Good For Otto – Three Hours in A Mental Institution
This is an unexpected piece for David Rabe whose plays – Sticks and Bones, Streamers, Hurly Burly… – are usually as clearly arced as they are forceful. Based on Richard O’Connor’s “Undoing Depression,” Good For Otto is a sketchbook of mental illness rather than a story and definitely about more than depression. The playwright has done his research. Characters are penned with credibility and sympathy. They make progress or not, but nothing sweeps them into a cohesive tale.
Amy Madigan and F. Murray Abraham
Dr. Robert Michaels (the ever terrific Ed Harris) is a sensitive practitioner at Northwood Mental Health Center near the Berkshires. Haunted by his young mother (Charlotte Hope, never defining the character) who committed suicide when he was a child, he’s dealing with his own formidable issues in tandem with those of demanding patients. Evangeline Ryder (Amy Madigan), also on staff, has great instincts and is intellectually empathetic but shows her charges far less emotion. Madigan, usually excellent, seems to have her teeth clenched through this.
Ed Harris and Rileigh McDonald
Patients sit on stage among audience members, each rising for his/her session or ancillary interaction. In order, one presumes, for things not to get too tense, Jimmy (Michael Rabe) or Jerome (Kenny Mellman of Kiki and Herb) are respectively ready on guitar and at a tinny piano when Michaels leads old time songs like “On Moonlight Bay.” The last time you saw a pitch pipe was…? While this is, in fact, relief, it’s also an obvious device.
Michaels is most enmeshed with a 12 year-old cutter named Frannie (Rileigh McDonald, depending too much on technical performance). Foster mother Nora (Rhea Perlman, whose focus was off today) is at her wit’s end with concern over the child’s uncontrollable behavior which seems to erupt just after Frannie has seen her real mother. The system is doing nothing to keep the two apart despite dire warning signs of what occurs when the girl visits. Frannie is at serious risk.
The large cast features a roster of dependable actors.
Murray Abraham’s Bernard, whose wife is desperate when he won’t get out of bed for weeks, reaches a kind of initial revelation all patients wish they had. Abraham is all in. Every part of him participates in creating this credible character. Intensity is beautifully restrained.
Mark Linn-Baker makes Timothy awkward, anxious, quick to unwitting, sometimes violent temper and goodhearted. His demeanor, expression and specific physicality add immeasurably to fleshing out the role.
Mark Linn-Baker and Ed Harris
As Alex, Maulik Pancholy shows solid range. We recognize deep seated fear of being gay – textbook symptoms of guilt, blame, fear, anger and loneliness. More clever than to leave it at that, however, Rabe gives Alex sufficient imagination to concoct detailed, though false, resolution. When he’s discovered, the fragile, vulnerable boy (and actor) seems instantly dangerous.
Nancy Giles, who plays Case Manager Marcy, is infuriatingly real.
Amy Madigan and Maulik Pancholy
Director Scott Elliott utilizes stage, theater floor, aisle and extended seating with creativity. Timing works well. Set Designer Derek McLane’s institution is as antiseptic as one might imagine but rather less human than the quality of doctors indicates.
Also featuring: Kate Buddeke, Laura Easterman, Lily Gladstone
I’m not telling you who Otto is, which is just as well as I suspect he has deeper meaning than I’ve gleaned.
Photos by Monique Carboni.
Opening: Ed Harris and The Company
The New Group presents
Good For Otto by David Rabe
Inspired by the book Undoing Depression by Richard O’Connor
Directed by Scott Elliott
The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
Through April 15, 2018
