Tag Archives: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

CHOIR BOY

Pharus Jonathan Young (Jeremy Pope) pursues his singing dreams in Choir Boy (photo © Matthew Murphy, 2018)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 24, $79-$169
choirboybroadway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Oscar-winning screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Broadway debut, Choir Boy, offers a new twist on a classic dramatic trope: life at an all-male boarding school. But Charles R. Drew Prep School is not quite like the schools depicted in such well-regarded films as Rushmore, Dead Poets Society, Tom Brown’s School Days, Heaven Help Us, or If… The students and the teachers at Drew are all men of color. “My daddy say they used to let you get away with a lil bit because they know how hard it is to be a black man out there,” student Bobby Marrow (J. Quinton Johnson) tells fellow student David Heard (Caleb Eberhardt). “Now, everything got to be watched, gotta be careful, gotta be cordial. Don’t say nothing, don’t say that word, don’t look like that, this shit Pandemic.” Bobby, whose uncle is Headmaster Marrow (Chuck Cooper), is one of several young men in the school’s prestigious choir, along with Pharus Jonathan Young (Jeremy Pope), Junior Davis (Nicholas L. Ashe), Anthony Justin “AJ” James (John Clay III), and David. The show opens with Pharus singing the school song, a much-coveted opportunity, but he takes an unfortunate pause when he is secretly harassed by Bobby, who questions Pharus’s sexual orientation. Afterward, in explaining why he stopped but without snitching on Bobby, Pharus asks the headmaster, “Would you rather be feared or respected?” which becomes an underlying theme of the play as the boys deal with issues of race, gender, homophobia, family, class, and education.

Bobby Marrow (J. Quinton Johnson) and Pharus Jonathan Young (Jeremy Pope) are at odds in boarding-school drama (photo © Matthew Murphy, 2018)

The play suffers dramatically upon the arrival of Mr. Pendleton, a former teacher at the school who has been brought back by the headmaster for inexplicable reasons, unless it is merely to force racial conflict, as Pendleton is white and, oddly, played by the ubiquitous Austin Pendleton, blurring the line between theater and real life in an obtrusive way. The scenes with Mr. Pendleton, who uses racist cracks to supposedly educate the kids, bring the show to a screeching halt and are best forgotten as the story proceeds. Fortunately, there is much to enjoy in the rest of the Manhattan Theater Club production, which has been extended at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through February 24.

Pope (Ain’t Too Proud, Invisible Thread) makes a dazzling Broadway debut as Pharus, a proud, flawed, young gay man who refuses to muzzle himself while often disregarding the feelings of others; it’s an electrifying performance of a role given complex subtleties by McCraney, who cowrote the Oscar-winning Moonlight with Barry Jenkins. The supporting cast portraying the other teens are terrific as well, including Clay III (Encores’ Grand Hotel) as AJ, Pharus’s roommate, who is sensitive to his friend’s situation; Johnson (Hamilton) as the troubled Bobby, who is dealing with his mother’s death; Eberhardt (Is God Is) as David, who is hiding his own secrets; and Ashe (Kill Floor) as Junior, a follower who makes questionable decisions. They might have their share of disagreements, but when they sing such spirituals as “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” and “Rockin in Jerusalem” they show just what they can accomplish together. (Alas, “There’s a Rainbow ’round My Shoulder” feels a bit too obvious and heavy-handed.) Tony winner Cooper (The Life) is splendidly august as the headmaster, who only gets involved when truly necessary, understanding that the students grow when they figure things out for themselves, even if that’s sometimes painful. Thoughtfully directed by Trip Cullman (Lobby Hero, Six Degrees of Separation), Choir Boy is ultimately about tolerance, about the basic human dignity everyone deserves, while for the most part steering clear of grand statements and politically correct sentimentality.

