Happy Talk

I suspect that there is a good play inside Jesse Eisenberg's Happy Talk, currently  at The New Group at the Signature Center. The ideas and the situation are intriguing, and there is humor and insight in the telling. But, at least here, its good points are eclipsed by its problems.

Lorraine (Susan Sarandon) feels unmoored and lonely. Her (never seen) mother is bedridden and slowly dying in a room on the first floor. Her husband, Bill (Daniel Oreskes), barely speaks, so sunk is he in depression and multiple sclerosis. And her daughter, Jenny (Tedra Millan), has been out of touch for months. Lorraine does have a couple of things going for her: Her mother's caregiver, Ljuba (Marin Ireland), a cheerful woman from Serbia, provides Lorraine with emotional support and something resembling friendship, and Lorraine is playing Bloody Mary in South Pacific at the local Jewish Community Center. As happens in dramas of this sort, things are not quite what they seem, secrets are revealed, and people learn more about themselves and each other than they necessarily want to know.

The problem with Happy Talk is that, rather than peeling the onion to get deeper into the story and people's psyches, it switches onions a few times and even throws in an apple and an orange. In other words, one thing does not lead to another: the character revelations seem, well, out of character; the tone of the play pivots without logic; and the pay off is bizarre and unconvincing. Having seen and enjoyed Eisenberg's work before, I suspect that these problems could be solved in three ways: (1) rewrites, (2) better casting, and (3) better direction.

It must be a thrill to get a movie star like Susan Sarandon in your Off-Broadway play. Fame often brings with it free publicity and increased ticket sales, and, hey, it's Susan Sarandon! However, Sarandon is miscast; she lacks the size and personality of the sort of (white!) woman who would adore playing Bloody Mary, believe she's great in the role, and speak of herself as an "artist." The other problem is that Sarandon is pretty mediocre in the role. I have loved many of her performances in movies, but she is lost on stage, lost and uncomfortable. And her comic timing is awful. I sympathized with Eisenberg as his jokes and character bits fell flat because Sarandon simply didn't know what to do with them.

And then there's the direction of Scott Elliot. He lets Sarandon flounder. Worse, he directs three of the other four performers to eliminate subtlety and rely on either shtick or speedy yelling. Ireland eventually plays Ljuba as a complex human being, but in the beginning of the show she's a cartoon with an  embarrassingly exaggerated accent. I suspect that Ireland and Elliot are trying to show how Ljuba has to perform the role of cheerful caregiver, but the first 20 minutes or so are cringe-worthy. As the daughter, Millan barrels through her speeches, though she's lovely in her scenes with her father. Nico Santos, as a gay man "dating" Ljuba, manages to provide warmth and individuality here and there, but otherwise tips into caricature. Only Oreskes provides a wholly successful performance.

I hope that Happy Talk has a future. Its ideas about loneliness, ego, and desperation are interesting, and I suspect that their presentation could be compelling and touching. Just not here.

Wendy Caster
(sixth row, press ticket)
Show-Score: 60

The True

Is it ungrateful of me to wish that Sharr White's play, The True, presented by The New Group, had more to offer? Perhaps. After all, there is already much to like here: solid writing, smooth direction, and an amazing cast. But for all those strengths, I just didn't care.

John Pankow, Edie Falco
Photo: Monique Carboni

In all fairness, I mostly wasn't bored. I mean, look at this cast: Edie Falco. Michael McKean. John Pankow. Peter Scolari. Each and every one of them is a pleasure to watch, always. Falco, unsurprisingly, gives an excellent performance, and you can't keep your eyes off her as she talks, and talks, and talks, and talks. And curses and curses and curses.

Why is Falco's character such a gabber? Dorothea Noonan, known as Polly, is an essential component of the Democratic machine in 1970s Albany, and has been for years. She thinks she knows everything--she certainly does know a lot--and it takes many, many words for her to tell everyone around her how to live their lives, professionally and otherwise.

Noonan is a close friend and adviser to the mayor (McKean), but at the start of the play he has decided that he needs distance from her. This separation does not stop her from fighting for him behind the scenes, and she meets with the various men who will help decide whether he gets another term as mayor. (One theme of the play is how she is treated differently because she's female, but to me everyone was pretty obnoxious and she fit right in.)

Ironically enough, the most emotionally successful moment in the play is silent. (It would be a spoiler to say more.)

Some of the political machinations of The True are interesting. Some of the relationships look like they would be fruitful to explore. But as it stands, there is little reason to care about these characters, and the play ends up being about ploys rather than people.

Wendy Caster
(press ticket, row E)
Show-Score: 80

Evening at the Talk House

Perhaps it wasn't fair to see Wallace Shawn's mildly compelling dystopian play Evening at the Talk House so soon after seeing Caryl Churchill's wildly compelling dystopian play Escaped Alone, but that's the way it happened and I can't change it now.

Broderick, Shawn
Photo: Monique Carboni

Shawn's characters are theater people at a once-popular club called the Talk House; they are celebrating the 10th anniversary of a play they worked on together, written by Robert (Matthew Broderick), who is now in TV. An unexpected addition is to the party is Dick (Wallace Shawn, showing considerably more vigor than the rest of the cast), a down-and-out actor who knows that his career was badly affected by Robert's dislike of his work. There are also two servers, both of whom the theater people know. And, of course, plenty of liquor.

Mercury Fur

Two brothers come into a deserted room strewn with debris. Elliot is clearly the leader, smart and full of authority. Darren is the ne'er-do-well, slow-witted and stoned. They are preparing for some sort of party. Elliot starts cleaning up and badgers Darren to clean up as well. They argue. They bicker. They say "fuck" and "fucking" about a million times. Elliot in particular uses a form of English I would label as "faux-lyrical ugly." Little by little we learn that ugliness is the state of their apocalyptic world. And the party will not be a joyous occasion.

Jack DiFalco, Zane Pais
Photo: Monique Carboni 

Philip Ridley's play Mercury Fur (directed by Scott Elliott) explores the struggle for humanity in an inhumane world, and parts of it are hard-hitting and thought-provoking. It runs over 2 hours without an intermission and would be well-served by some judicious trimming, particularly in the first half hour. The dialogue is not always intelligible, which is a tremendous weakness in such a verbal work. Many stories are told, and while they are well-written, they eventually hurt the play's momentum. The cast is uniformly strong: they are Jack DiFalco, Bradley Fong, Paul Iacono, Peter Mark Kendall, Emily Cass McDonnell, Sea McHale, Zane Pais, and Tony Revolori.

Sticks and Bones

photo: Monique Carboni

 

I wasn't around forty-three years ago, when David Rabe's Sticks and Bones premiered at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, the second work in his trio of plays about Vietnam (the other two being The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Streamers). It quickly moved to Broadway, where it earned the Tony for Best Play of 1972 over a boulevard comedy by the then-almighty Neil Simon. It ran six months and was adapted into a TV movie for CBS, a controversial move that resulted in over half of the country's affiliates refusing to air the film. No, I wasn't around when this play premiered, but I can imagine the impact it had, because the first New York revival (being presented by The New Group at the Signature Theatre complex on West 42nd Street) stick packs one hell of a wallop.