The American Plan and Leaves of Glass

The American Plan and Leaves of Glass
by Richard Seff

Lynne Meadow and her Manhattan Theatre Club have been extremely loyal to playwright Richard Greenberg, mounting play after play of his, regardless of their merit. No question, Greenberg is a fine writer, as witness his Take Me Out and his current adaptation of John O;Hara’s book to Pal Joey, but he’s delivered some clinkers too (The Violet Hour, The House in Town). His comedy A Naked Girl on the Appian Way served to offer roles that stretched Richard Thomas and Jill Clayburgh, but the play itself fell far short of its attempt to offer an incisive look into modern American family life, to promote the author’s theory that we must pursue and protect love wherever we may find it.

Now we are offered The American Plan, for the second time. It played off/off Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1990, and Mr. Greenberg attempted to sharpen it for this, its Broadway debut. But “the play resisted me” he said in a recent interview. The music under the opening was changed from Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” to “The Thrill on the Hill” of the same vintage. He couldn’t get the rights to the Darin song, and “Hill” reflected another aspect of his heroine’s personality so he went with that. But dialogue changes were minimal. Several times during its 2 hour performance I was tempted to ask: “What was the genesis of this play? What motivated Greenberg to write it? Is it based on characters and incidents in his own life, or did he simply decide to tell us a story?” I think this happened to me because from the get-go I felt distanced from it; it didn’t seem to come viscerally from its playwright. That was during the performance, but just by chance I happened to see a short interview with Greenberg on ‘On Stage’ on New York One on the tube. In it he mentioned that he’d never actually spent time in the Catskills, but that he knew two women like the mother and daughter in his play, and he knew two young men who resemble those in the play as well. It’s my theory he didn’t know them well enough, for he didn’t give them flesh, and he didn’t give them blood. The actors who played them did all they could to breathe life into them, but, except for Mercedes Ruehl as the mother, and to a lesser degree Kieran Campion and Austin Lypsy as two friends who drop in to figure heavily in the plot, they didn’t quite make it for me.

The opening scene, in which a girl is sitting reading a book on a lakeside raft in the Catskills, onto which an attractive young man pops up from a swim to interact with her, had me thinking “I don’t believe this.” That’s not good. For we are asked to believe that by the end of this, their first 10 minute encounter, they have fallen in love, or at least he has with her. Other questions arose. What was a good looking young WASP doing at a Jewish resort in the Catskills (opposite the private home which is this play’s setting) dating a Jewish Princess, one who is visiting the resort with her parents? The year is 1960 and that odd confluence all by itself might have led to a play. And we first meet this young man, fresh from his swim across the lake, forgetting his date across the pond and falling in love in minutes with the girl on the raft. I found that odd, because though the actress Lily Rabe is appealing, her character (Lili Adler) is unnerving and irritating. Later in the act we meet her mother, {Eva Adler) played with relish and inconsistent vaguely German accent by the always interesting Mercedes Ruehl. But again, the author is telling us things about Mom’s social behavior that did not ring true to me. I knew many a Jewish matron in the 1960s, and the one in this play may have been based on someone in life, but she seemed contrived to me. Her relationship with her black maid for instance, I wasn’t buying it – nothing odd about a wealthy woman treating a household employee with kindness and grace, but dining with her nightly just didn’t ring true – not in 1960 in New York in her swanky apartment and upper New York state in her lakeside mansion in the Borscht Belt.

Now let’s talk about Nick Lockridge, the lad who popped up out of the lake in bathing trunks. Charmingly played by Kieran Campion, he tells us lots about his background, but once Momma realizes he’s making a play for her precious daughter, she uses her prominent connections to “Google” him, as it were. She lets him know that everything he’s told daughter Lili was a lie, and so it’s “bye bye Mr. Lockridge.” But before Nick can pack his bags and leave town, another youth appears on Momma’s property, for no apparent reason. Again, in time we realize he’s got a bigtime secret to share with us, and that he (Gil Harbison) has been looking for Nick. When he connects with him in the following scene, we learn that Momma, “out for some air”, overheard everything and now it was time to protect daughter Lili from these two whom she does not find suitable company for her one and only. The final scene occurs ten years later, and the maid is still in residence, but now she’s working for Lili, as Momma has passed away, and Lili is slowly turning into her. Nick shows up just before the final curtain to let Lili (and us) know that he’s been living ‘east of Cincinnati’ for the past years, has ended his friendship with Gil, and now he’s a single man teaching math, living a lonely and somewhat barren life. Lili, of course, has turned into ‘The Heiress’ and it’s too late for her to get together with Nick. So we are left with two lonely people who might have made a go of it had they not let Momma ruin everything, for even a part of Nick would have kept Lili happy, or so she tells us.