THE NAP

Dylan Spokes (Ben Schnetzer) is none too happy with what his mother (Johanna Day) has gotten him into in The Nap (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 11, $79-$199
thenapbroadway.com

You don’t have to know the slightest bit about snooker to have a jolly good time at The Nap, the rousing London transfer making its American premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through November 11. Written by Olivier Award nominee Richard Bean, who wrote the uproarious hit One Man, Two Guvnors, which exploded the career of a young James Corden, The Nap is a tense and very funny crime thriller built around the highly contested world of snooker, the nineteenth-century cue sport similar to pocket billiards and pool. Twenty-three-year-old Dylan Spokes (Ben Schnetzer) is on the rise, preparing for a big-time match. He’s practicing in the British Legion basement in Sheffield with his grumpy, not-too-bright father, the numbers-challenged and ersatz snooker historian Bobby (John Ellison Conlee). Dylan is an easygoing fellow who believes in self-actualization. “It’s the highest possible state of human happiness, when your mind and body come together in, like, a beautiful symphony,” he tells his father, a former amateur snooker player who doesn’t get it at all, responding, “Do you want an orange? Got a bag full.” They are unexpectedly visited by Mohammad Butt (Bhavesh Patel), who identifies himself as an integrity officer for the International Centre for Sport Security, and Eleanor Lavery (Heather Lind), of the National Crime Agency.

Dylan Spokes (Ben Schnetzer) gets a little too cozy with crime investigator Eleanor Lavery (Heather Lind) in Richard Bean’s The Nap (photo by Joan Marcus)

They claim that Dylan is involved in match fixing and global illegal betting, a charge he adamantly denies. “I am not vulnerable. I honour my game,” he declares. “Snooker is the result of a century of human negotiation. A celebration of cooperation and civilisation. It doesn’t exist other than in the hearts of players and fans.” After Mo and Eleanor leave, Dylan and Bobby are first joined by Dylan’s oh-so-stylish, fast-talking manager, Tony DanLino (Max Gordon Moore), then by Dylan’s wacky mother, Stella (Johanna Day), and her new boyfriend, Danny Killeen (Thomas Jay Ryan), a boring driving instructor. It turns out that Stella, Bobby’s ex, needs money, and she wants Dylan to get it for her — by going against his principles and throwing a frame. It turns out that Dylan has financial issues he wasn’t aware of; he’s in deeper than he ever realized, and the only way out is to listen to transgender gangster Waxy Bush (Alexandra Billings), who has a way with words. “Dylan, let me give you some advice,” she says. “Life, for us vertebrates, is a series of disappointments and appointments. The key to happiness is to forget your disappointments and remember your appointments; in fact, write them down, preferably in a dairy.” As Dylan’s matches with Abdul Fattah and Baghawi Quereshi (both played by former snooker champion Ahmed Aly Elsayed) approach, he has to decide where his loyalties lie and what he is willing to risk, and for whom.

The Nap features a pair of very tense, live snooker matches with champion Ahmed Aly Elsayed (photo by Joan Marcus)

The title of the show is a snooker term referring to the smoothness of the table, which Dylan explains to Eleanor early on. “Playing with the nap, the ball will run straight with the natural line,” he says. “Playing against the nap, the ball can deviate and drift off line. I play straight. I honour the god of snooker, and he, or let’s be fair, she, looks after me.” Bean (The Heretic, Harvest) and Tony-winning director Daniel Sullivan (The Little Foxes, Proof) honour the god of the stage in this triumphant comedy while not being afraid to deviate and drift off line. Snooker might be an individual sport, but theater requires significant collaboration, and The Nap demonstrates that in all facets. The ensemble, which also includes Ethan Hova as Seth and a snooker referee, is terrific, with a particular shout-out to American actor Ryan (Dance Nation, The Amateurs), one of the city’s most underrated and understated treasures. David Rockwell’s sets rotate from the dank legion basement to a historic hotel room, from a country hideout to a championship snooker match, complete with riotously funny voice-over commentary that is partially improvised. The snooker matches themselves are tense and exciting, occurring live onstage. But once again, it doesn’t matter what you think about sports and gambling, as Bean has plenty to say about dysfunctional families, straight and LGBTQ romance, the criminal element, and vegetarianism. The Nap is a champion on all counts, clearing the table, knocking every ball into the right pocket.

