Review - Superior Donuts & Wishful Drinking

The old cliché says that New York audiences will always bow in awe and rampage box offices whenever a play from Great Britain washes upon its shores. But in recent seasons it seems that type of grandiose reception has been reserved for productions that land on our stages by way of Chicago. I have no idea what the new black may be but I have a strong hunch Steppenwolf is the new Old Vic.

The latest import from that incubator of American plays is Tracy Letts' funny and heart-tugging Superior Donuts. Yes, yes, I've heard the complaints that its story of a lonely older white man's rejuvenation triggered by his unexpected friendship with a young, brash, ethnically different employee smells of a rehashing of the 70s sitcom, Chico and The Man. So what if it does? Letts' look at a fading neighborhood evolving into the sameness of gentrification is filled with warm, decent sentiment, lots of good character-driven laughs and people you can care about.

Michael McKean, in his first leading role on Broadway, gives a quietly detailed performance as Arthur Przybyszewski, a former hippie and draft-dodger, rejected by his father, who has spent his later years as owner and operator of the family business; a creaky old donut shop that manages to survive by holding on to the regulars who haven't migrated to the Starbucks across the street. James Schuette's impressively realistic set depicts a business that was probably a smartly designed destination around 1975 or so, but has suffered through decades of indifference and neglect.

Enter into the picture a 21-year-old black dynamo named Franco Wicks (Jon Michael Hill), desperate for a job (for reasons that will become evident in time) and bursting with ideas on how to transform the dingy shop called Superior Donuts into a hip, cultural hotspot. At first Arthur finds the excitable youth abrasive, but gradually the kid grows on him; especially when Franco shares with him the bound up pile of notebooks and pads that contain his handwritten attempt at The Great American Novel, "America Will Be."

Under Tina Landau direction, the humorous give-and-take chemistry between the leads propels the first act, though the two never sacrifice character for a laugh. McKean's Arthur is a convincing portrait of a man whose past disappointments have led him to be satisfied with a private, uneventful life, and, with Franco's encouragement, it's a pleasure to see him evolve into someone who can take risks. Hill gives go-getter Franco appealing buoyancy and innocence that makes the events of the second act hit the heart sharply.

They're surrounded by a fine ensemble playing colorful locals. Yasen Peyankov infuses the Russian electronics entrepreneur Max with enough hearty gusto to make his seemingly insensitive remarks appear to be merely cultural miscommunications. Kate Buddeke, as the sweet police officer with a crush on Arthur, James Vincent Meredith, as her community-minded partner and Jane Alderman, as the somewhat delusional homeless woman who is one of the shop's few remaining regulars all make solid contributions to this uplifting comic drama.

Photo of Jon Michael Hill and Michael McKean by Robert J. Saferstein.

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Ya know that scene in The Producers (the film or the musical, take your pick) where Max Bialystock reviews all the wrong moves he and his partner made in an attempt to sabotage their new Broadway production and, dumbfounded by the show's success, exclaims (or sings), "Where did I (we) go right?" Well, I'm not going to suggest that playwright/performer Carrie Fisher and her director Tony Taccone set out to sabotage Wishful Drinking, the autobiographical solo piece based on Fisher's best-selling book, but here's a case where a show succeeds beautifully despite the fact that so much about it is so damn wrong.

What we have at Studio 54 can be boiled down to a lone performer who seems to be wandering aimlessly around the stage for two hours, talking about herself in a flat monotone via a text that has no clear direction. And yet it's an absolutely hilarious night of theatre. Why? Maybe the anti-theatricality of the whole thing creates a refreshing atmosphere of casual authenticity. Maybe it's because the star talks of her demons with a wry, self-depreciating smirk, philosophizing, "When time passes and tragic turns to funny it cannot do you harm." Or maybe it's because the evening is packed with quotable zingers like, "Oscar time in Los Angeles... Which is kinda like New Year's Eve for the vapid." Whatever the reason, it works splendidly.

Carrie Fisher, of course, is the first-born child of movie icon Debbie Reynolds and not-so-iconic but still very popular singer, Eddie Fisher. Many will recall that Fisher left Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor shortly after her husband Mike Todd died ("He consoled her with flowers and ultimately he consoled her with his penis.") but in case you're not familiar will all the tragic details of the life of our heroine, she opens the evening with a rather sardonic warbling of "Happy Days Are Here Again" while haphazardly dumping glitter on front row patrons. (Warning: the front row gets a real workout in this one) In the background, Alexander V. Nichols' projects newspaper headlines sensationalizing her parents' divorce, their assorted re-marriages and divorces and Fisher's own marital woes; not to mention bouts with drug addiction, bi-polar disorder and manic depression.

Building on that cheery start, she then tells the audience about the time she woke one morning and found her gay Republican friend lying dead next to her. Soon the houselights come up and she's inviting us to ask any questions we'd like about what it's like to wake up next to a dead gay Republican friend.

This kind of dark irreverence merrily continues on throughout the show, most uproariously and scathingly when she explains how her daughter was interested in dating Elizabeth Taylor's grandson, but first she wanted to be certain they weren't related. The leads us to a lesson in "Hollywood Inbreeding 101," where Fisher reviews her family's various marriages, divorces, offspring and re-marriages, using a chart filled with 8x10s and a pointer. This bit is undoubtedly the "hit song" of the night and might well turn out to be the funniest ten or fifteen minutes of the Broadway season.

Anecdotes like how her mother tried to get Fisher to have a baby with her stepfather because the child would certainly have beautiful eyes or how her biological father, in his senior years, seems to be dating all of Chinatown are mixed with tales of her marriage (and ultimate divorce) to Paul Simon and of having a daughter with Hollywood agent Bryan Lourd who, almost obligatorily, turns out to be gay.

Oh yes, and she discusses Star Wars, too. Particularly how her image as Princess Leia was marketed as a Pez dispenser, bath soap, a shampoo bottle (the head twists off) and, of course, a life-sized sex doll which she invites an audience member to have fun with.

Don't expect a deep exploration of her mental breakdown and addictions. Quips are the rule of the day ("When you're manic, every urge is like an edict from the Vatican.") but as she explains early on, "If my life wasn't funny, it would only be true."

Photo of Carrie Fisher by Joan Marcus.

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