Three heavy hitters have teamed up on Broadway to give audiences an evening of kinship wrapped in contention with Relatively Speaking: three one-act comedies which cover various forms of familial remedy, rivalry and racket.  Four-time Oscar winner Ethan Coen, two-time Oscar nominee Elaine May and multiple award winner Woody Allen each offer up their views on the subject, resulting in short plays which each bear the distinct mark of their unique brand of writing; all delivered under the deft direction of John Turturro.

Danny Hoch and Jason Kravits in Talking Cure by Ethan Coen (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Ethan Coen handles the “remedy” side of things and is first up with Talking Cure.  Coen’s distinctive, brooding style is in evidence throughout this snappy first act which finds Jerry, a post office worker (Danny Hoch – delivering his performance like a shaken soda can about to explode) having recently gone … well … postal.  Now committed to a mental hospital, Jerry receives routine visits from his therapist (Jason Kravits) who tries to reach him in earnest.  Set during a series of fast paced discussions — punctuated by abrupt blackouts — Jerry battles the doctor at every turn.  Their verbal sparring brings frustration to both as “everybody has problems” becomes a constant refrain.

Even as the doctor tries in vain to promote his “talking cure”, he is needled by his patient: “What if I start talking too much?  Is there a ‘shut-the-fuck-up’ cure?”

In a quick set change, we’re suddenly transitioned from the world of Jerry (who has gotten more belligerent) and his doctor (who has become increasingly frustrated) to a quiet dinner scene which rolls forward complete with demure solid wooden fixtures, elegant table setting and grand picture windows.

However, what first appears to be a quiet evening at home for this couple (Allen Lewis Rickman and Katherine Borowitz) quickly devolves into a shrill argument that, like any fight, shows there’s no topic too random or irrelevant to use as ammunition when you’re angry — so of course it makes perfect sense when a phantom couple called “the Hitlers” are conjured up  purely to be used to underscore a point.  The woman is pregnant and it doesn’t take much after that to find that the unborn baby is destined to become Larry the postal worker.  Talking Cure is a perfect bite-sized play that archly illustrates the notion, “With parents like these, no wonder he turned out like that”.

Marlo Thomas and Lisa Emery in George is Dead by Elaine May (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Next up is Elaine May providing the rivalry with her beautiful gem George Is Dead.  Artfully interweaving laughter and blunt observation, she serves up two very different women who had the opportunity to be reared by the same woman – though each was given a far different allotment of time and attention and stands now in a very different world.   Carla (a no-nonsense Lisa Emery) is anxiously awaiting her husband’s return after a delay at her mother’s house has caused her to miss his acceptance speech at an awards ceremony.  Ridden by guilt, she paces and leaves messages in the hopes of convincing him to return home.   A middle-of-the-night knock on her door proves to be Doreen (Marlo Thomas) who tumbles into Carla’s apartment on the brink of hysteria screeching, “George is dead!” and then proceeds to turn Carla’s night upside down.

Not close friends, not even somewhat related, the wealthy Doreen was raised by Carla’s mother who was her nanny.  Now grown the woman admits to not having seen her nanny in 40 years but somehow manages to stagger to Carla’s place since everyone else she knows is unavailable, and in the wake of this upsetting news of her husband’s tragic accidental death, she’s helpless.  And rich.  Surely she’s not expected to do anything is she?

What follows is an utterly priceless night of watching as Doreen simply pouts and tantrums her way out of taking any action.  “What will I do?” she wails at one point, “I don’t have the depth to feel this bad!“  As she reels off the things that usually constitute a bad day in her protected world (all the while instructing Carla to scrape the salt off her saltines), she comes off not so much malicious as simply vapid and unaware of anything but herself.  In fact, when Carla asks “Have you been listening to me?” she replies, “Not really.  I’m always stunned that people listen to each other’s stories.”

And so, throughout the night, we find more and more how Carla was left alone as her mother tended to Doreen, and how Doreen was utterly dependent upon her Nanny while being completely oblivious of the woman’s personal life.

When Carla’s husband (Grant Shaud) comes home a long-brewing tension erupts and he leaves her.  Oblivious, Doreen hunkers down and continues to expect Carla to arrange for George’s body to be transported back to New York, to call the lawyers, even to give her a nightgown, and tend to her throughout the night.

Ultimately there is a heartbreaking moment when Carla’s mother arrives on the scene the next morning to coax the petulant Doreen into her (borrowed) black dress.  Taking charge, Nanny  does for Doreen what she never did for her own daughter: command the situation.  It is an ironic move for an old woman who, helpless and baffled by her remote only the night before, caused Carla to miss her husband’s speech and unwittingly set that tragedy in motion.  Now, however, there is no time to inquire about her daughter’s broken marriage … her Doreen needs her.  As the two close ranks, as if no time had passed, it is absolutely devastating.  Not only does the scene unfold brilliantly, but the pain leaves a surprisingly raw scratch after such strong comedic performance.

Ari Graynor and Steve Guttenberg in Honeymoon Motel by Woody Allen Photos (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Woody Allen caps of the evening’s fare with the typical racket in Honeymoon Motel.  This one-act finds Allen at his best and hearkening back to breezier days of fast one-liners and quippy zingers.  This play is all about what happens when, as one of the characters notes, “a mid-life crisis turns into an end-life crisis.”  And once again, parallels to Allen’s life are in evidence — though don’t distract from the broad humor of the piece.

When we come upon the happy couple – a May/December pair who seem as excited to get down to the business at hand as they are about the sheer tackiness of the decor of the honeymoon suite – they are breathless with joy and exhilaration.  Soon enough, we find that the bride Nina (Ari Graynor) and her tuxedo’d romeo Jerry (Steve Guttenberg) aren’t actually what they seem.

Shortly, the love-nest becomes a hub of activity as every in-law and even the rabbi and the shrink comes crashing through the door, each brandishing their own shtick and often times simply unleashing jokes into the room to no one in particular.  It’s chaos done right, however, in a Marx Brothers “Is my Aunt Minnie in here?” kind of way, and all the fabulous actors are given their moment to shine, despite the pandemonium.  Ultimately it is not the Rabbi or even the Therapist who manages to calm the roiling storm, but the pizza delivery guy – who arrives in the nick of time – with a pie that’s half sausage, half pepperoni and all wisdom.

Relatively Speaking covers a lot of ground in its three short acts; while not all of it hits the same mark in terms of symmetry, there is still a certain rhythm created through the entire piece thanks to Turturro’s strong direction.  He takes care to build up some of the weaker spots and reign in the areas that could have gone careening off … this keeps a common element flowing throughout three very different plays making them more of a cohesive whole.

While there are no real deep insights to take away from this night of theatre, there is certainly an abundance of fine acting and wonderful laughs — with May’s middle piece fastening the two bookend plays in place.

