Theater Review: Thirty-Years Later, in a Bizarro Political Landscape, This “American Daughter” Revival Is Strangely Nostalgic; A Footballer Play Needs Less Banter and More “Pass”-ing; Cat Cohen’s “Broad Strokes” Has Funny Thoughts, As Almost-Death Becomes Her

An American Daughter (c) Joan Marcus

Theater: An American Daughter 
At The Pershing Square Signature Center 

The downside of having a QR Code instead of a Playbill is that essential information is now not readily accessible to theatergoers. For the first New York revival of Wendy Wasserstein’s An American Daughter, which premiered on Broadway in the 1997 with the great Kate Nelligan in the title role, I was wondering if director Sarna Lapine would update the play to modern day MAGA or keep it in the 90s where the biggest scandal was Nannygate, in which President Bill Clinton had to withdraw two female nominees for attorney general because one didn’t pay social security tax for her nanny and the other had hired an illegal alien for hers. Even though set designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’ upscale Georgetown living room is gorgeous, its timeless design doesn’t give us any clues. The first clue actually comes from the radio that’s playing Ringo Starr’s version of “You’re Sixteen,” a now looked down-upon song about a man professing his love for an underaged girl, with Lyssa Dent Hughes (Jean Lichty) unironically singing along. We are definitely in 1997. Lyssa is the current nominee for surgeon general, where she hopes to promote women-specific health care. The two solid rocks in her life are her shaggy dog of a husband Walter (Robert Sean Leonard) and her best friend Judith (Montego Glover), who is not only a doctor, but one of the few black Jew at her synagogue. Then there are the young whippersnappers (who today would be political vlogger influencers) with typical Wasserstein Charles Dickens-type names: Quincy Quince (Carmen Zilles), a feminist essayist with aspirations of grandeur, and Timber Tucker (Chris Ghaffari), a political reporter doing a piece on Lyssa. They all end up at a brunch where the most unbelievable character of a play, Walter’s friend named (sigh!) Morrow McCarthy (Ryan Spahn), a conservative, pro-life, gay newspaper columnist willingly and with seeming malice, accuses Lyssa that she, using her busy upper-class life as an alibi, willingly ignored a jury summons. And what was just a throwaway conversation bon mot becomes the current news cycle’s hot gotcha moment that threatens to derail her nomination. 

An American Daughter (c) Joan Marcus 

I saw the Broadway premiere in 1997, when Nannygate was already three-years-ago news but easily recognizable as the parallel story Wasserstein wanted to explore with Lyssa’s situation. However you slice it, jury duty is just not as salaciously privileged as nannies as we all get that summons, but not many of us have hired children help. As played by the great Kate Nelligan, the gravitas she gave Lyssa was profound enough to bring to life the tragedy that a minor blip in her past (was it a crime if her infraction wasn’t caught by the court system?) could be the thing to destroy her dream. Imagine if that kind of outrage could have stopped some of the confirmations of current farcical cabinet secretaries, some of whom are not nearly as qualified as Lyssa. Lichty, who is the executive director of La Femme Theatre Productions, the company presenting this handsome production, just doesn’t have the same weight as Nelligan (or Christine Lahti in the TV film) to ground the play. The actress does deliver some of Wasserstein’s more pointed gems with some bite, but it feels like she’s running more for PTA president than surgeon general. The rest of the play feels oddly listless for a comedy, like the moment Judith enters unexpectedly soaking wet—it should get a big laugh of shock from the audience, but Lapine directs it almost as if it was an everyday occurrence. Morrow should be so charmingly gay that his slip is a huge betrayal, but here he already has such a chip on his shoulder that it almost seems planned from the start. The only actors who seem to be on the same wavelength of the play’s intention are veteran actors Dakin Matthews as Lyssa’s senator father and Mary Beth Peil as his fourth wife, Chubby. They feel as constant as political stalwarts can be, who will always be a part of “civilized” Washington D.C. society. The current political climate, however, may not have been the right time to revive An American Daughter as all the play’s cutting observations pale in comparison to the willful disregard of competence on display today. 

