Review - Sorry

Playwright Richard Nelson first introduced audiences to the family of Apple siblings with That Hopey Changey Thing, which took place on election night 2010 and, by design, opened on that same night.  He pulled the same trick last year with Sweet and Sad, which opened and was set on the tenth anniversary of the September 11^th attacks.

As you might have guessed, his third visit with the Apples, titled Sorry, opened this past Tuesday and, yes, was set on the day of America’s most recent election.  Like the previous two, Sorry is an intimate, Chekhovian-style drama centered on the mealtime conversations of a group of adults most easily identified as northeastern liberals.  Nelson directs the excellent ensemble, consisting of some of New York’s finest stage actors, which has remained intact for all three productions, save for Shuler Hensley, currently giving an extraordinary performance Off-Broadway in The Whale.  Rather than recast, his character does not appear in this one.

It’s 5am in the Rhinebeck home of schoolteacher Barbara Apple (Maryann Plunkett), who lives with her uncle Benjamin (Jon Devries), a former actor who, after a heart attack two years ago, has been losing his memory and the ability to function.  She and her divorced sister Marian (Laila Robins), who moved in with them after a personal tragedy, can no longer care for Benjamin properly and have regretfully decided to move him into a care facility for his own safety.

Their sister Jane (J. Smith-Cameron), a writer, is up from the city, pondering over the future of her on-again, off-again relationship with her boyfriend (the Hensley role), currently out of town on an acting gig.  (No, he’s not playing a 600 lb. guy Off-Broadway.)  Their brother Richard (Jay O. Sanders), who announced in the first play that he had left his position as a lawyer in the State Attorney General's office to join a firm that donates heavily to the Republican Party, is now reconsidering his choice, though he retains his disappointment in the present state of the Democratic Party.  (“Do we know what we’re rooting for? I think we know what we’re rooting against. And is that enough? Why have we become ‘not them’?”)

But the play is not a political round table, as discussion about specific current events is kept to a minimum.  Instead, Nelson’s characters bring out the mixture of personal events, large and small, that produce a family dynamic.  And the superb cast does indeed produce a realistic family dynamic.

Previously intended to be a trilogy, the playwright has announced there will be at least one more visit with the Apples, on the 50^th anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination.  I’ll be sure to clear my calendar. 

Photos by Joan Marcus:  Top: J. Smith-Cameron and Laila Robins; Bottom:  Jon Devries and Maryann Plunkett.

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"Marriage is trivial compared to finding a good director."

-- Erika Ritter

The grosses are out for the week ending 11/11/2012 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: CYRANO DE BERGERAC (37.7%), THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (27.1%), NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (17.0%), SCANDALOUS (16.0%), THE PERFORMERS (13.7%), War Horse (12.5%), THE HEIRESS (10.2%), CHAPLIN (8.6%), GRACE (8.6%), BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL (8.0%), AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (7.3%), ROCK OF AGES (6.7%), WICKED (6.7%), WHO'S AFRAID OF Virginia Woolf? (5.6%), PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (3.5%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (3.5%), ANNIE (3.2%), THE LION KING (3.2%), GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (2.9%), JERSEY BOYS (1.8%), ONCE (1.7%), MARY POPPINS (1.0%), NEWSIES(0.9%),

Down for the week was: EVITA (-17.1%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-7.7%), MAMMA MIA! (-6.3%), CHICAGO (-4.6%),

When it comes to television, the 37^th President of the United States is best remembered for an unfortunate debate against John F. Kennedy and later for those infamous words, “I am not a crook.”  But it was a younger, more idealistic Richard Milhous Nixon who used television to warm American hearts and save his political skin by telling the story of a little cocker spaniel namEd Checkers and bringing new respectability to the words “Republican cloth coat.”

