Review - That Hopey Changey Thing & A Life In The Theatre

The only press night offered for the Public LAB's premiere production of playwright/director Richard Nelson's That Hopey Changey Thing was this past Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 at 7pm. Given that the play actually takes place on Tuesday. November 2nd, 2010 at 7pm (America's Election Night, for my plethora of foreign readers) I was rather hopey that the text might, in fact, wind up being changey, depending on the news of returns coming in during the play's 90 minutes. No such luck. But even in its frozen state, the piece is sharp, engrossing and superbly acted.

Named for a sarcastic post-election quip Sarah Palin once directed at Obama voters ("How's that hopey changey thing workin' for ya?"), Nelson readily calls his play "disposable." It was commissioned in the spring, written in the summer, cast in the fall and has opened in time for Democratic Party's winter of discontentment.

But it's Chekhov, not Shakespeare, who inspires the author's soft-spoken play of ideas, performed with an intimate mixture of comic and dramatic pathos by a simply outstanding ensemble. We're in the Rhinebeck, New York home of Barbara Apple (Maryann Plunkett), a schoolteacher who lives with her uncle, Benjamin (Jon Devries), a retired actor whose recent heart attack has seriously affected his memory; leaving bits of family history locked in his uncertain mind. Barbara's sister Marian (Laila Robins), also a schoolteacher, lives in town and their sibling Jane (J. Smith-Cameron), a writer, has come up from Manhattan with her new boyfriend, Tim (Shuler Hensley), an actor.

Immediately, even before the first mention of how the town survived the Chelsea Clinton wedding can be squeezed in, the evening takes on a confrontational tone as the brother of the play's three sisters, Richard (Jay O. Sanders), a lawyer in the State Attorney General's office, has just bellowed out the punch line of an Andrew Cuomo joke. While the family members all lean to the political left, they're in varying degrees, and their dinnertime conversation concerning the accomplishments and disappointments of the past two years is juiced up by the news that Richard has accepted a position with a firm that supports the Republican Party. He expresses his disillusionment in a party that was willing to condemn the choice of Sarah Palin to run for the vice-presidency even before the country knew anything about her. When Marian counters with disgust for the stances taken by conservatives, he answers back, "Why is it that every time I question what we've become... I'm met with the same: 'but they're worse.' Since when has not being worse become what we are?"

Tim, not wanting anything to do with the family argument, is more interested in asking Benjamin how his memory loss has affected his work as an actor. He recalls seeing him in a reading of an unnamed Oscar Wilde play and remembers marveling how the man's performance seemed so spontaneous, as if he'd never read the lines before. An impromptu performance as Gaev in The Cherry Orchard is in order before the evening is through, with the scene suggesting the current economic state of so many.

That Hopey Changey Thing probably does come with a limited shelf life and will most likely not be performed by regional theatres next season. Heck, it might get severely dated before the end of its current run. But the chance to see a cast this good in a play this interesting dealing with issues this contemporary for the Public LAB's budget price of $15 makes this "disposable theatre" idea seem like something worth holding on to.

Photo by Joan Marcus: Jay O. Sanders, Shuler Hensley, Jon Devries, Laila Robins, Maryann Plunkett, J. Smith-Cameron.

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Believe it or not, there once was a time, early in David Mamet's career, when he wrote of male characters who weren't foul-mouthed rats ready to stomp on their fellow man for a buck, but actually regarded each other with decency and affection. This kinder, gentler Mamet can be readily embraced in Neil Pepe's funny and bittersweet revival of A Life In The Theatre.

In eighty minutes of over two dozen short scenes - in the wings, in the dressing room, onstage -Mamet chronicles the professional relationship between two actors as they navigate the ever-changing settings of repertory theatre. Typical of the author, nothing is offered in the way of back-story, leaving it up to the artists to communicate the details. Judging from Santo Loquasto's sets and Laura Bauer's costumes, which provide the diverse visuals for plays set during World War I, the American Civil War and the French Revolution, as well as for a British drawing room, a Russian estate and a drifting lifeboat, it seem that Robert (Patrick Stewart) and John (T.R. Knight) are booked in a well-funded regional theatre with a stage of, well, Broadway dimensions.

The story is a simple one of age grasping onto the torch for as long as possible before inevitably passing it off to youth. Stewart's Robert - perhaps a has-been, perhaps a never-was - has stretched the boundaries of his leading man days to the limit and now faces a career of (gasp!) supporting character roles. He has taken the young John (crossing over the cusp between juvenile and leading man) under his wing and, between bonding moments involving on-and-offstage mishaps and keeping one's dignity through plays of questionable quality, makes a point of sharing the nuggets of professional wisdom nurtured by his years of experience. ("Superior theater is like a little walnut; meaty on the inside and tight all round.")

Stewart doesn't hide the large degree of ego-massaging motivating Robert's tutorials, as though he takes special delight in having mastered the role of the wise, old mentor. But his hammyness is cured with a seasoned charm. Knight plays it straight for most of the piece, but succeeds in the subtler job communicating how John's gratitude for veteran's attention gradually dissolves as he recognizes the man behind his off-stage character and grows more distant as his confidence builds and others recognize his own talent.

Photo of Patrick Stewart and T.R. Knight by Carol Rosegg.

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"When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation."

-- Truman Capote

The grosses are out for the week ending 11/7/2010 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: Colin Quinn: LONG STORY SHORT (40.5%), THE Pee-Wee Herman SHOW (11.4%), IN THE HEIGHTS (9.9%), ROCK OF AGES (9.4%), MARY POPPINS (8.6%), A FREE MAN OF COLOR (8.4%), BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON (7.1%), NEXT TO NORMAL (7.0%), MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET (5.3%), MEMPHIS (5.3%), AMERICAN IDIOT (5.1%), LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (4.1%), MAMMA MIA! (3.5%), THE LION KING (2.4%), TIME STANDS STILL (1.2%), PROMISES, PROMISES (1.1%), A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (0.7%), WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (0.1%),

Down for the week was: LOMBARDI (-15.8%), DRIVING MISS DAISY (-10.6%), WEST SIDE STORY (-10.5%), THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS (-8.0%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (-7.4%), A LIFE IN THE THEATRE (-6.3%), FELA! (-6.0%), BRIEF ENCOUNTER (-5.1%), THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (-3.4%), CHICAGO (-3.3%), LA BETE (-2.4%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-2.4%), WICKED (-1.6%), MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION (-1.2%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-0.5%), JERSEY BOYS (-0.1%),