SUMMER 1976, written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, David Auburn and directed by Daniel Sullivan, is the new play that just opened last night at the Manhattan Theater Club's Friedman Theater, featuring 5x Tony Award nominee and 4x Emmy Award winner, Laura Linney, and Tony and Emmy Award nominee, Jessica Hecht. Now not to be shady, but the play is basically a couple of white chicks, sitting around talking. It is a pleasant experience like listening to the kinda cool aunts tell their sides of the same story, preferably with some Chardonnay.
It is the story of two women recanting moments in their journey as friends from that fateful day that they met in the Summer of 1976 to some time in the 90's. Honestly as an out, African-American, man, this show is really not meant for me. However, that dang Laura Linney is the quintessential white woman that I cannot resist. She gets me every time. When Ms. Linney utters her first syllables of dialogue, I lock into her every tonal inflection that can throw the most sarcastic shade with such ease while being so soothing, simultaneously.
Ms. Hecht matches Linney's sardonic moments with equally fierce retorts and a little hippie flair. The banter between the women at times becomes slightly banal as you would expect that (and I say this with utmost love) 2 privileged white women can muster up while spending most of the time sitting down, facing the audience, telling their stories for 90 minutes.
It is a quaint, semi-polite, sometimes cheeky, and lovely evening of theater with no super deep storytelling devices or agendas, except for the ups and downs of the "friendship" between these women in that slightly intense period of time, especially while they are furniture shopping or running into each other at a museum. It is hard to measure this piece against some of the current projects on Broadway so intense thematically like, LEOPOLDTSTAT or PRIMA FACIA, or the magic of puppetry in storytelling, like in LIFE OF PI, or just the absence of caucasity, like in FAT HAM. That is what diversity in themes looks like to me on stage. If you are a Linney and/or Hecht fan, and I am, then this piece will scratch that itch of seeing them in a nice, safe show that will not challenge you too deeply. It's a safe 90 minute walk down memory lane with a few rocks in the path, and honestly, there is nothing wrong with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment