhi's activism, and, sung by Leif Aruhn-Solen(Gandhi), Karolina Blixt among others, was gorgeous.  There were many moments when I preferred to close my eyes to the business on stage and just listen.

And, finally, Theresa Rebeck's "Bernhardt/Hamlet" is an old-fashioned play with old-fashioned performances and it's just fine. It's kind of like sinking into a comfortable and well-worn armchair for 2 1/2 hours.  I'm not at all surprised that the director Moritz von Stuelpnagel is an old hand at directing Noel Coward.  Except for too much fluttering of the arms in Act I, Janet McTeer, an unlikely choice to play the sensual 5'3" Divine Sarah, delivers with a nuanced portrait of the aging actress attempting to revive her career by mounting a production of "Hamlet" with herself in the title role.  Much talk is given to her difficulties with Shakespeare's verse and hilarity ensues.  Dylan Baker as the hammy veteran actor Constant Coquelin is pitch perfect but the performance that really stands out is that of Jason Butler Harner as the playwright Edmond Rostand who was possible Bernhardt's lover.  He's the kind of actor who becomes the role almost as if by osmosis.  In looking at the program I see that he has been in numerous plays I have seen and loved over the years and I can't for the life of me remember having seen him before. Bravo!  My kind of actor. 

"The Ferryman," "The Ferryman," "The Ferryman"

Although I enjoyed Jez Butterworth's previous plays that made it to Broadway "Jerusalem" and  "The River" temendously,  "The Ferryman" is such a glorious evening of theatre [three and a quarter hours worth that fly by] that it surpasses anything he has done before. "Jerusalem" was such a tour-de-force for that grandstanding Anglo-American actor Mark Rylance that the other actors had almost no chance to breath their parts.  "The River" was more or less a showcase for the always amiable and attractive Hugh Jackman.  But the cast of "The Ferryman," which originated in London and is here directed by Sam Mendes, is a true ensemble, each one superb.  Paddy Considine as Quinn Carney the head of a large Irish family and Laura Donnelly as Caitlin Carney his sister-in-law lead the cast.  Fionnula Flanagan,  Dearbhla Malloy and Mark Lambert represent the older generation, all established Irish actors of some note, but even the young 'uns, many of them American and new to the cast for the Broadway production incorporate seamlessly into the mix.  Even those not familiar with the Irish "troubles" will have no problem following the story which revolves around the disappearance of Caitlin's husband 10 years prior and the events that ensue when his executed body is found in a bog. The different political leanings of the members of both the older and the younger members of this large extended family are front and center.  This devastating play, rich in language, political insight and human tragedy, is a must see. 

The Russian "Measure for Measure" at BAM Harvey comes close (Shakespeare ... hello ...) although I would have enjoyed it a tad more if it it hadn't been in Russian and the supertitles had been translated from the original English and not from the Russian translation of the English.  The cast, all from The Pushkin Theatre Moscow, are directed by Cheek by Jowl's Declan Donnellan. Anna Vardevanian as Isabella particularly stands out.  This is physical theatre. The staging is minimal and the ensemble at times appear as Greek chorus but it all comes together cohesively and times one even forgets that the actors are not speaking in English.

More or less in keeping with "Measure for Measure," "The Bacchae" also at BAM Harvey is a physical production. Anne Bogart directs the  Siti production of the Euripides play at times almost as it were a  dance.  The story of Dionysus arriving in Thebes as a human and wreaking havoc is a classic but always has the ability to catch one by surprise with it's brutality. The work of the very fine ensemble is at times humorous and at other times shocking, sending spasms of fright and fear through the body of the audience like an electric shock. Euripides would have approved.

Bedlam's "Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet" disappoints.  I, followers of this blog know, am a huge fan of Bedlam.  They have their hits and misses and this one is in my opinion a miss, albeit a glorious one.  The idea of mashing together "Uncle Vanya" and "Romeo and Juliet" is a curious one.  I did not get it.  Call me thick.  Performances, as always, are excellent, notably Susannah Millonzi as Sonya and Edmund Lewis as Vanya and the direction by company founder Eric Tucker is mostly excellent except for another Ivo Van Hove moment of trashing the stage.  Perhaps the less said, the better.  I look forward to their next production which I hope is as awesome as their "Pygmalian" earlier this year.

The Trisha Brown Dance Company at BAM Fisher is an example of a rudderless endeavor.  Not every dance company is capable of performing up to the standards set for them by their creators after said creators are gone.  Merc Cunningham was right to say "no mas" although several of his dancers have gone on to start companies of their own where they continue to perform his choreography and this is fine.  Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal has managed to hang on to magic of it's creator as evidenced in their recent revisiting of Cafe Muller/The Rite of Spring at BAM and even that felt like something was missing.  Not all the dancers who currently make up the TBDC are equal and it is evident in the three pieces performed at the Fisher.  I don't believe that a couple of them would have made the cut had she been alive.  "Ballet" from 1968 which opens the program and relies heavily on video screen shots of the Trisha Brown from the 60's is o.k. but Cecily Brown lacks the presence of Brown.  The second dance "Pamplona Stones" from 1974 features two dancers of mismatched ability and, although retaining some of the intended humor of the original, is awkward as a result.  The final dance of the night "Working Title" from 1985 is the most successful and the company performs it well but there are too many pauses to "move furniture" as it were and this breaks the continuity to the extent that we in the audience are in danger of losing interest.  The black and white photo of Trisha Brown in the program has more life than the entire evening.


And just for laughs see "Head over Heels." This Broadway play directed by Michael Mayer["Hedwig and the Angry Inch," "Spring Awakening"] with music by The Go-Go's about a Medieval Kingdom where everything is topsy-turvy and everyone seems to be questioning their sexuality is enchanting, engaging and fun.  Have relatives or friends coming to town? Take them!

The Time Is Right For Some Collective Rage and a Reexamination of the 14th Amendment

Now seems to be the precise time for a production of "Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties" Jen Silverman's angry queer play directed by Mike Donahue for the MCC Theatre.  The acting is outrageously good.  Dana Delaney is the surprise here.  Who knew she was one to take on a role in such a play after plum in popular mainstream shows China Beach and Desperate Housewives.  She goes full out here as Betty 1, the arguably angriest of the Betties, an UES housewife who falls for her queer black boxing instructor Betty 5, played by Chaunte Wayans (yes of that Wayans family).  Lea Delaria (Betty 4), and Anna Villafane (Betty 3) are edgy and sharp as the star-crossed lovers of the play but I think my favorite performance came from Adina Verson as Betty 2, another privileged but decidedly mousier housewife who discovers her vagina.  Yes, reader, I did write that.  If you are shocked easily by graphic language then I suggest you steer clear of this production which culminates in a loose interpretation of the tinker's play from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," here called variously "Pyramid and Thursday" and, my favorite, "Burmese and Frisbee." Pratfalls and bad behavior ensues. But this is ultimately a play about angry women and what happens when they are pushed to the edge by their partners and society.

It's also the right moment in time to examine the 14th amendment in Heidi Schreck's "What the Constitution Means to Me" at The New York Theatre Workshop.  Directed by Oliver Butler and performed by Shreck herself, the play takes us back 30 years to when she made money for college by debating the 14th Amendment at various American Legion halls around the country.  The play shifts back and forth from those days to the present as she continues to explore the meaning of the 14th Amendment, finishing with a real time debate with a 15 year old girl (Rosdely Ciprain at the performance I attended).  Much food for thought here(did the 14th Amendment originally apply to women and people of color, for instance?).  I must also mention Mike Iveson who Schreck essentially uses as a prop until the moment when he is cast into the spotlight to share his experience as an LBGTQ man and stops the show. And did I say mention that you will also be very entertained?

Jonathan Payne's "The Revolving Cycles" at Playwright's Realm directed by Awoye Timpo is an ernest play about racism in America that doesn't hit the mark.  Again, as in "Fairview" Jackie Sibblies Drury's much overpraised play at the Soho Rep earlier this year, a playwright breaks the fourth wall and attempts to draw the audience in without earning it. There have been far better plays this year by black playwrights about the black experience in America including Aleshea Harris's "Is God Is" at the Soho Rep and Antoinette Nwandu's "Pass Over" at LTC.   Let's acknowledge fine playwriting when we see it and stop giving slaps on the back to playwrights of color for inferior efforts.  Two terrific performances keep "Revolving Cycles" afloat, that of Kara Young as Karma, a street kid trying to uncover the mystery of her one-time foster brother's disappearance, and Deonna Bouye shape-shifting in multiple roles. 

In "Girl From the North Country" at The Public Theatre, Conor McPherson brings his rural Irish characters and Dylan songs to  Duluth, Minnesota during the Depression.  The play itself is clunky and forced but the arrangements of the Dylan songs are divine as is the dancing by the ensemble cast with standout performances by Mare Winningham, Jeannette Bayardelle and Todd Almond who delivers a bring-down-the-house interpretation of "Duquesne Whistle." If you love Dylan and don't mind sitting through the labored plot surrounding the songs this may be enough.  It wasn't quite enough for me.

Too Much, Too Little

Do you know that feeling when you're late to the party and then feel like you shouldn't have bothered to show up at all?  That's how I felt about 10 minutes into Tracy Letts' "Mary Page Marlowe" at The 2nd Stage.  Even the usually reliably fine direction of Lila Neugebauer failed to make this play feel more than a poorly written soap opera following the mostly tragic life of one Mary Page Marlowe from her teen years to her cancerous 60's. Although there were some decent performances, especially that of Blaire Brown as the aging Mary Page, most of the casting was a cheap attempt to elevate the production by casting celebrity children and television actors. That said, Tatiana Maslany from "Orphan Black" was fine as Mary Page at age 27 and 36.  But Meryl Streep's daughter Grace Gummer as Mary Page's mother Roberta, continues to demonstrate that the best actors do not necessarily beget great actors. This is the second play in which she has underwhelmed me, the first being Stoppard's "Arcadia" where her acting chops were well beneath her cast mates.  Letts' play is somewhat copying the device that Clare Baronn used to great success in "I'll Never Love Again" where she cast her teenage self with actors of all ages, sexes and ethnicities to brilliant effect.  Here, Letts casts several actors as Mary Page at different stages of her life.  But some of the actors blur together and don't present any great age difference.  It might have been better for Letts to stick to one or two actors and flesh out the play which feels like a series of scenes strung together.  I also had the take-away that Letts doesn't really understand women.  This is an occasion, another example being "The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias" last year at Playwright's Realm,  where a woman's story is perhaps not best serviced by a male playwright.