Allison Janney and Corey Hawkins
Photo: Joan Marcus
John Guare’s 1990 play, which he based on the real-life scam
of a man who posed as the son of Sidney Poitier and managed to worm his way
into an elitist circle of New York society, is back in a splendidly acted and
handsome production (stunningly designed by Mark Wendland) directed by Trip
Cullman. Both dark in its perspective and sparkling with wit and social insight,
the play is about a cluster of surprisingly gullible, egregiously superficial
and also very wealthy people who unwittingly allow themselves to be victimized
by their collectively subconscious desire to effect change. This, as well as add
purpose and meaning to their already prosperous but decidedly self-serving lives.
If Guare’s theme is let the buyer beware, the characters he has
created to convey his realistic fable are dramatized with brutal frankness as
well as layered with various degrees of sophistication. What is gratifying to
see is how the initial gripping power of the play, whose duration is only 90
minutes, is maintained to the end by director Cullman who seems to have been
able to further enhance (Jerry Zaks directed the original) the playwright’s
vision, as least for me in this second experience with it. Even the play’s
somewhat disappointing, strangely fragmented denouement and vague dissolve don’t
hinder our enjoyment, particularly those moments of surprise and shock that are
well calculated to keep us in suspense.
With obvious relish, the cast is extracting every ounce of
innuendo out of the odd, sordid, tragic and even perverse doings that keep the
plot in motion. We can easily forgive the many implausible loopholes as well as
the purposefully graphic depiction of homosexual activity. Allison Janney is
terrifically funny and sad as Ouisa (role originally played by Stockard
Channing) the wife whose spellbound relationship with an unscrupulous young black man presumably leads her to some
new plane of cathartic self-awareness. John Benjamin Hickey is also superb as
Flan, the wheeling dealing art-dealer husband. In probably the play’s most
complexly considered character, a splendid Corey Hawkins disarmingly conveys
the corrupted charms of the reckless gay intruder.
A very fine supporting cast gives its all to characters
caught up in a series of intrigues and deceptions that will eventually lead
them from social isolation to universal connection. The play uses a dazzling
premise to lead us from one unexpected threshold to another before dropping us
into an abyss filled with uncertainties and regrets.
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