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Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Corey Hawkins

Six Degrees of Separation Returns with Bite

05/05/2017

Six Degrees of Separation was inspired by the true story of con man David Hampton who, in the 1980s, ingratiated himself with several well heeled Manhattan residents by misrepresenting himself as a friend of their children and the son of Sidney Poitier. The young man evoked sympathy garnering various gifts and assistance. One couple allowed him to spend the night only to discover two strangers occupying the morning guestroom. Hampton was eventually caught, tried and acquitted.

Playwright John Guare found himself fascinated with the ease with which Hampton accomplished his deception, particularly the way it reflected on the moneyed class he snookered. (He had the story firsthand from friends who’d believed the boy.) What made the grifter so appealing and relatable to his hosts? Did he change their lives?

Six Degrees of Separation BROADWAYPLAY ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE 243 W. 47TH ST.

Allison Janney and Benjamin Hickey

Paul (Corey Hawkins) appears at the Fifth Avenue door of Ouisa (Allison Janey) and Flan (John Benjamin Hickey) unannounced and bleeding. He tells the couple he’s a Harvard friend of their children and having been mugged across the street in Central Park, remembered the Kittridges proximity. He’s eloquent and well dressed.

The interloper couldn’t have picked a worse night. Ouisa and Flan are entertaining Geoffrey (the somewhat unintelligible Michael Sieberry), a wealthy South African friend whom they hope will supply the last two million dollars of a deal to purchase and resell a Cezanne. (Flan is a discreet art dealer.) Still, they can’t turn the boy away. He’s not only immensely flattering but seems to know everything about them.

Before the evening ends, Paul has declared himself the son of Sidney Poitier (about whom he’s also well versed) and promised them Extra jobs in the artist’s imminent production of Cats-the movie (Ouisa calls Flan a “starfucker” for asking, but they’re both extremely impressed.) He’s regaled his captive audience with the text of his (stolen) thesis – a theory that the iconic Catcher in the Rye has turned into “a manifesto of hate” (the red deer hunter hat is conjectured as indicating a killer of men), whipped up five star pasta, and indirectly secured Flan’s investment funds.

Six Degrees of Separation BROADWAYPLAY ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE 243 W. 47TH ST.

Lisa Emery, Michael Countryman, Allison Janney, Ned Eisenberg, John Benjamin Hickey

The next morning, Ouisa goes in to wake their guest so he might meet his dad at The Sherry Netherland and finds him having sex with another boy. Outraged, she throws them both out. (James Cusati-Moyer’s wild turn as the naked hustler is wonderfully played and directed.) “Give me back my $50.00!” demands Flan. “I spent it,” Paul responds nodding towards his company. “Please don’t tell my father, he doesn’t know…”

At this point, friends Kitty (Lisa Emery) and Larkin (Michael Countryman) show up with a similar story, bragging the anecdote. The group realizes they’ve been taken. A police detective (Paul O’Brien) can be no help. What are the charges?! By the time Dr. Fine has given Paul his brownstone keys and a young couple who can ill afford it are ripped off (a splendidly imagined tangent), Paul seems unstoppable.

In search of answers, the adults interview their collective kids, Tess (Colby Minifie), Woody (Keenan Jolliff) and Ben (Ned Riseley). (One remains at Groton.)  Instead of help, the spoiled young people unleash anger and disparagement. (This is hysterically performed and directed.) Tess, however, tracks a theory to Paul’s ignominious “origin.” (Chris Perfetti does a fine job as Trent, the link here.)

        Lisa Emery, Ned Eisenberg, Cody Kostro, Keenan Jolliff, John Benjamin Hickey,         Allison Janney, Ned Riseley, Colby Minifie, Michael Countryman

The rest of the play, in fact the piece, centers on Ouisa’s strong connection to the needy, aspiring Paul who continues, rife with delusions, to reach out until captured. An existence with which she’s been content seemed suddenly as much an illusion as the young man’s masquerade and for reasons just as compelling.

Playwright John Guare’s 27 year-old piece holds just as much bite as it did when it emerged. Sharp satire is enhanced by on-target detail and wry syntax. Current purveyors of “fake news” give it an additional dimension. Paul’s theory about the Saroyan classic is clever. Flan’s muses on art are erudite. Watch for the second Paul reverts, when he tells Ouisa he likes being watched.

Ouisa’s hypothesis that everyone is linked to everyone else through six acquaintances (here, the boy who taught Paul how to seem as if he belonged and children of those duped) has beco0me a part of modern lexicon. “I find that A) tremendously comforting that we’re so close and B) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close. Because you  have to find the right six people to make the connection,” she declares towards the end of the tale.