But that half-hour speech from 1952, where the Republican vice-presidential candidate defended himself against accusations of financial improprieties that were about to cost him his place on the ticket, is merely the frame of Douglas McGrath’s charged up, gritty and frequently funny drama, Checkers.  In fact, though the career of the guy they used to call Tricky Dick has been famously explored on stage and screen numerous times (The Selling of the President, All The President’s Men, Nixon in China, Frost/Nixon…), this may be the first major work that focuses on the crumbling romance between the candidate and his wife, Pat, as his growing expertise in playing the political game makes him less and less the man she married.

The play is bookended by scenes set in 1966, where political strategist Murray Chotiner (Lewis J. Stadlen, terrific as the hard-boiled, old-school politico) tries to convince Nixon, retired from politics since losing the California gubernatorial race in 1962, to head the 1968 Republican ticket.  He knows his old pal is still smarting from the 1960 loss where he won the popular vote and lost the electoral college under strong suspicions of voter fraud in the close contests in Illinois and Texas (winning those states would have given him the election), and is feeling useless in his private life as an attorney, but he isn’t aware that Pat is blissfully happy to be out of politics and raising a normal American family.

Anthony LaPaglia’s Nixon begins with the gravel-voiced California accent and suspicious stare that kept impressionists in business through the early 1970s, but when the man’s memory is triggered back to 1952, where the bulk of the play remains, he’s an earnest, decent and energetic 39-year-old senator just getting noticed by the public for his vigorous anti-Communist stance.  Loaded with ideas for America’s future, he sets them aside when presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower’s handlers explain that they want a running mate whose sole role is that of attack dog.

Shy about the spotlight, Kathryn Erbe’s Pat Nixon prefers to hand out campaign buttons rather that stand by her husband’s side as he makes speeches.  Their relationship is first seen as cordially affectionate, but a truly loving partnership, with Pat being the moral influence in her husband’s decision-making.  (There’s a wonderful scene where they reminisce humorously about their courtship.)  But being their first national campaign, Chotiner teaches her what is expected of a political wife, and while her husband still depends on her heavily she can see small changes in him as he begins sacrificing his honesty for the greater good.  Erbe is just outstanding as Pat, showing the woman struggling with her unpreparedness for her role and her disillusionment in the political process.  When she stands up for herself, it’s a thrilling and surprising moment, but the audience’s knowledge of what lies ahead makes it bittersweet.

The story is told in a collection of pointed short scenes, and while the main characters are solidly sympathetic, director Terry Kinney has the supporting ensemble playing at a slightly elevated level that makes the structure work like a series of editorial cartoons.  Particularly effective are John Ottavino’s Ike, a fatherly icon happy to stay far away from controversy, and Robert Stanton’s image-conscious RNC Chairman Herbert Brownell.  When you add Neil Patel’s uncomplicated interior set serving as a screen for Darrel Maloney’s clever collection of location-setting pen-and-ink style projections, Checkers often resembles a live-action Herblock cartoon.

Photos by Carol Rosegg:  Top: Kathryn Erbe and Anthony LaPaglia; Bottom: Anthony LaPaglia and Lewis J. Stadlen.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

After 20-odd years singing, dancing and acting in dinner theatres, summer stocks and the ever-popular audience participation murder mysteries (try improvising with audiences after they?ve had two hours of open bar), Michael Dale segued his theatrical ambitions into playwriting. The buildings which once housed the 5 Off-Off Broadway plays he penned have all been destroyed or turned into a Starbucks, but his name remains the answer to the trivia question, "Who wrote the official play of Babe Ruth's 100th Birthday?" He served as Artistic Director for The Play's The Thing Theatre Company, helping to bring free live theatre to underserved communities, and dabbled a bit in stage managing and in directing cabaret shows before answering the call (it was an email, actually) to become BroadwayWorld.com's first Chief Theatre Critic. While not attending shows Michael can be seen at Citi Field pleading for the Mets to stop imploding. Likes: Strong book musicals and ambitious new works. Dislikes: Unprepared celebrities making their stage acting debuts by starring on Broadway and weak bullpens.

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