It’s Only a Play-NOT
George Street Playhouse – Streaming June 15-July 4 2021
This ode to the love/hate relationship theater people have with the business, and perhaps the one we have with them, was panned out of town in 1978, rewritten and produced by Manhattan Theatre Club in 1982, and revived on Broadway in 2014. Meant to be over the top, actors walk a fine line. If a character seems aware of their exaggeration, humor is lost. A good thespian to know the difference.
It’s opening night of “The Golden Egg.” A posh party in anticipation of reviews is going on in the duplex apartment of sincere, though clueless, first time producer Julia Budder (Christine Toy Johnson- effectively vague). Naïve, star-struck Gus (Doug Harris – alas, affected rather than innocent), apparently hired off Times Square to be a general dogsbody, is ferrying piles of coats to an upstairs bed.
Actor Jimmy Wicker (Zach Shaffer) comes in to call the coast. Despite being best friends with Egg’s author, Peter Austin (Andy Grotelueschen), Wicker turned down a role written for him citing responsibilities to a long time television series. He tells Gus the play was wonderful, then cattily regales his California agent with facets of what was apparently a “300 pound Butterball” (turkey).
Egg actress Virginia Noyes (Julie Halston – just the right self-pitying narcissism) enters with histrionic flamboyance (there’s always an audience somewhere!) simply dying for something from the drugstore she carries in her purse. “I told the judge I don’t have a drug problem, it’s a choice I make.” Noyes has come upstairs to do a telephone check in with her parole officer.
Next we meet Egg’s ego-maniacal director, Sir Frank Finger. Made up like Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands, dressed like Tim Curry as Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, actor Greg Cuellar is too self conscious of Finger’s outrageously camp behavior. Joining her guests, Julia reads a note from the as yet missing Peter, “If anything happens to me, you are in no way to blame…”
Robert di Niro, Hillary Clinton, Betty Buckley, Renee Fleming, Tommy Tune, Bernadette Peters, Steven Spielberg, Tom Stoppard, Lady Gaga (her outerwear is made of meat), Daniel Radcliff (his is a child’s motorcycle jacket) party below. The play drops as many names as the iconic song from Bells Are Ringing, ending in “Rin Tin Tin.” (Celebrities get updated with each production.) Ben Brantley (former lead theater critic on The New York Times) is unabashedly dished.
Playwright Terrence McNally broadens references so that lay people feel they’re getting “in” jokes without much effort. Every time a Broadway cast arrives (presumably in entirety) deposited coats look like parts of their Broadway stage costumes. There’s colorful vitriol as far as the eye can see.
Stealthily entering the room, universally disliked critic and secretly wanna-be playwright Ira Drew (Triny Sandoval) looks like an ersatz/Hollywood spy. Despite the handicap, Sandoval makes Drew appealingly despicable. Lastly, Peter arrives dressed like something out of a 19th century melodrama. He’s been walking the streets, likely thinking it appropriate for a playwright under the circumstances and ends up leading the assembled in prayer. (A droll scene.)
Spoiler alert: critical response eviscerates Egg, but unexpectedly rising from the ashes…
Terrence McNally’s love of the art bathes this piece in rosy light. There are some great zingers and incisive parenthetic observation. Having said that, the play is too long and whether you take to it depends on tolerance of farce on steroids. Acting is a mixed bag.
Director Kevin Cahoon makes excellent use of the playing area and creates credible small business as well as nifty physical manifestation of outsized emotion. He also makes the mistake of approaching the piece as a cartoon instead of letting the audience decide.
David Arsenault’s not particularly stylish set seems to come out of the 1980s. Costume Designer Alejo Vietti unfortunately dresses male cast members in such obvious overdone manifestation of their characters, he takes away from, rather than adds to, personality impact. The women look fine.
Cinematography by Mike Boylan is top notch.
The George Street Playhouse is a worthy theater to follow. That this is not one of their best is neither here nor there. I look forward to the next production.
Photos Courtesy of the Production
Opening Photo: Zach Shaffer, Greg Cuellar, Doug Harris, Andy Grotelueschen, Christine Toy Johnson, Julie Halston
The George Street Playhouse presents
It’s Only a Play by Terrence McNally
Professionally filmed onstage at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center
Directed by Kevin Cahoon