If fighting with your own family no longer holds the same kicks it used to, come down to the Brooks Atkinson Theater and listen in as these great writers put the fun back in dysfunctional.

~~~

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For those of us who were there last night, either as fans of Green Day, Broadway, or their rock opera American Idiot- it was a legendary moment.  Billie Joe Armstrong- lead singer of Green Day, main lyricist, and guitarist of the band for the past 20 years made his Broadway debut appropriately as the character  ‘St. Jimmy’ last night, September 28th at the St. James Theater. (Where he runs through a limited 7 day engagement).

When he first came out onto the stage, mid way through the play, the crowd roared with applause and screams, as if we were at an arena Green Day concert. It didn’t stop through the fiery and fierce 1st song also titled ‘St Jimmy’ where he plays a character who is the fictitious alter ego and personal demon to the main character of Johnny (played by John Gallagher Jr.).

As a huge fan, I’ve seen this musical several times, and it only gets better, and better. The cast stays strong, and continues to grow together as an incredible ensemble. The music gets louder, the passion of the performances from the band and cast, stronger.

Even if not a Green Day fan, you will walk away one. Even if not a Broadway fan, you will walk away one. This is a show for everyone, where I’ve seen 60 year olds and 10 year olds singing along.  But, there is NO better way to witness it than to see Billie Joe Armstrong-the incredible performance he gives, through the songs he wrote- up on stage with these guys.

You will never forget it.

The playing schedule for American Idiot is Tuesday at 7 PM, Wednesday 8 PM, Thursday at 8 PM, Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 2 PM & 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM and 7:30 PM. Tickets range from $127-$49 and can be purchased at The St. James Box Office or via telecharge.com (212) 239-6200. Visit www.AmericanIdiotonBroadway.com.

Billie Joe Armstrong runs on a limited engagement through Oct. 3rd.

Related Posts:

• “American Idiot – The Musical”: An Incredible Rock and Roll Broadway Musical
• Reasons Why “reasons to be pretty” Couldn’t Survive
• August: Osage County — This Ain’t The Huxtable Family
• American Buffalo

In Memorium

This was supposed to be a review for reasons to be pretty (written by Neil LaBute, directed by Terry Kinney, starring  Thomas Sadoski,  Marin Ireland, Steven Pasquale and Piper Perabo).  A very late review, no doubt, but not every reviewer has the luxury of seeing a Broadway show while it’s still in previews.  Sometimes a reviewer needs to wait until someone wins an extra pair of tickets and graciously passes them along to her … which is how I came by my tickets.  So, if you’re looking for a review I’m going to direct you to a terrific review of reasons to be pretty by David Stallings of The Fab Marquee. If you’re looking for my reasons why good shows can’t survive on The Great White Way these days, then please keep reading …

It all started last week when I got this call:

Man: Is this Karen Tortora-Lee? Me: Yes.
Man: Did you win tickets to reasons to be pretty?
Me: (nervously) … Um … yes … <Oh my God!  They got me!  They know Glamorous Miss X  entered the contest twice and passed her second set of tickets on to me!  They’re taking them away!>
Man: Well, your tickets are for the 15th …
Me: Yes …
Man: …  and the show is actually closing on the 14th …
Me: OH NO!
Man: Yes … it’s true …
Me: How unexpected!
Man: So we’d like to offer you tickets on a day before the 14th … can you make it before then?
Me: Sure <checking calendar> … oh, this is so sad!  Why are you closing?
Man: Well, we were up for a Tony …
Me: RIGHT!
Man: … and we didn’t win.  So, you know … we just don’t have the ticket sales now …
Me: Can I come Friday the 12th?
Man:  Sure … I’ll put you down for 2 …
Me: I’m so sorry … and I’m sorry that you’re going to have to make calls like this all day.  That’s awful. Man: <chuckle> Oh, well, that’s how it goes.  But thanks.

That’s how it goes.

Ahhh, boy.  This is very, very sad.  Very sad.  Just goes to show you that The Tonys are nothing like American Idol where Season Two runner up Clay Aiken can have a better career than Season Two “winner”, That Guy With The 205 On His Shirt.  (Yeah, I had to think a while before Ruben Studdard came to mind).  Heck, even a 3rd Runner Up like Season Five’s Chris Daughtry was able to have a career that made actual winner Taylor Hicks look like an accountant doing karaoke in a dive bar on his lunch hour for tips.  Broadway, however, is not American Idol and it seems like the “honor of just being nominated” is not enough to get butts in seats these days … not at $100 bucks a butt.  Seems like these days the only way to get people to your show is to give tickets away in a contest (Glamorous Miss X had already entered and won the contest once before.  To me this smacked of desperation on the part of the show. Perennial crowd-pleaser Wicked isn’t out there giving away tickets to anyone who enters their “contest”).  Oh, and for what it’s worth?  I saw God of Carnage — the winning play — a few months ago.  I liked it, but aside from the fact that I got to watch famous people for an hour it really didn’t move me all that much.  Notice I didn’t submit a review for it …

