‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker & Matthew Broderick. Photo: Joan Marcus.

PLAZA SUITE
Written by Neil Simon
Directed by John Benjamin Hickey
Through June 26, 2022
Hudson Theatre
141 West 44th Street
(855-801-5876),www.PlazaSuiteBroadway.com

By David NouNou

In the Hudson Theatre’s lobby, there is an impressive wall full of theatre posters (by my count 33), displaying all of Neil Simons plays and musicals. The man was indeed prolific, starting in 1960 with Come Blow Your Horn to his last Broadway play 45 Seconds From Broadway in 2001. Most of them were extremely successful: the likes of Barefoot in The Park, The Odd Couple, Promises, Promises and Plaza Suite, which originally starred George C. Scott and the legendary Maureen Stapleton. As I was reading all the names of his shows, I was astounded that so many of them, as remarkable and hilarious as they were in their day, now seem so dated and frozen in time. Plaza Suite is no exception. What keeps it afloat is the joyous buoyancy of the real-life husband-and-wife team of Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Act I: “Visitor From Mamaroneck” has Karen Nash (Ms. Parker) coming to the Plaza Hotel to celebrate her 24th anniversary in suite 719, the same suite in which she spent her wedding night. She is waiting for her husband Sam Nash (Mr. Broderick) to arrive. In the course of their time together that afternoon, Sam informs her they are celebrating their 23rd anniversary, they were in suite 819, and Karen finds out Sam is having an affair with his secretary. She is dismayed by the fact that he’s so typical, as to have an affair with his secretary; she expected more of him.

Act II: “Visitor From Hollywood” features Jesse Kiplinger (Mr. Broderick), a big-shot Hollywood producer in town for a deal, staying at the Plaza Hotel in Suite 719, awaiting his former girlfriend from 17 years earlier, Muriel Tate ( Ms. Parker) from New Jersey. Jesse is a letch. Muriel is lovely, sweet, innocent, married and enthralled by Jesse’s career and his associations with names like Lee Marvin, and Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow (now there’s a couple I bet you forgot they were married to each other; dated factoid). The hilarity ensues when their roles get reversed.

Act III: “Visitor From Forest Hills” focuses on Norma Hubley (Ms. Parker) and Roy Hubley (Mr. Broderick) in Suite 719 where their daughter is to be married at the Plaza Hotel that afternoon. Their daughter, Mimsey, has locked herself in the bathroom and refuses to come out. The merriment for the audience is all the travails the Hubleys go through to try to lure Mimsey to unlock the bathroom door.

It’s never fair to compare different sets of actors in the roles they play. George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton were galvanizing in their parts in 1968. In 2022, it’s refreshing to see an actual married couple play these roles.

In Act I, it is Ms. Parker’s Karen who is full of life, energy and excitement, coming to New York to celebrate her anniversary, only to have her heart broken by her husband, Sam. Ms. Parker is the glue here that keeps this act afloat. Mr. Broderick as Sam, having a mid-life crisis by having an affair with his secretary, is so passive and monotone that you would think Karen would be glad to get rid of him. What’s missing in this act is Sam’s strength and determination and Karen’s heart-wrenching fear and vulnerability of losing Sam to a younger woman. He is too weak and she is too strong.

In Act II, they both ace their parts. Mr. Broderick as the Hollywood letch Jesse, and Ms. Parker as the innocent, ditsy Muriel, are perfection. It’s a laugh riot from start to finish.

Act III was always the overwrought section of slapstick comedy. Ms. Parker as the mother of the uncooperative bride is in a constant state of a breakdown, and Mr. Broderick as the frazzled father of the bride uses physical energy he never displayed before trying to break down the bathroom door to get his daughter out of there and get her married.