SAINT JOAN

A teenage farm girl (Condola Rashad) is on a mission from God in Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 10, $65-$159
saintjoanbroadway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

“There is something about her,” men say of Saint Joan, the title character in Bernard Shaw’s 1923 play. There is also something about Condola Rashad, who portrays Joan in the current Manhattan Theatre Club revival at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Rashad has now appeared in five Broadway shows, earning four Tony nominations, for Stick Fly, The Trip to Bountiful, A Doll’s House, Part 2, and Saint Joan. (She was also nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her 2009 off-Broadway debut, Ruined, but got shut out as Juliet in a misbegotten Broadway revival of Romeo and Juliet in 2013.) The thirty-one-year-old Rashad is charming as Joan, a teenage farm girl in 1429 who claims that Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine speak to her and that God has commanded her to lead the French to victory in Orleans against the occupying English so the hapless Dauphin (Adam Chanler-Berat) can claim the throne as King Charles VII. She joins a luminous roster of actresses who have played Saint Joan, including Wendy Hiller, Uta Hagen, Joan Plowright, Jean Seberg, Imelda Staunton, Imogen Stubbs, Amy Irving, and Diana Sands, the only other black woman to portray Joan in a major production, at Lincoln Center in 1968. Rashad’s Joan is sweet-natured but determined, gentle yet forceful, a kind of hero just right for the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter generation. Joan goes about the world of men — Rashad is the only woman in the cast, among twelve actors, save for a brief appearance by Mandi Masden as the Duchess de la Trémouille — with an ease that emanates from her faith.

Military squires, royals, and religious leaders disparage Joan until they meet her, slowly falling under her captivating spell. Robert de Baudricourt (Patrick Page) brags about how he “burns witches and hangs thieves,” but Joan tells him, “They all say I am mad until I talk to them, squire. But you see that it is the will of God that you are to do what He has put into my mind,” and he does. Captain La Hire (Lou Sumrall) calls her “an angel dressed as a soldier.” Charles might not want to be king, but Joan is on a holy mission to see that he is crowned at Rheims Cathedral. “If the English win, it is they that will make the treaty: and then God help poor France!” she tells Charles. “You must fight, Charlie, whether you will or no. I will go first to hearten thee. We must take our courage in both hands: aye, and pray for it with both hands too.” But after she impossibly takes Orleans despite being massively outnumbered and then urges the campaign continue on to recapture Paris, the military, the church, and the monarchy realize her power and turn on her, trying her for sins that could get her burned at the stake.

The Dauphin (Adam Chanler-Berat) finds a savior in Joan (Condola Rashad) in Manhattan Theatre Club Broadway revival (photo by Joan Marcus)

Scott Pask’s set is dominated by large gold pipes hanging from above, as if the entire play takes place inside a giant church organ, spreading Joan’s religious message. “It is in the bells I hear my voices,” Joan tells Jack Dunois (Daniel Sunjata), who ably fights by her side. “Not today, when they all rang: that was nothing but jangling. But here in this corner, where the bells come down from heaven, and the echoes linger, or in the fields, where they come from a distance through the quiet of the countryside, my voices are in them.” Shaw (who preferred not to use the first name George) famously said, “I’m an atheist and I thank God for it”; in writing the play, he was trying to neither convert anyone nor convince them to leave the fold, nor was he creating a biblical-style story of good versus evil. In a preface to the published edition, Shaw wrote, “There are no villains in the piece. . . . It is what men do at their best, with good intentions, and what normal men and women find that they must and will do in spite of their intentions, that really concern us.” Shaw, who also wrote such works as Pygmalion, Major Barbara and Man and Superman and won the Nobel Prize shortly after Saint Joan, does not include any superheroes either. “I am not a daredevil: I am a servant of God,” Joan says to Dunois. “My heart is full of courage, not of anger. I will lead; and your men will follow: that is all I can do. But I must do it: you shall not stop me.”

The exemplary cast also features Max Gordon Moore as Bluebeard, Walter Bobbie as the Bishop of Beauvais, John Glover as the Archbishop of Rheims, Matthew Saldivar as Bertrand de Poulengey, Robert Stanton as Baudricourt’s steward, Russell G. Jones as Monseigneur de la Trémouille, and Jack Davenport as the Earl of Warwick. Most of the actors play more than one role; Page is particularly impressive as Baudricourt and the Inquisitor. Daniel Sullivan’s (The Little Foxes, Proof) direction can get a little bumpy though there are several deft touches, and at nearly three hours, the show can be a little trying. Which brings us to the rather campy epilogue. Shaw wrote Saint Joan in 1923, three years after her canonization, something he deals with in the somewhat surreal, comic, and arguably out-of-place conclusion. “As to the epilogue, I could hardly be expected to stultify myself by implying that Joan’s history in the world ended unhappily with her execution, instead of beginning there,” Shaw wrote. “It was necessary by hook or crook to shew the canonized Joan as well as the incinerated one; for many a woman has got herself burnt by carelessly whisking a muslin skirt into the drawing-room fireplace, but getting canonized is a different matter, and a more important one. So I am afraid the epilogue must stand.” And so it does, for better or worse.

THE CHILDREN

Old friends Rose (Francesca Annis) and Hazel (Deborah Findlay) reunite in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children (photo © Joan Marcus 2017)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 4, $60-$149
www.manhattantheatreclub.com
thechildrenbroadway.com

Amid all the splashy musicals, wacky comedies, and star-driven vehicles currently on Broadway, the British import The Children stands apart, a breath of fresh air in this winter season. Well, maybe that’s not the best way to classify this fiercely taut drama, which takes place shortly after a devastating nuclear accident on the East Coast of Britain. The fictional event appears to have even rattled the stage at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, which is severely tilted, creating a bit of an uphill or downhill climb when the characters move to the right or left. The play opens as Rose (Francesca Annis) pays a surprise afternoon visit to her old friend and colleague, Hazel (Deborah Findlay), who is living with her husband, Robin (Ron Cook), in a small cottage just outside the contaminated exclusion zone. “We heard you’d died!” Hazel announces; it’s been thirty-eight years since the two women, both nuclear engineers, last saw each other. While Hazel has settled into the domestic life of a retiree, with four children and four grandchildren, Rose has been gallivanting around the world, never settling down or getting married. When Rose asks Hazel why they haven’t moved farther away from the radiation, Hazel responds, “It’s just that little bit extra but it makes a world of difference to our peace of mind. . . . I would’ve felt like a traitor. Besides, retired people are like nuclear power stations. We like to live by the sea.” They are soon joined by Robin, who goes to their old farm every day, tending to the cows, even though it’s in the exclusion area. Where Hazel is very direct and to the point, Robin is more rambunctious and freewheeling, cracking jokes, asking Rose for a squeeze, and offering her some of his homemade wine. But when Rose reveals the reason she has returned — and secrets emerge — the trio has to reexamine their purpose in life and their future.

Robin (Ron Cook), Hazel (Deborah Findlay), and Rose (Francesca Annis) remember the good old days in U.S. premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway house (photo © Joan Marcus 2017)

Originally produced at the Royal Court Theatre, The Children is brilliantly written by Olivier Award winner Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica, Mosquitoes), who has created three complex characters who are genuine and unpredictable. The play takes a hard look at ageing and death, examining the responsibility the old have to the young. “How can anybody consciously moving towards death, I mean by their own design, possibly be happy? People of our age have to resist — you have to resist, Rose,” Hazel says. “If you’re not going to grow: don’t live.” It is also about blood, both literally and figuratively. When Rose first enters the house, a shocked Hazel turns defensively and hits Rose, giving her a bloody nose. One of Hazel and Robin’s children suffers from mental illness, thinking she is a bloodsucking vampire. And, of course, radiation poisons the blood. James Macdonald, who has directed numerous works by Caryl Churchill (Escaped Alone, Top Girls) and Sarah Kane (4.48 Psychosis, Blasted), among others, keeps things balanced even as the actors have to deal with Miriam Buether’s angled set, which is framed as if a tilted picture on a wall come to life. Olivier nominee Annis (Cranford, Troilus and Cressida), Olivier winner Findlay (Stanley, Coriolanus), and Olivier nominee Cook (Juno and the Paycock, Faith Healer) reprise their roles from the London production, all three delivering warm, heartfelt performances, with a special nod to Cook for having to ride a tricycle uphill despite a bad back. And Max Pappenheim’s sound design stands out as well, from a Geiger counter to church bells. Despite its title, The Children is the most adult show in New York City right now, a marvelously resonant, intelligent, and engaging play that continually defies expectations as the plot twists and turns while something threatening hangs just past the horizon.

