Review Roundup: SHOWS FOR DAYS, Starring Michael Urie and Patti LuPone, Opens Off-Broadway

Lincoln Center Theater presents Patti LuPone, Dale Soules, Michael Urie, Jordan Dean, Lance Coadie Williams, and Zoë Winters in Shows For Days, a new play by Douglas Carter Beane, directed by Jerry Zaks. The production opens tonight, June 29 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 West 65 Street).

SHOWS FOR DAYS is playwright Douglas Carter Beane's fond remembrance of his immersion into a life in the theater.

The comedy is set in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1973, when 14-year-old Car, the play's narrator and the author's alter-ego (Michael Urie), is introduced to the world of theater through his local community theatre, the Prometheus Theatre, and its devoted cast and crew which is led by Irene (Patti LuPone), an indomitable force of nature whose life is dedicated to putting on productions she directs, designs, and stars in.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Though she has been known to chew scenery into sawdust, Patti LuPone shrewdly resists making a feast of her high-calorie role in "Shows for Days," the unresolved new comedy by Douglas Carter Beane...Ms. LuPone has a part that comes with full license for going over the top and staying there: Irene, a coercive community-theater diva and a showy specialist in blackmail, emotional and otherwise. She's a character a less savvy actress would use to vamp and camp until the cows come home (or until the audience goes home). There are tasty elements of vampery and campery in Ms. LuPone's performance in "Shows for Days"...Yet she also locates a molten core of anger -- and honor -- in Irene's affectations...as anyone knows who saw Ms. LuPone as Momma Rose in "Gypsy," this actress does bulldozers with many gears. And she finds something genuinely and affectingly credible in a play that often taxes credibility.

Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press: Community theater gets a lot of knocks for being amateurish, but Douglas Carter Beane may have elevated it to sympathetic comedic heights with his new play "Shows For Days." The quirky coming-of-age comedy...is a fictionalized, fondly autobiographical look at Beane's induction to life in the theater...Director Jerry Zaks keeps the whirlwind production running smoothly, as Urie effectively navigates between teenage wonderment and adult self-awareness. Both Car and the Newhouse audience can't help falling under the considerable spell of Patti LuPone, in her element as self-obsessed diva Irene, brash founder of the doughty little Prometheus Theatre. Lupone grandly tosses off one-liners as she sweeps on and off stage, draped in elegant costumes by William Ivey Long that glow with '70s sparkle.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Another play about the coming of age of an artistically inclined boy? Bor-ring. Douglas Carter Beane tries to minimize the ho-hum factor in "Shows for Days," his own entry into that overworked sub-genre, by setting this nostalgic play in a 1970s community theater troupe ruled by a tyrannical but venerated diva played (to the hilt) by Patti Lupone. Shrewd move, but the scribe neglects to fortify his spirited star and the boychick apprentice played (sweetly) by Michael Urie with a lucid plot, a coherent structure or even believable supporting roles.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: ...the personal investment is dulled by characters that too rarely escape stereotype to acquire humanity, and by shapeless writing that's not short on humor, but sacrifices poignancy through lack of focus...Beane animates the comedy with accurate firsthand observation of this milieu...And yet, this paean to amateur theater as a life-altering career starter and a nurturing haven for outsiders needs more definition. That leaves Car's coming out and his painful first experience of romantic and personal betrayal to serve as the play's default heart. But strangely, this never acquires the dramatic heft of lived experience. That's no fault of Urie's captivating performance, with the lanky actor bringing eager physicality and wide-eyed hunger to distinguish his character's teen years from his worldly middle age...Then there's LuPone, gleefully poking fun at herself as a larger-than-life stage presence who never met a piece of scenery she couldn't devour. Swanning around in a bouffant wig that screams matronly self-importance, and outfits so hideous they take on a life of their own...she's a hoot even when the writing does her no favors.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY: "Community theaters have a social function and it is to be [an] irritant in the shell of their community," wrote Tennessee Williams, as quoted in Shows For Days. That irritant is the kind that just might produce a pearl, and that pearl, implicitly, is Douglas Carter Beane, the author of this nostalgic look back at his early-'70s stint with an amateur troupe in Pennsylvania: an irregular or baroque pearl, whose writing is lustrous and slightly tear-shaped...Few playwrights hone quips as sharply as Beane does, and LuPone is frequently hilarious. Thanks to them, Shows For Days goes by speedily-sometimes too speedily. Directed by Jerry Zaks, the uneven cast of six often seems to be rushing; important plot beats about company finances and local politics are blurry and confusing...Diverting and touching as it often is, there's not much meat in this pottage.