Of course, after Friday night’s performance of reasons to be pretty it was obvious to me why this show wasn’t succeeding.  Not because it was badly acted … quite the contrary.  And director Terry Kinney (Okay, okay, I admit it … I’m an OZ fan, even all these years later, and to me he will always be Tim McManus) hits the mark every time.   This was a high octane show with layers and layers of emotion, with no clear heroes but rather four realistic characters who uttered comments filled with such truth that they actually drew gasps from the audience.

So … why did it close?  Simple:  It’s not a tourist show.  It’s not a kid’s show.  It’s not a show based on a Mel Brooks movie or a Disney movie.  And it’s not a bunch of random songs from one particular group or time period strung together around a loose “plot”.  In other words … it was a real and intelligent piece of theatre, and it was meant for a real and intelligent audience.  Without a famous-name celebrity in the cast (sorry, Beverly Hills Chihuahua star Piper Perabo, Coyote Ugly was a looooooooooong time ago), a familiar plot, or a toe tapping song to jolt the audience into paying attention this play was coasting on fumes.

A taste of ... home?

Having lived in NYC my whole life, and being a Broadway fan from the time I could crawl, I have endless stories about tourists coming to New York City with high expectations and the inability to tell a good restaurant from a bad one (it is for these very people that there is an Olive Garden smack in the middle of Times Square).  These tourists have made the long, expensive trip.  They’ve put on their fancy duds … some gals are even in their highest heels and shiniest clothes trying to “blend in” as  –what TV and their imagination tells them is–  a Typical New Yorker.  They’ve got their show ticket and they want to be IMPRESSED.  Here’s what they do NOT want to be:  Challenged (by world views that don’t match their own) or Confused (by plots that are too thoughtful).  They don’t want to leave the theatre after plunking down $100 bucks saying “well, I just didn’t get that at all“.  This is why CATS was the longest running show on Broadway and why the Disney Cartel is eating up the theatre district one playhouse at time.  Someone from Montesoda (the fictional place that includes every none-coastal American State) can go to see any one of these shows with a Japanese grandma one seat to the left and a home-schooled 6 year old one seat to the right, and sit in the darkened theatre knowing that they won’t be shocked by anything they’re about to see … or offended … or forced to learn.

A while back my husband and I had traveled to a bed and breakfast in Mystic and met a European couple making their way down the coast with NYC being their last stop.  They asked us which shows we’d recommend, after they named some shows they wanted to see, or had already seen (Mary Poppins, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid …).  We said that Hairspray (which was still open at the time) was a lot of fun.  The woman looked at me quizzically “It won’t make any sense to me” she said, in her completely fluent English.  ”Why not?” I asked.  ”Because I haven’t seen the movie” she replied, and promptly opened up her “I HEART NY” Travel Guide and left me to my Eggs Benedict.  So much information in so short a sentence.

I loved reasons to be pretty.  I loved the rapid-fire dialogue, the layers of emotions, the way it illustrated how an entire relationship can hinge on one mis-spoken phrase.  I loved how the show examined our own images of ourselves versus what those close to us see.  I viscerally felt the drain a friendship can have on you when it’s run its course but neither friend bothers to let go.  I had flashes of my life, of old relationships, where ex-boyfriends said the wrong thing at the wrong time and our wrong relationship fell like a house of cards.  I understood how some times a waste of time can feel like a good thing because the opposite is just too scary.  I also understood how bitter a pill that waste of time is to swallow when you actually do leave it and glance back at it from a different perspective.

