The Madras House, a play by Harley Granville-Barker. The Mint Theater Company, The Mint Theater. Directed by Gus Kaikkonen.
It is likely that the most complex and literate play currently being performed in New York, isn't the eight and one half hour marathon "The Coast of Utopia" but "The Madras House" an amazing 1909 play by George Bernard Shaw's director and friend Harley Granville-Barker. This play, written at a time of transition for women's rights, looks at the problems women faced in the world of 1909 without any sentimentality. Ostensibly about the sale of a department store, the play explores the situation of the entire spectrum of women in London and even in the Muslim world, from top to bottom: rich women, poor women, women who are pregnant out of wedlock, women who gossip, women whose husbands are unfaithful, women desperate to be married and women who are trapped in marriages that have straight jacketed them. Women whose only weapons are to flirt or to show themselves as Couturier models. None of the women in this straight talking play are immune from the struggle to define themselves and to survive in a world of men. The play hints of social forces to come, but there are no magical solutions. But the play is hardly a polemic, it is a warm and rich comedy of manners that speeds by in a short three hours.
The cast, led by Laurie Kennedy, Roberta Maxwell, Thomas Hammond and especially George Morfogen in the richly layered role of Constantine Madras act their roles to perfection. The direction is spot on, the production handsome and simple. I admired the lavish costumes, which the audience can see very well (we were in the front row making us almost participants).
"The Madras House' has a lot to say - it is a layered comedy of manners very much in the line of "The Voysey Inheritance" and in fact there is a sly reference to the former in "The Madras House" one that will have actual plot significance to those who have a familiarity with it. One thing should be apparent to audiences who see "The Madras House" and the hit adaptation by David Mamet of "The Voysey Inheritance." Harley Granville-Barker's writing is complex, working on several levels and any editing out of his deceptively sentimental domestic scenes risks cutting the heart of his work. Of the two Harley Granville-Barker plays in current production, it is "The Madras House' that keeps faith with the work of one of the giants of English theatre. "The Madras House" is worth any trouble to see it and in the case of this small intimate theater, their super friendly staff, and the bargain prices they charge, it is very little trouble indeed. We give "The Madras House" an A+ in our Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test.

The Scene. A play by Teresa Rebeck at the Second Stage Theatre. Starring Anna Camp, Patricia Heaton, Tony Shalhoub, Christopher Evan Welch. We subscribe to many theater companies in New York City and have discovered that most of them have their hits and their misses. It's a critical problem when you have to make a 2 1/2 hour commute which is why the Second Stage Theater is one of our favorite subcriptions, they are rarely off the mark - most everything they do passes the Bridge and Tunnel Test. In other words, we're always happy we've made the effort, even though some of their presentations are better than others. Not every play they produce is a runaway smash like "Little Dog Laughed" but so canny and well cast are their productions, that just about everything they do is worth seeing. Last year's "The Water's Edge" by Teresa Rebeck was a case in point. It was superbly written, and though it went off the rails (badly we thought) in the second act, it was a brave attempt and it was well cast, with the great Kate Burton in the lead role. Now Rebeck has come back with another play "The Scene" and this time, it stays nicely on track. The play, a bitter tragi-comedy, hits all the right notes right from the start and comes to a shattering, some might say, "happy" conclusion at the end, all of it happening in front of our eyes, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. This is a play that belongs on Broadway and if it has this cast, it should do even better than "The Little Dog Laughed"
"The Scene" is a four hander in which we get to see a sexy siren, played by Anna Camp, devour a marriage and destroy friendships as she herself climbs to the top. Clea, as the nastiest "Deus ex machina" imaginable, ends by throwing a bitter, humiliating bone to the lost actor, finely played by Tony Shalhoub, which just possibly could get him back on his feet. Patricia Heaton and Chrisopher Evan Welch are perfect in their roles, but it is Anna Camp's sizzling break-out performance as Clea which is likely to be remembered. If Camp finds more roles that suit her as well as Clea, she's headed for a very big career. Clea is a man destroying role very much like that of Evelyn in Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things" and Camp's performance is even more memorable than Rachel Weisz's Evelyn (and we know how well she has fared in her career!). "The Scene" had its last performance yesterday unless it goes to Broadway as it deserves. "The Scene" receives an A+ in our Broadway Bridge and Tunnel test.
PS, a word to the wise: The sublime "Eurydice" by Sarah Ruhl is being produced by Second Stage in the early Summer. We saw this production in New Haven with presumably the same cast and director. In any case, original or new cast, this play which still haunts our memory is not to be missed.

Follies. A musical by Stephen Sondheim at the City Center Encores!, City Center Theater. Starring Lucine Amara, Christine Baranski, Philip Bosco, Victoria Clark, Yvonne Constant, Victor Garber, Mimi Hines, Michael McGrath, Donna Murphy, Anne Rogers, JoAnne Worley. Conducted by Eric Stern, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw.
You rarely get second chances, especially in the theater, but I was granted this special gift at a Saturday Matinee performance of "Follies" at the New York City Center, courtesy of the great Encores! series. I saw the original "Follies" and being 20 at the time, I'm ashamed to admit, I didn't get it. Not any of it, not the sophisticated music, not the signfiicance of the older stars (I had no idea who Ethel Shutta was) and certainly not the theme of desperate nostalgia and regrets which Sondheim has so potently brewed up in this lookback to the legendary "Ziegfeld Follies." All that's been set straight for me with this brilliant incandescent performance of "Follies." What a great event it is - in my nearly 50 years of theater going, I've never seen so many stars onstage for one work (as opposed to galas), so many Tony winners in one cast! I'd especially single out Victoria Clark who is simply wonderful as Sally, singing magnificently (the music could have been written for her, so perfectly her voice and style suited it), and breaking our hearts. Right alongside is the great Donna Murphy as Phyllis. I've seen most everything this uniquely talented star has done and she has never been better, never looked better. Even her shapely legs have never looked longer! Murphy's deadpan dry delivery, which worked so well as Ruth in "Wonderful Town" is ideal for the character of Phyllis.
The staging by Casey Nicholaw is superb and holds its own even against the memory of the Michael Bennett chorography and the Harold Prince staging. In a question and answer session with Stephen Sondheim himself which took place after the show, someone blurted out the question, will this limited production (its last performance is tonight) find a theater? "Will it be recorded?", another asked. Let us hope so.
"Follies" passed the Bridge and Tunnel test with an A+