Blythe Danner (photo: Joan Marcus)
It won't take savvy theater audiences or more specifically
those familiar with the plays by Anton Chekhov (notably "Uncle
Vanya," and "The Seagull") to recognize the playful conceit deployed
by playwright Donald Margulies in his play set in a country home in
Williamstown, Massachusetts. Here, a family of self-centered theater folk feud,
fret and fuss about their careers while giving equal time to their complicated
personal lives. It's glib to be sure, with its unsubtle Chekhovian references
and its more unsubtle characters played for all they are worth by actors who
know how to land a line. Director Daniel Sullivan has taken this Manhattan
Theatre Club production as seriously as have the cast who make their numerable entrances
and exits with suitable affectation and appropriate aplomb in the handsomely
appointed home designed by John Lee Beatty.
It really isn't important to know who is cheating on whom,
whose career is on the wane, or whose lives are being wasted, only that the Blythe
Danner commands center stage as a fading stage and screen star while the others
take their cue, say their lines and orbit around her with an understandable sense of frustration. Some may enjoy playing
the Chekhov-game of naming each of the character's counterpart, while others
will grow weary as they also laugh at the prevailing pettiness and the phony
poignancy that abounds in this country house.
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