Having said that … I agree.  This was not a show for a six year old.  This was not a show for a grandmother from Montesoda.  The language was too quick for a high-school English As A Second Language visitor from another country.  And the themes were far far too dark for a person who is only in New York for five days and has to get up early every morning in order to get the best seat on the Big Apple Bus.  If you can’t knock it out of the park for all those people every night, every time … you’re not going to have them go back to their home town and recommend your show to their friends who are making the big Broadway trip themselves next summer.  You’re not going to have the six year old go back to her class and bring her program (or mug, or t-shirt) to show-and-tell and make all the other kids so jealous that by the time the three o’clock bell rings they’ve all got their Can we go too?  Please?  Please?  Please?  Please …. mantra all ready to spill out of their baby-toothed mouths.  You’re not going to have that busload of Japanese tourists waxing rhapsodical about that beautiful play about … four hard to understand people who scream a lot.

It’s true, a Tony win might have secured reasons to be pretty a few more months.  But eventually they were going to run out of New Yorkers, and visiting people from LA, and Neil LaBute fans.  And then reasons to be pretty, as good as it was, as close to perfect as a show can get, would have closed their doors just the same.

These days, that’s just how it goes.

Related Posts:

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I’m here to set the record straight. I’ve spent years thinking that Phylicia Rashad‘s career was based on giving life to characters that sprung forth from Bill Cosby‘s head, the straight (wo)man standing patiently by as William Henry Cosby, Jr. Ed.D. gave in to one of his patented Cosby-eque tirades.  After all, she played his wife, lawyer Claire Huxtable, for eight seasons on The Cosby Show, then signed on for the gig again, playing Ruth Lucas on Cosby. She took Claire Huxtable on the road and over to  A Different World to visit her “daughter” when ratings required her to do so, and she had no issue with voicing the mother of Little Bill, Cosby’s saccharine animation for the 3-and-under set.  She’d even appeared in an episode of The Cosby Mysteries.  (Ever hear of it?  Me neither).  Almost more stereotyped than Henry (who?) “The Fonz” (oh …) Winkler, she even Claire Huxtable’d her way through those Jenny Craig commercials.  I know she’s had other roles, but her main body of work remained so uninteresting to me that I never bothered to catch her in A Raisin In The Sun or anything else, quite frankly.   So it wasn’t really on my radar that she won a Tony … or even that she was up for one.

August: Osage County (written by Tracy Letts and directed by Anna D. Shapiro) starts out slowly and a bit sadly, as Patriarch Beverly Weston (John Cullum, brilliantly thoughtful and strong-voiced as ever) tells young perspective housekeeper Johnna Monevata (this performance unfortunately featured the underwhelming understudy Kristina Valada-Viars) about his peculiar setup: a house kept in darkness so day can’t be distinguished from night; a habit of drinking that has long since moved from “socially” to “till passed out”, a wife so chock full of pills that every word past a certain point in the day is unintelligible, and a family that doesn’t come around very much … though is it any wonder?  Beverly is asking the young girl to be a live-in, to just help them keep their status quo.  She takes the job; she needs the money.

Soon enough Violet Weston (Phylicia Rashad) comes on the scene blathering a hello through a drug haze, demanding things rudely and clumsily knocking things over.  Beverly seems unfazed, this is just how things are now.  He allows her this wreckage of self because oh, hadn’t he mentioned?  She’s got The Cancer.  So maybe it’s better this way.

All too soon (because I LOVE John Cullum) Bev disappears which brings his family out of the woodwork and back to the family home.  Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae (big, beautiful, boozy-voiced Elizabeth Ashley who shimmers through every scene and brings layers of grit and pathos to her role) Maddie’s husband Charlie (Guy Boyd), and Violet’s middle daughter Ivy (Sally Murphy) are first on the scene.  Soon to follow is eldest daughter Barbara (Amy Morton) with her own fractured family in tow: estranged husband Bill (Frank Wood) and precocious 14 year old daughter Jean (Anne Berkowitz).  Thrown into the mix a little later on is youngest daughter Karen (Mariann Mayberry) who’s dragged along her inappropriately creepy fiance Steve (Brian Kerwin) who immediately is unlikable, and finally helpless cousin “Little” Charles (Michael Milligan) who is called a loser so often that it’s impossible to believe that he can really succeed at anything, what with all those negative tapes playing in his head day and night.

The Weston clan puts the diss in dysfunctional; their home explodes in rage and insult so often that when there’s a lull in the fighting you literally lean back, readying yourself for the next outburst which comes soon enough, and only proves that family fighting can always get bigger, uglier, and more violent.  Problems abound so much that they’re doubling up … not one but several kinds of drug use/abuse, several kinds of deviant sexual behavior, several kinds of unhappy marriages (in fact, they’re all on the unhappy scale somewhere, even the marriages that haven’t happened yet). Which isn’t to say that this isn’t a comedy of sorts.

Moments of laughter are peppered into the drama as liberally as makes sense; and the story gets SO dark that at times all you can do is laugh at it.  Father’s missing, Mother’s hooked on pills, Daughter Ivy is dating Mystery Guy (who, when his identity is revealed, is all the less advisable), Daughter Barbara is trying to handle her own failing marriage and control her wild child daughter Jean whose pot-smoking habit is encouraged by her father … a father who has left his marriage in order to date a girl closer to his daughter’s age than his wife’s.  Their sister Karen is a motor mouth, too self-referential and self-observant but also completely self-doubting and at times self-hating. Karen’s fiance, Steve, whom she adores couldn’t be less worthy of adoring … he’s lacking any sort of depth or color except for the fact that he’s a cheat and a pervert.  So with all this built-in angst the audience finds itself laughing uproariously at lines that, anywhere else, would seem mean or harsh.  Lines such as “Eat your fucking fish, Mom!” and “I hate you too, you little freak!”

There’s a point where August: Osage County felt like it was really June: New York City, because while I was pretty certain I’d entered the theatre in June … I was almost sure it would be July by the time I got out.  This play is loooooooooooooooooooong, coming in at 3.5 hours (with two very necessary 10-minute intermissions).  Not to say that it’s long and dull, more like it is long and invasive; entering into your body through your senses and spreading throughout until you’re pulled into the family whether you like it or not.  While that may sound harsh, it’s not altogether untrue.  That doesn’t mean this play isn’t brilliantly done, it’s just quite simply emotionally draining and for anyone with an empathetic bone in their body, it’s almost obliterating.  Sounds dark?  It is.

However the entire cast sinks their teeth into this family and performs this play with gusto; and the simple truth of the matter is that nothing is more satisfying than watching Phylicia Rashad curse a blue streak, throw her dinner on the floor, and incite a family fight that’s only millimeters shy of bloodshed.  Winner of the 2008 Tony Award for Best Play and Pulitzer Prize for Drama, August: Osage County has been around for a while but, come summer, the show will be heading out to cities across the country as it sets out on a National Tour.  See it before it’s gone and while Phylicia Rashad is still at the helm and in town.

August: Osage County is currently playing at the Music Box Theatre, 239 West 45th Street (Between Broadway and 8th Avenue).  Click here for ticket information.  To find out more, visit the official website.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Running Time is 3 hours and 20 minutes, including 2 intermissions.
All evening performances start at 7:30PM except for Tuesday evenings which are 7:00PM and Saturday evenings which are at 8:00PM.

Related Posts:

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• American Buffalo
• Ye Elizabeths: Living Vicariously Because … (2012 Planet Connections Festivity)
• An Ode To Billie Joe: A Rock Star Makes His Broadway Debut In American Idiot
• Stinky Flowers, Sweet Thoughts

You know you’re at a David Mamet play when, before the show even starts, you’re asked to turn off your fucking cell phones.

While the play was first produced in the seventies, the subject matter is hardly dated; nothing gives away the time period (except for John Leguizamo’s crazy-patterned shirt — which could easily be more of a nod toward his character’s thrift-store-shopping-habits than the decade); even in the program “The Time” is listed only as “One Friday”.

And really, do we need to know more?  Almost unfolding in real time, this slice-of-life drama takes us through one random Friday when three guys, passing in and out of Don’s Junk Shop, decide to steal back an American Buffalo nickel after they come to the realization that it was sold for a fraction of its worth.  Honestly, the nickel has very little to do with this two hour drama … what you’re really there to see is the way men interact with each other when trust, pride, reputation, and money are at stake.

Language is very important to Mamet.  His rapid-fire dialog is to theatre what the Andy Warhol soup can is to art … immediately recognizable, hypnotically repetitive, and a little colorful at first … but once you fall into the rhythm the magic can start.