The Pass (c) Andy Henderson

Theater: The Pass 
At La Mama ETC 

John Donnelly’s The Pass premiered in 2014 at London’s Royal Court Theatre, but it’s now mostly known for the film adaptation in 2016 with popular out actor Russell Tovey (Looking) reprising his stage role in tighty whities with his co-star Arinzé Kene. Now, over 10 years later, to capitalize on both World Cup fever and the popularity of Heated Rivalry, the play is making its New York debut. It starts in 2002 as the young, full of vim and vigor Jason (Matisse Ratron-Neal) and Ade (Terry Bell) are too excited to sleep in their hotel before a big championship match that will probably determine their future in British football. As they try to psych each other out with banter about other team mates to their upbringing (Ade is from a Nigerian family), their male bonding turns sexual as the titled pass is thrown by one and confusingly received by the other. The repercussions of that night hovers over the play as it jumps a few years in the future where one of the men is in another hotel room with a stripper (Ino Badanjak) that might be an invasion of the now famous footballer’s privacy. The last scene takes place a few years after that, in a third hotel room as both Jason and Ade have to confront how that first night changed their lives and affected where they are now. Director Max Hunter gives the play a good amount of tension between the men, but Donnelly’s dialogue seems to reference players and plays that most American audiences will be clueless about. It’s a bit of a disappointment that once the pass happens, it’s basically the end of that scene. The last scene lets both men relitigate their memory of that fateful night, and just when it gets interesting, they introduce a fourth character (played by Oliver Rowland-Jones) that feels superfluous and introduces a late theme of men, when left to their own devices, always defaults to behaving badly. The four actors are fine in their roles, and despite Ratron-Neal seemingly way too old to be playing a kid in his late teens, he makes Jason a tragic character without ever letting him drop his façade. The accents sound accurate but also a bit foreign, losing bits of dialogue. But those looking for the sexual awakening and romance of the soccer players the same way it played out for the hockey pros of Heated Rivalry will unfortunately be left wanting. 

Broad Stroke (c) Matthew Murphy

Theater: Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes 
At the Lucille Lortel Theatre 

About 10 minutes into Cat Cohen’s new show, Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes, as I laughed at her jokes and enjoyed her clever songs (written with David Dabbon), I realized I woefully miss one-person comedy cabaret, like the ones Sandra Bernhard and Justin Vivian Bond excel at. I was unfamiliar with Cohen’s brand of comedy, although anyone who has seen her show, The Twist...? She's Gorgeous (or the filmed version on Netflix), knows two things: she loves herself (and loves that you love her) and dresses with puffy shoulders. Both are on display in her first Off-Broadway show, with her self-deprecating jokes and dress like someone who just finished a performance of “Six” and couldn’t do a costume change (courtesy of Kelsey Randall). All this is just fun and games on a gothic set by Derek McLane until she drops a crazy bomb among all the jokes: At age 30, a couple of years ago, as Cohen was preparing for a European tour, she had a stroke. And while this is a serious plot twist, we do see that she’s in front of us, perfectly healthy, humorously telling us how after her arms went numb, she had to google “Hospital near me. Open now. 5 stars” before Ubering there. And that’s the tone of the show, a serious health condition used as a gateway for Cohen to explore mortality, if only for a little while, with humor and perspective for a comedian who wants to stretch herself into Mike Birbiglia and Julio Torres territory. And Cohen has just the right mix of cluelessness and awakening of morality that most 30-year-olds don’t have to face for a couple of decades. “So ahead of the curve,” she boasts. Director Alex Timbers (Just in Time, Here Lies Love) keeps things moving breezily and always on point. Peppered throughout are humorous songs like “Hypochondriac’s Anthem: If Nothing’s Wrong, Nothings Right” and “Live in Fear,” backed by a wonderful trio of musicians. Running just over an hour, it’s a perfect cap to dinner with friends or a stimulating start to a night before drinks and dancing. I look forward to her next show, hopefully without another health scare as its instigation.

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