It is a joy to watch Ms. Parker and Mr. Broderick playing in a fun show together. They know each other’s rhythms and it is a pleasure to watch them banter, seduce, and bicker with each other. Also, I’m a thrilled to report that Ms. Parker plays three characters with each having a distinct tonal voice and personality and none of them resemble Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City” as she offers appropriate mannerisms for each of her characters. Kudos to both of them for the laughs they provide.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 31, 2022
Reviewed at March 30, 2022 press performance.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Matthew Broderick & Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker & Matthew Broderick. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Matthew Broderick. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

‘PLAZA SUITE’: Sarah Jessica Parker. Photo: Joan Marcus.

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‘THE INHERITANCE’: (left to right) Samuel H. Levine, Kyle Soller, Kyle Harris, Arturo Luis Solia, Jordan Barbour & (kneeling) Darryl Gene Daughtry, Jr. Photo: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade

THE INHERITANCE
By Matthew Lopez
Inspired by the novel Howard’s End by E. M. Forster
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street
(212-239-6200), www.theinheritanceplay.com

By David NouNou

The Inheritance is a complex and ambitious play. Clocking in at six and a half hours and being a two-parter, it would damn well have to be. Playwright Matthew Lopez is using The Inheritance as a parallel story to E. M. Forster’s Howard’s End, as well as using Forster’s middle name Morgan as a character in his play. There are countless references to Forster’s Maurice as a coming-of-age novel for a lot of young male gays. In reality, it was forbidden and illegal for Forster (who died in 1970) to even experience a male touch for much of his life in his native England. Forster’s first male touch actually happened when he was 33 years old.

Set in various parts of New York City spanning from 2015 to 2018, so begins the crisscrossing narrative and the intersecting of lives of a dozen young gay males through different stages of their lives. The concept of the set by Bob Crowley is simple but brilliant, a bare stage with an elevated rectangular floor (for all the world is a stage) and the players are on it when needed while the rest of the cast sit around it as a Greek chorus, having multiple roles and are called upon when their turn comes.

The men are in a crisis and need guidance in telling their stories. Morgan (Paul Hilton), acting as narrator and guide, sets them on their path to realizing/writing their lives. In a dual role Mr. Hilton also plays Walter Poole, an older gentleman who is a socialite around Fire Island and the partner of 36 years to billionaire real estate mogul, Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey). In addition to their many places of residence, there is a special place that they bought when they first met nestled in the rural hideaways of Upstate New York.

Toby Darling (Andrew Burnap), an aspiring young self-loathing playwright, has been partners with Eric Glass (Kyle Soller), the gentlest and kindest of men, for seven years. Eric lives in a three-bedroom, two-bath apartment on West End Avenue, thus making Eric that much more appealing. Toby writes a play entitled Lover Boy, a drama about how he would like himself to be perceived instead of the way he was actually brought up. Upon hearing that Eric is losing his fantastic rent-stabilized apartment, Toby walks out on Eric and during the out-of-town rehearsals of the play, Toby falls in love with the leading man Adam (Samuel H, Levine). Adam rejects Toby for the producer of the play.

Toby moves into new digs and meets a hustler, Leo (also played by Samuel H. Levine), on the Internet with an uncanny resemblance to Adam, and for that reason starts a relationship. Since Toby moved out, Eric, on a chance meeting, renews his friendship with Walter. Walter, realizing Eric’s compassion for his fellowman, wants to take him upstate to show him his home there and what he has done with it. Walter has taken it upon himself and opened his home to many dying men due to AIDS. It’s their final refuge to die with dignity, but this will not come to be because Walter dies of cancer. Walter leaves his home to Eric, but Henry’s two sons from a previous straight marriage will not allow the house to be given away. With Walter and Toby gone, Henry Wilcox starts courting Eric Glass, ultimately leading to a proposal of marriage. This brings us to the end of Part One with an epic finale that leaves every audience member sobbing (at least it seemed so at my performance.)

What happens in Act II is less compelling, because nothing can reach the heights of the end of Act I. The play could have ended there and we would have been able to draw our own conclusions of the lives of these men and been spared the sordid, mawkish, lurid even soap-opera-style events that take place in Act II. Act II dilutes all the great work that lead up to the end of Act I.

In essence the play not only deals with the lives of these gay men, but also with the advent of AIDS and the responsibility one generation has to pass along its history to the next. E. M. Forster fostered James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and many more. Noel Coward and Tennessee Williams fostered Edward Albee. In 1968, Mart Crowley gave us the first openly gay play The Boys in The Band. In 1982, Harvey Fierstein gave us Torch Song Trilogy about men marrying and adopting a boy. In 1985, Larry Kramer gave us the first blockbuster play dealing with AIDS, The Normal Heart. Then, in 1993, we got the magnum opus by Tony Kushner Angels in America. Now, in 2019, we have The Inheritance. All these men kept gay culture alive and advanced it for the next generation.

As much as I enjoyed The Inheritance, with its clever banter and smart ideas with some excellent scenes, however, there were touches of ponderous déjà vu in it. What keeps it moving at an almost breakneck speed and never flagging is Stephen Daldry’s impeccable direction. However, a tad bit of editing in the second act would have served the play better.

Nonetheless, the acting by all is brilliant.  The leads are standouts: Paul Hilton doubling as Morgan /Walter is remarkable. John Benjamin Hickey, who has been giving great performances for over 20 years, continues delivering. Who will ever forget his 2010 Tony Award-winning role of Felix in the revival of The Normal Heart? Newcomer Kyle Soller is impeccable as Eric Glass; not one false note was registered. Samuel H. Levine as both Adam/Leo is heart wrenching, and Andrew Burnap as Toby Darling, although shrill at times, delivers a solid performance by the end. Being the only female and entering near the end of the play, Lois Smith as Margaret—the mother of a dying boy named Michael who came to Walter’s home to die due to AIDS—is simply incandescent. She is the caretaker there and gives “Mother Earth” a new meaning.

There are many ideas here and most of them are thought-provoking. A perfect play it is not, but it is full of ideas intersecting each other which makes it enjoyable to connect the dots. The Inheritance ultimately shows us that, at the heart of whatever the depths we hit, there will be hope. Hope is what ultimately keeps us all going.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 25, 2019
Reviewed at November 24, 2019 press performance.

‘THE INHERITANCE’: (left to right) Samuel H. Levine, Kyle Soller & Andrew Burnapp. Photo: Marc Brenner

‘THE INHERITANCE’: (left to right) Kyle Soller, John Benjamin Hickey, Arturo Luis Soria, Darryl Gene Daughtry, Jr., Dylan Frederick & Kyle Harris. Photo: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

‘THE INHERITANCE’: Lois Smith & Samuel H. Levine. Photo: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

‘THE INHERITANCE’: Paul Hilton. Photo: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

‘THE INHERITANCE’: The cast. Photo: Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade.

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‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: (left to right) Lisa Emery, Michael Countryman, Allison Janney, Ned Eisenberg & John Benjamin Hickey. Photo: Joan Marcus

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Written by John Guare
Directed by Trip Cullman
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street, (212-239-6200)
www.sixdegreesbroadway.com

By Scott Harrah

Six Degrees of Separation, just nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, is a provocative trip back to early 1990s New York City. Despite some elements that make the show “dated,” playwright John Guare’s drama remains relevant because it has volumes to say about class, race and American society. There is plenty to enjoy in this reboot, including some fine performances, but Trip Cullman’s direction is puzzling and dilutes the tone and theme of the story.

In 1990 (when the show was first produced), New York City was far different from today. David Dinkins was mayor, Times Square was full of X-rated movie houses, crime was rampant, AIDS was ravaging the gay community and race relations were at an all-time low. However, there was, like today, the wealthy and those who wanted an entrée into their privileged world. It is in this posh milieu that we meet the Kittredges: Ouisa (Allison Janney) and husband Flan (John Benjamin Hickey). She’s a socially conscious rich woman; he’s a successful art dealer, and they live in a swank Upper East Side apartment overlooking Central Park.

As the play opens, Ouisa and Flan are talking (sometimes right to the audience) while simultaneously entertaining Geoffrey (Michael Siberry), a super-rich friend from South Africa (during the apartheid era). They are trying to sell their friend a Paul Cézanne painting when they are suddenly interrupted. The doorman (Tony Carlin) brings in a young African American man, Paul (Corey Hawkins, Tony nominated for the role). The guy, dressed in preppie attire, is bleeding from a stab wound and says he knows Ouisa and Flan’s children at Harvard.

The plot thickens as Paul claims he’s the son of actor Sidney Poitier and is in New York to meet his father, purportedly filming a Hollywood musical adaptation of Broadway’s Cats (there are numerous jokes about that show). Paul is a charming young man indeed, cooking for them and regaling the Kittredges with tales of his famous father and a long monologue about Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (supposedly from a thesis he has written). The Kittredges are so spellbound by Paul’s intellectual wit and grace that they lend him money and allow him to spend the night in their daughter’s bedroom.

Of course, Paul is nothing he claims to be, as the Kittredges soon learn when they catch him in bed with a male hustler the next morning. We see how Paul also cons friends of the Kittredges (Lisa Emery and Michael Countryman) and a young couple from Utah.  John Guare supposedly based Six Degrees on the real-life story of a con man who worked his way into upscale Manhattan homes claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son.

With many stage shows, suspending disbelief is commonplace for audiences, and one must realize this play is 27 years old in order to make sense of the narrative. Of course, in 2017 a quick Google search would show the Kittredges that Paul could not be Mr. Poitier’s son (in real life, Mr. Poitier, now 90, has six daughters but no son). Mr. Guare’s dialogue remains crisp and on target, even if some of the references to blacks seem outmoded in an America that has seen eight years of President Barack Obama come and go, African American activism and the momentum of Black Lives Matter after countless tragedies involving the police.

Unfortunately, once the truth about Paul is revealed, Mr. Guare’s thoughtful and profound story unravels under Trip Cullman’s misguided direction. As other characters in the show expose Paul’s outrageous con, Mr. Cullman has the cast play parts of the story as farce.  For some reason, Mr. Cullman has the Kittredge children shriek and squawk. Is he trying to send up the absurdities of spoiled rich kids? If so, one doubts that was John Guare’s original intent.

Six Degrees of Separation was a seminal play when it debuted. Ouisa’s famous monologue “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation” still has a Shakespearean grandness to it.  Allison Janney brings a fresh spin to her character, effectively conveying the heartbreaking, “bleeding heart” maternal instinct of Ouisa, but with more of an archness and less of the natural elegance and grit Stockard Channing brought to the part in the 1990 production and 1993 film adaptation, co-starring Will Smith as Paul. John Benjamin Hickey does a fine job as high-strung Flan, and Corey Hawkins has definitely earned his Tony nomination as Paul.

Reviving dramas with key plot elements that make little sense in the 21^st century is tricky business indeed, but can work with the right cast and director. However, this is a period piece and the “dated” elements are not the problem here.  The cast is outstanding here, but director Trip Cullman leaves out the necessary shading and nuance to make this Six Degrees of Separation work by having the actors perform dramatic parts of the show for laughs. Although the show has many funny lines, ultimately Six Degrees should be presented as a tragedy, and Mr. Cullman just misses the mark in all the wrong places. Regardless, John Guare’s slice of early 1990s New York life remains a modern classic.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 3, 2017
Reviewed at press performance on May 2, 2017

‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: Allison Janney & Corey Hawkins. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: Allison Janney & John Benjamin Hickey. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: (left to right) Corey Hawkins, John Benjamin Hickey, Allison Janney & Michael Siberry. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: Allison Janney. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: John Benjamin Hickey. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION’: Corey Hawkins. Photo: Joan Marcus

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