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It’s 1958. Irene (Holly Fain, superb and believable throughout) has just married Martin (Michael Crane, a yeoman like job) at The St. Regis Hotel. We meet in their well appointed room. The groom is besotted, but his bride leaps away like a frightened pound puppy. He thinks it’s because she’s a virgin, but in fact, Irene declares, she doesn’t love him. It seemed like a good idea at the time?
After initial shock, Martin presses she’ll grow to love him. Then the real boom falls. Irene is in love (and has had sex with) Emil (Joe Tippet, credible, but without distinction), an uneducated grease monkey from a local gas station.
Joe Tippet, Holly Fain, Andrew Burnap, Michael Crane
Add a nosy, dishonest bellboy (Andrew Burnap overacting like crazy) and his ambitious, Hollywood-Polish mom, housemaid Melka (June Gable), and you have the recipe for a first act which is, despite what tries to pass for antics, painful, sad and over long.
Act II opens in 2004 at the apartment of Irene and Martin’s selfish, gay son, Noah (Michael Crane). The earlier couple ended up together for all the wrong reasons. Noah lights into his current squeeze, Leo (Andrew Burnap) ostensibly because he’s prepared crudités for an unexpected visit from Irene (now June Gable). Visits, really any contact, is rare. (There are reasons dating back to childhood.)
Mom, who lives with daughter Shelia (Francesca Faridany), is, to say the least, losing it. She’s been picked up by police, wearing her pajamas, sitting on the floor at an airport gift shop reading Judy Blume (a real Silver touch).
Francesca Faridany, Michael Crane
Sheila’s at her wit’s end. Mom fades from past to present. She’s obstreperous, super critical and literally wanders. Despite other life plans, it’s Noah’s turn. Exposition, including how she happened to stay with Martin, follows. This is a much better written and performed act.
June Gable comes into her own playing what would usually be the Linda Lavin part. (Lavin is Silver’s long time leading lady and muse.) Francesca Faridany is a perfect, stressed out, pissed off Sheila. Andrew Burnap gives Leo natural sweetness.
June Gable
This is not the Nicky Silver we know – which would be fine if it worked. Class level and Jewish background are recognizable, but are here bereft of familiar dark wit and hard-won wisdom. (Well, there’s a shade of the latter in Act II.) The premise of the story might make a good 1950s, black and white melodrama if we cared. Alas, we don’t.
Director Mark Brokow does the best he can with the material. His skill is obvious.
Except for the pictured “lift,” fight scenes, particularly a slap, read completely false. (J. David Brimmer) Allen Moyer’s Scenic Design (especially the view out Noah’s window) is aptly atmospheric.
Photos by Carol Rosegg Opening: Michael Crane, Holly Fain
This Day Forward by Nicky Silver Directed by Mark Brokow Vineyard Theatre 108 East 15th Street
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (1927) states that neither the position nor velocity of an object can be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory. Now apply that to gauging the substance and honesty of an extremely mercurial pairing.
This has to be one of the most unlikely, yet deeply convincing couples you’ll ever see on stage; a romantic, highly sexual relationship that slowly evolves despite reticence, red flags and trap doors at every turn. Playwright Simon Stephens (who wrote Harper Regan and adapted The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night) has created two marvelous characters who make what could have been yet another quirky-girl-gets-repressed- man-to-open-up scenario into something eminently richer and more satisfying. This is not a comedy per se, but you will laugh. A lot.
When we meet Georgie Burns (Mary-Louise Parker) in her unkempt, early 40s, she’s just kissed the back of the neck of tucked, pressed, 75 year-old Alex Priest (Denis Arndt), a complete stranger. He jerks away. The young woman explains that, unthinking, she took Alex for her husband who’s been dead 18 months, describes his death, then segues to reflections on her honeymoon. “I miss every single bit of him, like on a cellular level.” Despite the fact neither character is traveling or meeting anyone, both are in a train station.
Georgie introduces herself, glomming onto Alex. “Can I take your photo?” “No.” “Are you a celebrity or a very arrogant person who puts yourself above people like me?” She’s aggressive to the point of belligerence, needy, and an unfiltered motor-mouth. He’s taciturn and wary. Georgie’s “an assassin” no, “a waitress,” who can, she declares read people. When Alex says he’s a butcher, she argues in disbelief. He exits.
Next thing we know (the play is episodic), she’s tracked him down at his shop. Alex finds this somewhat alarming. It turns out what little he’s shared about himself and his at-face-value banal life, is true, whereas everything she’s told him is a lie. Georgie does that. Parker’s splendid deliverance of often rapidly contradictory responses gives such equal credence to both, like Alex, we’re often left wondering.
While it’s true this is no ordinary butcher-his favorite thing about the profession he tells her, is the way animals join together at their seams, Alex is also not the cultured, romantic figure Georgie seems to presume. He leads a quiet, long celibate life and has never traveled. She presses on, “Do you find me exhausting but captivating?… I like your fingers…your eyes… You should take me out…”
Probably never having done a spontaneous thing in his life, he does take her out. At the restaurant, Georgie emits a head-turning scream when she learns Alex’s age. “You’re unbelievably old!’ (He looks terrific.) She nervously giggles and apologizes. “Don’t apologize. It’s surprisingly nice watching you giggle.” Can you hear the worm turning?
The heroine is obsessed with finding her son who has taken off to the United States. Alex plans to sell his shop. With uncertain futures, they make joyous love. Afterglow is adult, in iconoclastic character and beautifully dramatized. Georgie has a favor to ask. A BIG favor. Was it premeditated? Has Alex been used? Does he care? Both their lives radically change in unexpected ways. We’re left awash in possibility with no promise of success.
It’s fairly impossible to imagine anyone other than Mary-Louise Parker in this role. Her signature ability to communicate in start/stop/pause/stumble/rush/retract/outbreak sentences –without ever straying from character, has never been given more leeway. That the artist makes Georgie appealing even when annoying or insulting helps us understand Alex’s reaction. Timing is impeccable, physical acting perfection.
In his Broadway Debut at 77, Denis Arndt becomes a surprising leading man. The attractive, long-limbed actor is so compelling when silent, it’s sometimes difficult to pull one’s gaze away. Completely believable as a practical shopkeeper with few expectations, his character’s conservative, halting reaction to Georgie’s insidious seduction is a constant, low key delight.
Director Mark Brokow has a successful track record with characters. Here he presents two extremely different people with both solid specifics and finesse. Use of only metal chairs and tables is remarkably effective, even as a bed. (Alex’s entrance into said bed is sublime.) Georgie’s intermittent flailing never goes over the top. The graceful ending is a brief master class. Pacing is exquisite.
Note: I’m sorry, but I can find no reason to put audience bleachers on the stage facing the rest of us except to garner more money. Much of the time when actors’ facial expressions are paramount, we see only profiles. And it’s distracting.
Photos by Joan Marcus
Manhattan Theatre Club presents Heisenberg by Simon Stephens Directed by Mark Brokow Through December 11, 2016 Samuel J. Friedman Theatre 261 West 47th Street
