An American Daughter, a La Femme Theatre Production @ the Pershing Square Signature Center

-


The Play: An American Daughter, a revival of the political satire that depicts the unfair standards women in public life have to negotiate when a nominee for the job of U.S. Surgeon General finds both her career and her family thrown into turmoil by the revelations that she skipped jury duty and made condescending remarks about stay-at-home moms 

Written by: Wendy Wasserstein        Directed by: Sarna Lapine

One good thing: The supporting cast is stacked with such stage pros as Dakin Matthews, Robert Sean Leonard, and the invaluable Mary Beth Piel, who delivers the most incisive performance despite having the least lines; plus the Georgetown living room set that Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams has created is so HGTV-perfect that I was ready to move in

One not-so-great thing: Wasserstein wrote this play while she was dying and she tried to pack too much into it, which is exacerbated by the fact that the production roughly stitches together various drafts of her script but even more damaging is the casting of the lead role with the lead producer, who is nowhere near up to the task

 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Art @ The Music Box

-
Image
The Play: Art, the first Broadway revival of the 1998 Tony-winner about three longtime male friends who fall out when one pays a lot of money for a trendy all-white painting Written by: Yasmina Reza      Translated from the French by: Christopher Hampton     Directed by: Scott Ellis One good thing: The show’s three stars—Neil Patrick Harris, as the guy who buys the painting; Bobby Cannavale, as the one who’s most critical of the purchase; and especially James Corden as the would-be peacemaker between them—are all thoroughly entertaining and should satisfy those willing to pay up to $500 for a ticket to see them One not-so-great thing: But the decision to go for the big laughs sacrifices the complexities Reza built into the play about the men’s true bonds of friendship and their fear of losing them     
Read more

The Brothers Size @ The Shed

-
Image
The Play: The Brothers Size; a powerful and affecting revival of this modern-day fable about the testy but ultimately loving relationship between two brothers named after—and evoking the essence of— Yoruba gods Written by: Tarell Alvin McCraney        Directed by: Bijan Sheibani and Tarell Alvin McCraney         One good thing: Well, just about everything works—the ring of salt poured at the beginning of the performance which establishes the entire set as well as the mystical undertone of the production, the subtle variations in the simple costumes that define the characters, the live drummer whose beats punctuate the action and the spectacular performances by André Holland and Alani iLongwe as the brothers—but maybe most impressive to me was the spot-on direction that made the whole thing just as great as its parts, even while playing in the round One not-so-great thing: The intentions—particularly the homoerotic subtext— of the play’s th...
Read more

Let's Love ! @ the Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater

-
Image
The Play: Let’s Love; a bawdy trio of comedy sketches about sex and love Written by: Ethan Coen        Directed by: Neil Pepe One good thing: The cast—led by Aubrey Plaza as a shrewish ball-buster, Noah Robbins as a sweet nerd and Chris Bauer as a brainless lug—is extremely game and the classic love songs that singer-songwriter Nellie McKay performs during scene changes are entertaining even if they have little direct connection to the rest of the show One not-so-great thing: The sketches lean heavily on the kind of potty-mouthed humor that junior high school boys tell one another in vain attempts to show how cool they are; and the first scene with a white woman coming on to a black guy at a bar is a particularly embarrassing riff on  The Dutchman, LeRoi Jones’ 1964 classic drama about a similar encounter    
Read more