For the first few minutes of this production of American Buffalo it’s very difficult to let go of the “I’m watching a play” feeling. Cedric the Entertainer, as Don, delivers his lines with a natural cadence, and a believable conviction, but for the most part Haley Joel Osment fires back his lines not so much in response, but more in a desperate attempt to keep the ball in play.  You can literally hear him thinking “My turn! … (bam) …. pause … my turn! … (pow) … pause … my turn! … (thwack) … move to the chair … Oh, my turn again?“  His character is supposed to be a little angsty, but there are moments when Osment’s brow-furrowing doesn’t seem like acting, but more like confusion as to how his face should look in order to match what his mouth is saying.  At times he speeds up the rhythm to an unnatural pace, stepping on the previous line (thwack) … but Cedric volleys back like a pro, as if he was speaking from his heart, not his script.

Once John Leguizamo comes on the scene all bets are off; he quickly becomes the focal point and here’s where it starts getting interesting.  From his opening rant he’s immediately enjoyable  “Fucking Ruthie … Fucking Ruthie! … Fucking Ruthie …” It’s amusing just to see how many ways he can skew the same two words.  You can hear an audible click as the rhythm of the back and forth now becomes something more; not just a one / two / one / two back beat, but a beat you can dance to.   Here’s when you sit back and get sucked in.  Suddenly, it seems like you’re listening in on something very private.

It’s no wonder — both John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer are seasoned comedians, their bread and butter is in the timing.  Both men understand how to work an audience by twisting a line just so in order to get the desired effect.  This isn’t something you learn, this comes from years of being in front of a live audience delivering well crafted jokes spoken as though they were spontaneously thought up on the spot.  Leguizamo and C the E earned their stripes in front of a live audience.  Just as Teach tells Don, “One thing makes all the difference.  Knowing what the fuck you’re talking about …“  These guys know what they’re talking about.  (Don’t worry, little Haley Joel … just as Bob needs to be put through his paces before he can play with the big boys, so will you learn how to master this acting thing.  We all know that first Oscar Nomination was for the cute factor.  Luckily … you don’t have to worry about that anymore).

It can’t be easy though, reviving a play with men who are best known for comedy.  While no one can deny that Leguizamo and C the E can deftly handle the corners when moving from comic to tragic moments, there seemed to be some inappropriate laughter at certain moments from the audience … laughing in spots where they may not have laughed at, say, Robert Duvall in the 1977 production or Al Pacino in the 1983 revival.

Laughter’s a hard thing to account for … aside from applause it’s really the only way an audience has to communicate back to the actors.  It’s sometimes just as often a way of saying “Yeah, I’m with you” or “Hey, I appreciate that” as it is of saying “Boy, was that funny …”.  That can be both the blessing and the curse of casting men well known for a specific style.  Celebrities of any kind bring their whole history on stage with them, and often an audience goes to gawk, deride, or pander to a “name” as much as to watch a show.  Casting Madonna in Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow  … need I say more?  The minute these men of comedy command the stage, the audience is ready, and willing, to laugh.  This is a particular deterrent when Teach’s complete dismissal of an injured Bob comes off as cluelessness as opposed to steely indifference or even just an anxious need to get on with the matters at hand.  And yet, maybe that’s the unexpected benefit of using a less traditional cast for this production.  New layers are allowed to unfold, nuances can be explored, shades of meaning arise where they hadn’t been before.

Speaking of diversity … this is the first time that American Buffalo has been cast with men of color; the producers were looking to bring an “urban identity” to the project.  I think one of the joys of watching great performers, however, is being so drawn into the story that race becomes just a footnote.  After all, American Buffalo deals with bravado, suspicion, and honor … themes that cross all races.  Honestly, I didn’t see the cast as “diverse” as much as I saw them as “talented”.  Still, it’s a great day when we can witness color-blind casting.

Ultimately, this is a great revival of a strong play … the new cast is exciting, and the junk shop set (which looks like eBay exploded) is fun to stare at while you wait for the show to start.  Definitely try and catch this limited run while it’s still around.

American Buffalo by David Mamet opens at the Belasco Theatre on Monday, November 17th and stars John Leguizamo as Teach, Cedric the Entertainer as Don, and a  much-taller-than-I-remember-him Haley Joel Osment as Bob. Tickets can be purchased through TeleCharge.

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