Inspired by a true story, the play follows the trail of a young black con man, Paul, who insinuates himself into the lives of a wealthy New York couple, Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, saying he knows their son at college.
Producer Stuart Thompson announced that John Guare's critically acclaimed play Six Degrees of Separation will return to Broadway in a revival starring seven-time Emmy Award winner Allison Janney ("Mom," The Girl on the Train) as Ouisa and Tony Award winner John Benjamin Hickey (The Normal Heart, "Manhattan") as Flan.
Trip Cullman (Significant Other, Punk Rock) will direct the production, which is set to open at the Barrymore Theatre in April 2017 and will run for 15 weeks only.
The 2011 Broadway revival of The House of Blue Leaves was too unbalanced to do the job, but Trip Cullman's razor-sharp staging of Six Degrees of Separation serves as a welcome reminder of the fiercely intelligent, pungently funny voice of playwright John Guare at his vintage best. The thoroughbred Allison Janney stars as Ouisa Kittredge, a well-heeled Manhattan WASP who dreams in dollar signs until a beguiling young African-American trickster, imbued with both obfuscation and naked yearning by Corey Hawkins, exposes her to the spiritual emptiness beneath her complacent sophistication. While those two sensational performances occupy the play's molten center, the entire large ensemble that surrounds them is on fire.
The good news on the Broadway revival of 'Six Degrees of Separation' is great news. Twenty-seven years after the debut of John Guare's comedy of manners and mores in Manhattan, 'Six Degrees' retains its place as one of the great American plays of the late 20th century. The revival, which opened Tuesday at the Barrymore Theatre, also is a reminder of a time in the theater when two- and three-hander dramas did not dominate the nonprofit world. True, Lincoln Center Theater, which originally produced the Guare play, is now staging a new American drama, 'Oslo,' with a cast of 18. The cast of 18 in 'Six Degrees' is especially astounding because it is possible to imagine the play with just its three principal characters: Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, the art-dealer couple living on the Upper East Side in 1990, and the young black man Paul, who is the alleged son of Sidney Poitier.
1990 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1990 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2010 | West End |
Old Vic Production West End |
2017 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Corey Hawkins |
2017 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Allison Janney |
2017 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | Six Degrees of Separation |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Allison Janney |
2017 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Corey Hawkins |
2017 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Six Degrees of Separation |
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