Linda Winer, Newsday: Backstage theater-memory plays tend to have an inbuilt charm...And so it is with "Shows for Days," Douglas Carter Beane's sweet mess of a good-natured comedy...How happily one indulges the messy parts, and the over-the-top effeminate eccentricities, and the anachronistic improbabilities may well be determined by a soft spot for the genre and a few other acquired tastes. The major one is the desire to see Patti LuPone transform into the irrepressibly self-dramatizing, Yiddish-spewing grande dame of the struggling, doggedly ambitious little Prometheus Theatre without, somehow, being that cliche. She is lovely -- part the Norma Desmond we never got to see, part sturdy pragmatist with a curling lip behind the thespian romanticism. Then there is Michael Urie...[who] takes us convincingly into this tender, sometimes hurtful microcosm of misfits and idealists, real estate and cynical politics...Director Jerry Zaks can't quite herd the playwright's conflicting intentions into a single coherent voice...Despite all that, and a title I can't decipher, his affectionate production is a lark.

Robert Kahn, NBC New York: Urie, as Cal, is Beane's alter-ego, a wide-eyed gay kid from the rich side of the tracks who gets swept up with the loopy personalities in theater-land...Director Jerry Zaks...has "adult Cal" set each scene, explaining the taped blocking marks on the floor and so on. It's surprisingly easy to buy Urie as a teenager, and a treat to see him reunited with LuPone, who appeared as his mother on "Ugly Betty." Magnetic as always, LuPone has the hardest job here, as the soul of the company, a group of also-rans in an also-ran city. Her performance is nifty, but Beane's script finally betrays her...I went in expecting a comedy, but by the second act the story swerves into dark drama more on a par with "The Nance." Beane's plot is missing a necessary coherence, though there are some funny jokes and monologues that certainly make "Shows for Days" a worthwhile undertaking.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: You say typecasting, I say playing to an actor's strengths. And the new comedy "Shows for Days" plays to Patti LuPone's strengths to the power of a gazillion. The role of Irene, flamboyant artistic director of an amateur regional theater group, is catnip to LuPone. Headstrong, temperamental, quick-witted, manipulative, supportive, passionate -- Irene is the soul of her company and a gift to the star who brings her to vivid, hilarious life..."Shows for Days" is exactly what you'd expect from a combo of coming-of-age story and love letter to the theater. But while it's light on surprises, this Lincoln Center Theater production, expertly directed by Jerry Zaks, is a well-crafted hoot.

Jesse Green, Vulture: Douglas Carter Beane sure knows how to write for his stars...Now, in Shows for Days...he's written not merely a vehicle for Patti LuPone but a glossy and curve-hugging Ferrari of a comedy, built as if to the star's spec sheet. LuPone plays Irene Sampson Keller, the theatrical empress of Reading, Pennsylvania...She is, sarcastic, idealistic, overdramatic, and aphoristic, the kind of small-town diva prone to wearing Pucci caftans, giving multiple curtain speeches, and faking strokes to drum up excitement...But LuPone does more with the character than offer an encyclopedia of mid-century stage mannerisms; she burrows deep into the neurotic and even political circumstances that make such a creature so awesome and necessary. Irene's hysteria paradoxically brings out the discipline in LuPone, who gives a precisely detailed and never less than hilarious triumph of a performance. So yes, a star vehicle. But whether it can be steered is a different matter; neither Beane, nor the director, Jerry Zaks, nor anyone else seems to have found a way to keep it from veering all over the place.

Matt Windman, AM New York: Douglas Carter Beane's...new comedic drama "Shows for Days"...is loosely based on his own coming-of-age tale about how he was introduced to the theater. Not surprisingly, it's unoriginal and self-indulgent...The play (directed by Jerry Zaks) is a rambling, undeveloped, sentimental mess, to the point that Beane depends heavily on direct narration from Car to guide the audience...LuPone essentially takes over the production with her hammy, scenery-chewing theatrics, which ought to please her fans. However, one can't help but wonder if the play would have been better if it focused less on her character and more on Beane's stand-in, who comes off as plain.

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Photo Credit: Joan Marcus