PRINCE OF BROADWAY

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 22, $89-$165
princeofbway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Less is certainly not more in Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of the surprisingly slight Prince of Broadway. Continuing at the Samuel J. Friedman through October 22, the show is a tribute to legendary icon Hal Prince, who has won twenty-one Tony Awards during a grand career going back to his days as an assistant stage manager in 1950 through directing and/or producing many of the greatest musicals in Broadway history. Prince himself directs the talented cast of nine — Chuck Cooper, Janet Dacal, Bryonha Marie Parham, Emily Skinner, Brandon Uranowitz, Kaley Ann Voorhees, Michael Xavier, Tony Yazbeck, and Karen Ziemba — who all portray him, glasses on top of their heads, as he discusses brief, mostly unilluminating snippets from his history, many of them self-aggrandizing platitudes that serve as introductions to some of the numbers, although there are a few choice tidbits, including his meeting Stephen Sondheim. The crew is just about as good as it gets, with a book by two-time Tony nominee David Thompson, arrangements and orchestrations by two-time Tony winner Jason Robert Brown, sets and projections by Tony winner Beowulf Boritt, costumes by six-time Tony winner William Ivey Long, lighting by two-time Tony winner Howell Binkley, and codirection and choreography by five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman. And the show has several memorable moments, including Cooper bringing the house down with “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof, Parham belting out the theme song from Cabaret, Xavier and Dacal camping it up on “You’ve Got Possibilities” from It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman, and Skinner delivering a moving “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music. But as Ziemba sings as Fräulein Schneider from Cabaret, “So what?”

Too many of the production numbers are not introduced by name; how many people are likely to know that “This Is Not Over Yet” is from Parade? Prince’s specific contributions, whether director or producer, are not indicated onstage (only in the program), so it is often difficult to grasp how much we’re seeing is from the man himself. With limited or no background information, most of the songs exist in a kind of vacuum, where the audience doesn’t know enough about the characters to get involved in their tales, except for the numbers that have more exposition in them. Even such beloved songs as “Something’s Coming” and “Tonight” from West Side Story feel lost amid the other hits and non-hits; it’s not fair for Stroman and Prince to assume the crowd is already familiar with the songs, a disservice particularly to younger generations or newcomers of any age to musical theater. And although Prince worked on nearly sixty shows, a mere sixteen are represented here, with three or four songs from certain musicals; it would have been fascinating to see tunes from such less-well-known works as Zorba, A Family Affair, Flora, the Red Menace, or even A Doll’s Life, which closed after five performances, instead of multiple numbers from Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. An earlier version did have other songs, including “All I Need Is One Good Break” from Flora, but numerous delays and financial issues led to many changes. (For example, in March 2012 it was announced that the Broadway production would open that November with Sebastian Arcelus, Linda Lavin, Richard Kind, LaChanze, Shuler Hensley, Sierra Boggess, Josh Grisetti, Amanda Kloots-Larsen, Daniel Breaker, Caroline O’Connor, David Pittu, and Skinner.) In a program note, Prince writes, “I doubt if anyone today can duplicate the life I’ve been lucky enough to live.” That’s very likely true, but the eighty-nine-year-old master deserves better than Prince of Broadway.