Six Degrees of Separation BROADWAYPLAY ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE 243 W. 47TH ST.

Corey Hawkins and Allison Janney

Allison Janney (Ouisa) is splendid, her appreciable comedic talents well showcased. Expression, tone, pitch perfect timing, and patrician demeanor make the actress a pleasure to watch. Despite being drawn to and moved by Paul, Janney’s take on Ouisa does not emulate that of Stockard Channing who played the character at Lincoln Center and in the film. Janney is less visibly emotional, more pragmatic. Still we see the shift.

John Benjamin Hickey does a yeoman like job but is miscast, lacking an Alpha Male persona.

As Paul, Corey Hawkins gives us a well honed Tom Ripley-like character (Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley) an absorber of others’ lives at all costs. He’s convincingly Ivy League when spinning webs and frighteningly street predatory in a flashback. Unlike Tom, this young man lacks luck and funding or he might be out there still.

Of the supporting cast, Colby Minifie makes Tess as credibly smart as she is whiney and demanding; Peter Mark Kendall manifests a young victim named Rick with naivete, excitement, and shock; Ned Eisenberg imbues Dr. Fine with querulous confidence.

Director Trip Cullman offers an interpretation with black humored snap and imagination. Staging is minimal and sharp-edged. When emotion shows itself, it’s all the more effective.

Mark Wendland’s stark RED set is unnerving from the get-go which somewhat telegraphs issues to come and perhaps shouldn’t. Hanging a large, two-sided Kandinsky which figures in the piece, high above heads works well as a symbol. Minimal furniture is exactly right. Clint Ramos’ Costumes don’t look sufficiently expensive. Ben Stanton’s often imaginative Lighting Design emphasizes rigidity and pith.

Photos by Joan Marcus
Opening: Corey Hawkins; John Benjamin Hickey & Allison Janney

 

Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare
Directed by Trip Cullman
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street

Kong: Skull Island – Where Monsters Rule

03/12/2017

This planet doesn’t belong to us.  Ancient species owned this earth long before mankind.  

Kong: Skull Island directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (hitherto best known for indie hit The Kings Of Summer) is from the producers of Godzilla and fans of the latter will recognize the ominous phrase “Project Monarch.” The prevailing philosophy of both films is that humans are insignificant little insects compared to the massive, ancient, nearly god-like creatures of legend who haunt our nightmares. This is as it should be; what’s the point of a monster movie where humans can contain the monsters by being ‘alpha’? (I’m looking at you Jurassic World.)  The primal appeal of monster films lies in the fact that we cannot control nature and it is folly to try.

What I didn’t expect was that Skull Island besides being a great, example of B-movie monster making, would also owe so much to stories about man’s inner darkness. The intro takes place in 1944 just as WWII is starting to wind up with a battle on the beach between a Japanese pilot and American one, which ends when everyone’s favorite giant ape crashes the party. Kong is animated by Toby Kebbell of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes who plays a great secondary character in the film as well.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Flash forward nearly 30 years to 1973, in the last days of the Vietnam war, an expedition is authorized to explore Skull Island primarily so the Russian’s won’t get there first. Geo-politics in this movie are as much a character as the subterranean lizard abominations are. A number of the visuals of Vietnam era choppers exploding napalm seem right out of Apocalypse Now. Our main hero, former RAF pilot turned mercenary tracker (Tom Hiddleston) is named Conrad in a clear homage to Joseph Conrad author of Heart of Darkness. The Colonel Kurtz figure here is Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) a veteran soldier embittered by the notion that the U.S. is ‘abandoning’ the fight in Vietnam. He blames the media and war photographers like Mason Weaver (Brie Larson of Room) for the loss of public support.  Packard craves a new battle and new enemy and he finds one in Kong.

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John Goodman and Corey Hawkins (Photo credit: Church Zlotnick)

We also get a ton of other great supporting characters as well, from John Goodman’s scientist obsessed with proving monsters are real, to John C. Reilly as the WWII crash-landed American pilot trapped on the island for thirty years, to Corey Hawkins as Yale-educated geologist whose work is crucial to Project Monarch, and many, many more. It’s not that Skull Island skimps on the action or set pieces; far from it! But they spend a remarkable amount of time establishing their characters personalities and dramas, which makes their fates far more engrossing on screen. Rest assured this is a monster movie with heart, and it is worth sticking around to see the after-credits stinger.

Photo credit, top: Chuck Zlotnick

All Photos courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures