Review - The Royal Family

In the 1920s, George S. Kaufman was one of the primary reasons New York was firmly establishing itself as the nation's capital of wit. Until his death in 1961, Kaufman could be called the quintessential New Yorker; continually working on Broadway as a playwright and director, reluctantly venturing out to Hollywood on occasion and regretting every moment of it and frequently quoted for his crackling cleverness ("I understand your new play is full of single entendres.").

But while Kaufman was a singular individual, his plays were almost always collaborations and each of his frequent writing partners seemed to influence the style of the project. With Morrie Ryskind (Animal Crackers, Of Thee I Sing) he wrote wildly zany books for musicals. His partnership with Moss Hart (You Can't Take It With You, The Man Who Came To Dinner) produced his most sentimental works and with Edna Ferber (Stage Door, Dinner at Eight) his most colorful female characters came alive.

And in 1927 it was with Ferber that the first major, lasting work of the Kaufman catalogue, The Royal Family, was created. Spoofing the country's first family of the theatre, the Barrymores, The Royal Family is not only a sharp-witted commentary on American celebrity, but an earnest portrait of three generations of women who deal with the peculiar family legacy of being a star. Director Doug Hughes mounts a positively sumptuous new revival, grandly dignified in design and madly farcical in spirit.

Rosemary Harris is warmly regal as family matriarch, Fanny Cavendish; a woman so devoted to the theatre that even at her advanced age she excitedly awaits another national tour. Her old-school dedication was shared by her late husband, who died minutes after the last performance of a contracted run, but not before taking four curtain calls. Her granddaughter Gwen (Kelli Barrett, charming as a spirited modern) is expected to make her Broadway debut in a substantial supporting role in her mother's (Jan Maxwell) next play, but when the demands of the theatre get in the way of her love life, Gwen reevaluates what she wants for her future.

Maxwell, a canny and intelligent comic actress, is deliciously showcased as Julie Cavendish, the family's main breadwinner who is trying to raise a daughter, take care of her mother and consider marriage while rushing to make her curtain eight times a week. The role allows her to be over-the-top in a manner that is realistic for the character, climaxing in a positively hilarious second act nervous breakdown where she swears that she's given up the theatre for good.

Reg Rogers is grandly hammy fun as he flamboyantly eloquates his role as Tony Cavendish (a/k/a John Barrymore), hiding out from the press after a physical altercation with an incompetent Hollywood director. Anthony Newfield filled in for the recuperating Tony Roberts at the performance I attended and was very pleasing as the father-figure family manager. John Glover, as Fanny's less successful actor brother, Anna Gasteyer, as his crass and condescending actress wife and David Greenspan and Caroline Stefanie Clay, as the servants who calmly manage the constant calamity of the household lead an excellent supporting cast.

John Lee Beatty's duplex apartment set - a gorgeous creation dominated by a grand staircase and decorated with an imposing assortment of framed portraits and theatre posters - and Catherine Zuber's smart assortment of character-specific period costumes fill the stage with a distinguished tone that plays straight for the savory antics of Kaufman, Ferber and Hughes' positively perfect company.

Photo by Joan Marcus: Jan Maxwell, Kelli Barrett and Rosemary Harris

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