THE LITTLE FOXES

Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternate roles as Regina and Birdie in MTC Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 2, $89-$179
littlefoxesbroadway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Daniel Sullivan’s Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman’s 1939 drawing-room classic, The Little Foxes, is exquisitely rendered in every detail in this gorgeous Manhattan Theatre Club production, continuing through July 2 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. It’s an intricate tale of the business of family, and the family business, in the South in the spring of 1900, but it never feels old-fashioned or dated; instead it highlights the play’s freshness and relevance to today’s world. The conniving Hubbard clan — older brother Ben (Michael McKean), younger brother Oscar (Darren Goldstein), and sister Regina (portrayed alternately by Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon) — are wining and dining Mr. Marshall (David Alford), a wealthy Chicago industrialist about to partner with Hubbard Sons in a cotton mill deal. “It’s very remarkable how you Southern aristocrats have kept together. Kept together and kept what belonged to you,” Mr. Marshall says. “You misunderstand, sir. Southern aristocrats have not kept together and have not kept what belonged to them,” Ben points out. “You don’t call this keeping what belongs to you?” Mr. Marshall asks, looking around the impressive room. “But we are not aristocrats. Our brother’s wife is the only one of us who belongs to the Southern aristocracy,” Ben explains, referring to Oscar’s wife, Birdie (alternately Nixon or Linney). In a classic new money/old money transaction, Oscar married the soft-spoken, timid Birdie for her bloodline and the family plantation, her beloved Lionnet. Once Lionnet and Birdie were both Hubbard property, he began beating and mistreating her, leading her to retreat into a haze of alcohol. Meanwhile, Oscar is grooming their bumbling, would-be-playboy son, Leo (Michael Benz), to join Hubbard Sons and to marry his first cousin, Alexandra (Francesca Carpanini), the teenage daughter of Regina and Horace (Richard Thomas). But to secure the deal with Mr. Marshall, Ben and Oscar need Horace, a seriously ill banker who has spent the past five months at Johns Hopkins, to contribute his share in the partnership; otherwise, they will have to bring in a stranger, something they are loathe to do. But Regina proves herself to be another shrewd Hubbard when she starts negotiating for her absent husband. Unable to execute the necessary partnership investment herself, Regina sends Alexandra to Maryland to bring back Horace, setting up an intense battle of wills over Union Pacific bonds owned by Horace, who just happens to be Leo’s boss at the bank. Watching everything unfold are the Hubbards’ servants, Addie (Caroline Stefanie Clay) and Cal (Charles Turner), who understand exactly what is going on as the post-Reconstruction South moves from its plantation slave agriculture economy to a mill-based industrial one — all the while keeping up its brutal foundation of labor exploitation. It all culminates in a spectacularly grand finale that is as wickedly funny as it is unpredictable.

talk family and business in The Little Foxes (photo by Joan Marcus)

Richard Thomas, Michael McKean, Darren Goldstein, and Michael Benz discuss family business in Daniel Sullivan’s Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman classic (photo by Joan Marcus)

A magnet for big stars, The Little Foxes was first presented on Broadway in 1939, with Tallulah Bankhead as Regina and Frank Conroy as Horace. William Wyler’s Oscar-nominated 1941 film starred Bette Davis as Regina, Herbert Marshall as Horace, and Teresa Wright as Alexandra. It was previously revived on Broadway in 1967 by Mike Nichols (with Anne Bancroft, Richard A. Dysart, E. G. Marshall, and George C. Scott), in 1981 by Austin Pendleton (with Elizabeth Taylor, Maureen Stapleton, and Anthony Zerbe), and in 1997 by Jack O’Brien (with Stockard Channing, Frances Conroy, and Brian Murray). The cast for the 2017 revival is simply brilliant: McKean (All the Way, Superior Donuts) is devilishly regal as the cigar-smoking, full-bearded Ben; Goldstein (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Abigail’s Party) is deliciously devious as Oscar, the least well mannered of the siblings; and Thomas (Incident at Vichy, You Can’t Take It with You) is explosive as Regina’s ailing, henpecked husband who has some tricks up his sleeve. But the play’s real power lays in the roles of Regina and Birdie, two very different women, each with their own strengths and flaws, representative of both the past and the future of their gender. At Linney’s suggestion, she and Nixon alternate playing Regina and Birdie; I saw it with four-time Emmy winner, three-time Oscar nominee, and four-time Tony nominee Linney (Time Stands Still, Sight Unseen) as Regina and Tony, Grammy, and Emmy winner Nixon (Rabbit Hole, Wit) as Birdie. The two women are magical together, Linney strong and determined as the duplicitous, calculating Regina, who wants a better life for herself no matter how it impacts the others, while Nixon is delightful as the unassuming, fragile, abused Birdie, who knows more than she is letting on. Scott Pask’s set is divine, with lovely period furniture, a Hazelton Brothers piano, lush drapery, and a shadowy, ominous staircase in the back, while Jane Greenwood’s costumes are utterly transcendent, the men’s tuxes bold and impressive, the women’s dresses luxuriously elegant and revealing of their inner being. Tony winner Sullivan (Rabbit Hole, Proof) directs with impeccable attention to detail; nary the smallest matter is overlooked, and the pacing is wonderful, with two well-timed intermissions over two and a half hours. “I could wait until next week. But I can’t wait until next week,” Ben says at one point, referring to Horace’s delay in contributing his share of the investment, but he just as well could be talking to those who are still contemplating whether to see the show. “I could but I can’t. Could and can’t. Well, I must go now,” he concludes. The Little Foxes must go on July 2; don’t miss it.