If my tone seems mocking, I apologize, for clearly Richard Greenberg was trying to write a serious play about some complicated people, each bringing pain to their loved ones when they only meant to bring comfort and joy. But he was just beginning when he wrote this, and the 19 years between productions have not been kind to it. As I was on my own at the performance, I found myself involved in a discussion with two matronly women to my left, and I will say this for the playwright – they were arguing fiercely with each other as they left the theatre, and that’s one of theatre’s functions – to cause discussion. One of them found the play’s ending satisfactory. “She got what she deserved,” said she. The other lady had no truck with that conclusion. “No, Mary, you didn’t get it. What he was trying to tell us was that we should never walk away from love, even when it’s not perfect.” (See Some Like It Hot.) I guess if that’s true, it must be ever present in Mr. Greenberg’s mind, for that’s what he was trying to tell us in A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and as I recall, it had a lot to do with Take Me Out as well.

I don’t mean the production should be dismissed out of hand; it was well produced, but only Ms. Ruehl as Momma and Kieran Campion and Austin Lypsy as the WASP friends who drop in on the ladies in the Catskills seemed happy up there. Lily Rabe, a fine actress, was not helped much by her playwright for Lili in the writing seems at times autistic, temperamental, or afflicted with bipolar disorder. That’s not an easy task for an actress especially when she must also be charming, likable and a leading lady in a romantic comedy with a twist. Brenda Pressley, a lovely actress, is playing a black maid who has the kind of relationship with her white boss lady that can only be conceived in the mind of a writer. I won’t call is miscasting – I call it miswriting. Ms. Pressley was in another play, one in which her simple cardigan sweater and pearls would have been more appropriate.

One last thought : Mr. Greenberg’s take on the character Joey in Pal Joey is not unlike his take on Nick in this one. Both are flirts who tell lies a lot, both are found out, both are dumped by a wiser, older woman and both are sent off to live lives of solitude. With the great Rodgers and Hart score as background, with the highly original spirit and language of John O’Hara, he did a far better job re-inventing Joey for the new century than he did re-inventing Nick for this one. I still recommend you come on up to see Pal Joey at Studio 54 in its Roundabout production, where it is continuing an extended run. But I’m wishing Ms. Ruehl, Ms. Rabe and the other fine actors in The American Plan better luck next time.

The American Plan plays through March 8th at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W 47th St, NYC.

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A visit to the Peter Jay Sharp Theater way out west on 42^nd Street proved rewarding. A play-in-progress, fully staged but placed on a minimally designed set, and the sort of work that should be a step in the process for developing material for the main stages of the nation. Leaves of Glass by Philip Ridley had been staged in London in 2007 but was brought here by Ludovica Villar-Hauser’s Theatre Development Fund in association with the Stiff Upper Lip Theatre Company and the Origin Theatre Company.

Clearly it takes a town to get even a 4-character play on these days. But we must be grateful to all of the above, for this play has much to offer. It’s oddly shaped, and that’s one of its problems. It’s in one act, and it runs slightly over two hours. What it needs is shaping, pruning, organizing. For though Mr. Ridley writes eloquently, subtly, dramatically, he’s short on craft and structure. He’s written some dozen or more scenes, and when he runs out of steam in one, he simply ends it. Fade to black, on to the next. This robs the play of momentum, build, climax. On the other hand, each scene is revealing, and little by little he unpeels his characters so that we can see them in the full light of their complexity.

Steven is the older of two brothers; Barry, the younger. He would seem to be the one in control, the nurturer to his far more erratic brother, the seeming glue that keeps this family with secrets afloat. There is Debbie, Steven’s wife, and Liz, mother to the two men. Each is barely able to cope, and in time we will come to know why. Mr. Ridley uses monologues to bridge his many scenes, and they are filled with imagery and insight. As beautifully played by his talented cast, they are all helpful and vivid.

It is my suggestion that he find a suitable break to divide the play into two acts (two hours plus is just too long to ask anyone to sit without interruption) and that he consider paring the monologues just a bit so that they avoid rambling. Some of their revelations are simply unnecessary and cause us to drift.

The central act that drives this play is the long ago death of the family’s patriarch. The play serves to show us how memories of specific traumatic incidents vary and the little lies that become life lies can ultimately wound, maim, even kill. With actors like Victor Villar-Hauser and Euan Morton playing Victor and Barry with such variety and vigor and imagination, the play continues to grip us right up to its tragic ending. I’d admired Euan Morton ever since seeing his marvelous take on Boy George in Taboo on Broadway, but I was stunned by Mr. Villar-Hauser’s take on Victor in this play. I’d not known his work and this extremely good looking actor should be seen in this play by all the casting directors and producers who really care about discovering important new talent. At the moment, he is the best kept secret in town. For his Victor is a characterization of fascinating twists and turns and his descent from the heights of high to the depths of despair are a revelation. Some of the credit must go to his sister Ludovica, who directed the play, for she’s kept all four actors away from any cheap melodrama, and sustained a mood via lighting, music and staging that serves the play well. Xanthe Elbrick, as Victor’s wife Debbie, adds to the excitement onstage. But it is the two actors at center, as the brothers who love/hate each other, who keep us interested and engaged, even when their author wanders about now and then.

I do hope Ridley has not abandoned the play, for it needs finishing, polishing, pruning. But it’s worth sticking with, for there is much gold here that is worth further mining.

Leaves of Glass is due to close Feb 8th at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 W 42nd St, NYC.

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Note if you will that so many of our current plays reflect families in disarray. A sign of the times, I suppose. I am hopeful, as I suspect you are, that in the seasons immediately ahead, we’ll be hearing from writers whose hearts are more full of hope, who write truthfully but who see the empty half of the glass as fillable. I certainly hope that applies to musicals as well as plays. The darkness of Caroline, or Change, Cabaret, Chicago, Pal Joey, Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Company, even the spectacles Les Miz, Miss Saigon, The Color Purple, and Taboo all reflect the cynicism and nihilism so prevalent as the 20^th Century hit the skids. Even though many of these were originally written in earlier decades, they found more audience acceptance in revival than they did when first presented, because audiences were in tune with their times, and times were hard.

The jollity of How to Succeed, the sweetness of The Music Man, the lush romance of The Most Happy Fella, the melody of Dolly and Mame and La Cage, the nuttiness of 42^nd Street, all smashes in the earlier times, were less so in revival. I would welcome a new Annie and Oliver! and their kin, orchestrated for young ears, but created to unburden and entertain us, to lighten our hearts. Nothing wrong with that, is there? The “light” shows of recent seasons have been pretty crummy, so you won’t be seeing revivals of The Wedding Singer, Legally Blonde, Footloose or Cry-Baby in 2025. Even the best of that lot, shows like In the Heights and The Drowsy Chaperone are not exactly classics. They entertain, as once did light but minor shows like Take Me Along, Redhead and Plain and Fancy. They will do nicely for now, they deserved to be popular, but surely we can do better, don’t you think?

Next time out, I’ll have a couple of shows in the middle of long runs for you – Billy Elliot, which I saw in London last April, but this will be my take on the New York production. As material, it is a fine sample of what I hope we have more of. Then August: Osage County, which I’ve also seen. But the formidable Estelle Parsons now heads a partially new cast and as the play itself is a brilliant example of the quintessential dysfunctional family comedy drama, I’ll get to know it better via another visit, and I’ll give you a full report. Who knows what else?

It will be interesting to see if the pendulum continues to swing. Pendulums usually do, so as Fraü Schneider said to Herr Schultz in Cabaret when he proposed marriage: “You have reason to hope.” Let it be.

Richard Seff is author of Supporting Player: My Life Upon the Wicked Stage , celebrating his lifetime on stage and behind the scenes, available through online booksellers, including Amazon.com.