A terrific cast yucks it up onstage in George Street Playhouse’s virtual version of Terrence McNally’s It’s Only a Play (cinematography by Michael Boylan)

IT’S ONLY A PLAY
George Street Playhouse online
Through July 4, $33
georgestreetplayhouse.org

“I’m struck by how laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re just howling with laughter,” Monty Python cofounder John Cleese said in the 2001 BBC series The Human Face. There is no human reaction as infectious as laughing, particularly in a theater where strangers gather to be entertained; one’s enjoyment of a comedic movie or play often relies at least in part by the sounds of glee emerging from fellow audience members. So what to do during a pandemic lockdown, when connection with others in dark spaces is impossible? The George Street Playhouse has the answer in its hysterical virtual revival of Terrence McNally’s It’s Only a Play.

The New Jersey troupe, founded in 1974, previously moved into the home of board member Sharon Karmazin for a pair of excellent one-person shows, Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates, starring Andréa Burns primarily in a bedroom, and Becky Mode’s Fully Committed, with Maulik Pancholy portraying forty roles in the basement. That was followed by Nia Vardalos’s Tiny Beautiful Things, which featured four actors throughout Karmazin’s lake house in the Garden State. Now the company is back onstage with seven actors for its uproarious version of McNally’s 1982 farce, which made its Broadway debut in 2014 in director Jack O’Brien’s all-star iteration at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. That production featured Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, F. Murray Abraham, Stockard Channing, Matthew Broderick, Rupert Grint, and Micah Stock, which it helps to know as references abound in this one.

Laughter might be contagious, but even sitting alone at my computer, I was exuberantly howling at the two-hour show, surprising myself at how often I let out loud snickers, snorts, and guffaws at the merriment happening onstage at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. It’s Only a Play takes place at an opening-night party at the ritzy home of first-time Broadway producer Julia Budder (Christine Toy Johnson) as everyone awaits the reviews, primarily Ben Brantley’s assessment in the New York Times. Julia has put her money behind playwright Peter Austin’s (Andy Grotelueschen) The Golden Egg, which could be theater gold or lay a giant egg.

They are joined by the show’s prima donna, Virginia Noyes (Julie Halston), a fading actress who can’t get a job in Hollywood anymore; actor James Wicker (Zach Shaffer), the star of a successful if empty television sitcom Out on a Limb who is best friends with Austin but nonetheless passed on appearing in the new play, which was written for him; Sir Frank Finger (Greg Cuellar), an eccentric British director who is so sick and tired of being praised for everything he does that he’s hoping to finally have a turkey on his hands; brash critic Ira Drew (Triney Sandoval), who desperately wants to be part of the in crowd; and Gus P. Head (Doug Harris), a doofy wannabe “actor-slash-singer-slash-dancer-slash-comedian-slash-performance artist-slash-mime” who has just moved to New York City and is handling the coats for the evening. Rapid-fire hilarity ensues with harsh needling, heaps of insincerity and phoniness, and plenty of ego-driven inside jokes that had me rolling with laughter.

“I don’t have to call in again for another couple of hours,” Noyes, who is wearing a house arrest ankle bracelet, tells Wicker and Head. “For a while they had me checking in every fifteen minutes. What did they think I was going to do? Kill somebody else? It was an accident. It wasn’t like they were both my parents.”

Upon entering the bedroom, Austin declares, “All my life, I dreamed that they would yell, ‘Author, author’ when I walked into my opening-night party and they did, only it was for Tom Stoppard, who was right behind me.”

George Street Playhouse returns to its home in It’s Only a Play (cinematography by Michael Boylan)

On the phone complaining to his agent, Wicker says, “Thank God for my series or I might’ve had to tell Peter the truth about his godawful play. But do you think I got even so much as a mention in the program? I only created the lead in his one and only hit, and it’s as if I never existed. The egos in this business. I know they don’t close plays after one performance, but in this case they should make an exception. What’s the word for a mercy killing? Euthanasia. They do it for people; why not plays?”

The show is directed by Kevin Cahoon with a joyful franticness, with cinematography and editing by Michael Boylan that makes it feel more like a play than a film, although occasional close-ups look awkward. David L. Arsenault’s set is glamorous, with lovely costumes by Alejo Vietti. The bright lighting is by Alan C. Edwards, with sound and music by Ryan Rumery. The cast is outstanding, reveling in the nonstop barrage of McNally’s gorgeous words; four-time Drama Desk nominee Halston gloriously chews up everything in her path, while Tony nominee Grotelueschen has a glow in his eyes as he waxes poetic about theater with a capital T. Sandoval can barely contain himself as the bitter critic hobnobbing in the inner sanctums, while Harris excels as the star-struck greenhorn who has a penchant for using terms of endearment for people he doesn’t know. Shaffer has a ball with the bulk of the most acerbic lines, Cuellar digs into Finger’s oddities with verve, and Johnson is delightful as a naive but genuine producer who regularly bungles the English language.

The stream begins with a shot of a curtain descending on an empty stage as a gentle piano version of Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” plays, but the music soon swells with a full orchestra as the title and author name in ornate lettering take over the screen and the curtain rises, revealing the fab set while paying tribute to the beloved McNally (Master Class, Love! Valour! Compassion!), who died in March 2020 of Covid-19 at the age of eighty-one. “When I saw a marquee go dark tonight,” Austin later says, “I thought, ‘It’s important that those lights keep burning. New York without the theater is Newark.’” In this case, that’s an unfair knock against Newark, which is less than thirty miles from New Brunswick, where It’s Only a Play was filmed and George Street is based, but it does serve as a delicious amuse bouche as the lights return to Broadway this fall and we’ll once again be able to laugh with one another in person.