AUGUST WILSON’S JITNEY

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 12, $79-$169
jitneybroadway.com
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August Wilson’s Jitney, the first play he wrote in the American Century Cycle, also known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, is the last of the ten plays to reach Broadway, and all one can ask is, What took so long? Jitney is another masterpiece from the Pittsburgh-born playwright, whose cycle comprises ten plays, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century, capturing the black experience in America over one hundred years with grace, honesty, dignity, humor, and a soul-searching reality. Coincidentally, the film version of Wilson’s second play to hit Broadway, the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences, was released in December; the first movie based on a Wilson play, Fences garnered Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (director Denzel Washington), Best Supporting Actress (Viola Davis), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Wilson). A Manhattan Theatre Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Jitney takes place in a ramshackle car service office in 1977 in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where taxis won’t go. The gypsy cab company is run by the soft-spoken, straightforward Becker (John Douglas Thompson). His motley group of drivers consists of Turnbo (Michael Potts), a confrontational gossip who can’t stay out of other people’s business; YoungBlood (André Holland), an angry Vietnam vet trying to provide for his wife, Rena (Carra Patterson), and baby; Fielding (Anthony Chisholm), an aging, stumbling alcoholic who’s been separated from his wife for twenty-two years; and the practical, sensible Doub (Keith Randolph Smith), who is a kind of den father, keeping the peace while spouting such sage phrases as “Time go along and it come around.” Stopping by often is the sharply attired Shealy (Harvy Blanks), who takes phone calls at the station for his numbers racket, and Philmore (Ray Anthony Thomas), a regular customer who drinks himself into oblivion and then needs a ride home. Tensions rise when Becker eventually lets everyone know that the city will be tearing down the building soon, leaving them all jobless, and Becker’s son, Booster (Brandon J. Dirden), arrives after spending twenty years in prison, desperate to reestablish a relationship with his estranged father.

The Olivier Award-winning Jitney is a glorious play, a spectacular blending of poetic, incisive dialogue, powerful, soaring performances, and intimate, seamless staging by director Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who won a Tony for his role in Wilson’s Seven Guitars, later directed that work as well as the recent Signature revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson (starring Dirden), and was Wilson’s personal choice to portray him in the playwright’s autobiographical one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned. As with virtually every Wilson play, the cast is exceptional, bringing the beautifully developed characters to life in ways that make them feel like they’re your friends or acquaintances. Most of the actors have appeared in previous Wilson shows, including Thomas, who played Becker in Jitney at the Cincinnati Playhouse, and Chisholm, who has been playing Fielding since 1996 and once toured the Hill District with Wilson, who died in 2005 at the age of sixty. So every Wilson show has a welcoming family aspect surrounding it, and Jitney is no exception. When the play ended, I felt a tinge of sadness, wanting to spend more time with every one of these characters. The appropriately musty, messy set, by Tony-winning designer David Gallo (Wilson’s King Headley III, Gem of the Ocean, Radio Golf, 2000 production of Jitney at Second Stage), features ratty chairs and couches, newspaper clippings of Pittsburgh sports teams, an old pot-bellied stove, and large windows across the back of the stage that tantalizingly reveal who’s coming into the station next. Originally written in 1979 and rewritten in 1996, Jitney is very much about taking control of one’s life and being part of something bigger, regardless of the odds. At one point, Doub questions why Becker took so long to tell him about the station being torn down. “That ain’t what I mean, Becker,” Doub says. “It’s like you just a shadow of yourself. The station done gone downhill. Some people overcharge. Some people don’t haul. Fielding stay drunk. I just watch you and you don’t do nothing.” “What’s to be done?” Becker responds, adding “I just do the best I can do,” to which Doub boldly replies, “Sometime your best ain’t enough.” Like the rest of the dialogue, those words hit hard, resonating loud and clear in this stunning triumph.