Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane lead an all-star cast featuring F. Murray Abraham, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally and Micah Stock in the Broadway comedy about the comedy of Broadway: It's Only a Play. Written by four-time Tony winner Terrence McNally and directed by three-time Tony winner Jack O'Brien, this is a celebration of theatre at its best- and theatre people behaving their not-so-best.
It's opening night of Peter Austin's (Matthew Broderick) new play as he anxiously awaits to see if his show is a hit. With his career on the line, he shares his big First Night with his best friend, a television star (Nathan Lane), his fledgling producer (Megan Mullally), his erratic leading lady (Stockard Channing), his wunderkind director, an infamous drama critic (F. Murray Abraham) and a fresh-off-the-bus coat check attendant (Micah Stock in his Broadway debut).
It's alternately raucous, ridiculous and tender- reminding audiences why there's no business like show business. Thank God!
You will not likely find anything funnier onstage, just now, than Nathan Lane in the opening scene of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play. Lane, as a humble off-Broadway actor turned top-tier sitcom star, is given a barrage of robustly funny jokes to launch at us, mostly of the lacerating variety...Mind you, laughs continue throughout the two-plus hours of this Jack O'Brien-directed opus; and good old Mr. Lane is omnipresent, always working to entertain us...Theatergoers will get their money's worth, if you can calculate worth by belly laffs, but it turns out that McNally's It's Only a Play is not all that much better than the play-within-a-play that the characters spend the night lamenting. 'It's Only Nathan Lane,' though, is a boffo bonanza.
If the entire dream cast of Terrence McNally's backstage revenge play had less than split-millisecond timing, the merciless inside-showbiz observations about the theater and theaterfolk might wound deeper than they amuse. Instead, McNally's major update and overhaul of his 1985 work is likely to remind the gleefully unrepentant among us of Alice Roosevelt Longworth's quote that, more or less, said, 'If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me....Lane revels in the ego and insecurity of the actor with the TV series who turned down a part written for him by his playwright-buddy, underplayed with deft earnestness and panic by Broderick, the comedy's straight man. Channing is delicious as an aging star with drug issues and a parolee's ankle bracelet. Mullally has a dumb-smart way with malaprops as the eager fledgling producer. Grint -- all spiked red hair and raccoon eyes -- is perfectly bratty as the British directing genius, while Abraham skulks creepily around as a vicious critic with an agenda...As long as they're not up there laughing at you, however, this is the rare Broadway comedy that's as smart as it is funny.
1986 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2014 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Featured Actor in a Play | Rupert Grint |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | F. Murray Abraham |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | Terrence McNally |
2015 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Award | Micah Stock |
2015 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Micah Stock |
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