Stage Door: "Six Degrees of Separation" Revived
Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 12:00PM Stage Door bringing you intermittent theater reviews when we manage to get there. Here's Nathaniel R
It's so basic to binge plays during Tony season as opposed to a more sensible and committed once-a-month diet of live theater. Alas, just as the more familiar mainstream obsession of the Oscar circus encourages studios to backload their releases to the last quarter of the year, most of the "big" theater shows open as late as they can for Tony consideration. This makes April and May a madhouse of theater-going for those who care about such things. Because most of the musicals are too expensive, I've been catching up with the plays. We've already covered The Little Foxes (a must see) and the Pulitzer-winning economic tragedy Sweat. So let's talk Six Degrees of Separation nominated for 2 Tonys: Best Revival of a Play and Best Leading Actor (Corey Hawkins).
"Chaos, control. Chaos, control. You like, you like?"
That's Stockard Channing's most sweetly funny line reading (among thousands of exquisite ones) in the 1993 movie adaptation of this stage classic. That was also, roughly, my reaction to the Broadway revival with Allison Janney, John Benjamin Hickey, and Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton), taking over the roles Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith played onscreen...
Allison Janney & Corey Hawkins as tenuous friends Ouisa and Paul in "Six Degrees of Separation"
You see, sometimes when you're too attached and familiar with a property, you're always popping in and out of any fresh swipe at it, comparing and contrasting and commenting in your overloaded brain. Or, is it heart? My head and heart were all over the place during the productions very swift even though I admired much of the production -- the set and lighting in particular are winning interpretations though curiously overlooked by Tony voters.
As a mega-fan of the 1993 movie, I couldn't ever quite let it go while watching the revival but I walked away with new respect for both the play and its screen adaptation. Seeing Six Degrees on stage for the first time is to realize that it is pure theater in every sense. Much of the dialogue, for example, is direct address to the audience, as opposed to dialogue between characters or inner monologues. The show's gossipy nature is a great fit for that treatment, as if you've just met art dealers Ouisa and Flan at a cocktail party and they're charming you with their most fascinating and amusing story. The play is excessively theatrical in its mood, references, and rat-a-tat-tat comedy. As such the ensemble around the central trio can afford to go very broad, as if they're merely comic flourishes that Ouisa and Flan have exaggerated for effect. This makes for surprising peals of laughter with several adult actors behaving like tantrum-throwing toddlers on the stage.
To see it on stage is to finally understand how deeply hilarious the show is. If anything its comedy has aged superbly in the past 27 years and not just because Cats (referenced continuously, often in a mocking tone) is back on Broadway and running concurrently with this production. If anything the current more "woke" culture that's formed since the play's debut have made Louisa and Flan's rich white people problems and even better satiric springboard for the play's own performative 'woke'ness, considering its jabs at Louisa and Flan's eagerness to show Paul off, talk about Paul, and believe in Paul's con. It also makes Paul's performativity both funnier and sadder. At a couple of moments in Hawkins' Tony-nominated performance, I was reminded of those amazing comic scenes in Orange is the New Black when Pousee and Taystee spoke like spoke like suburban white women on TV. (Hawkins didn't exactly pick an easy part for his Broadway debut but he does have one advantage that his co-stars don't have -- he doesn't have to live up to memories of a perfect movie performance and, unlike Will Smith, he's willing to kiss his male co-star while playing a gay character.)
It's easy to forget the show's rich humor given the story's increasingly lonely trajectory and the profundity of Stockard Channign's arc as Louisa. Her final refusal to let key moments in her life become mere "anecdotes" remains one of the most transcendent performances of its decade. Though the current stage revival never reaches those emotional heights -- the rushed paced (90 minutes without intermission) doesn't seem to be helping Janney pull off that delicately internal arc, though she's otherwise marvelous -- it happily hunkers down to generate big belly laughs instead.
Six Degrees of Separation is currently playing a limited run at the Barrymore Theater through July 16th only (presumably because Allison Janney is constantly juggling film, stage, and TV roles).
Reader Comments (10)
It still amazes me that Channing got in the 93 Actress line up at poor Pfeiffer's expense,she is so delicious in it though.
I actually flew to New York last week by myself, just to experience those "Rush tickets" i read around the internet. And so i got to see "Six Degrees", "Little Foxes", "War Paint" and "The Glass Menagerie" for 30-40$ each.
Coming back in France to read your review is quite delightful !!!
Having only few memories of the Six Degrees movie version that i only saw once about ten years ago, all that happened onstage felt pretty new and fresh to me, and electric, and exhilarating.
Being a fan of The West Wing, i had no doubt Janney could nail the performance but i didn't expect to cry during her last monologue. Hawkins was a revelation and Hickey every bit as amazing as in The Good Wife or The Big C.
Maybe my objectivity was obstructed by my "WAOUH I'M ON BROADWAY" mood, but i thought it was a pretty great night in the theatre (icing on the cake : John Slatery from Mad Men was seated just a few seats from me and i got to see Bette Midler getting out of the Schubert on my way back to the hotel)
I saw the play last month over the Easter weekend, and what a delightful night of theatre it was, probably more urgent and timelier now than in 1990 and equal parts funny and poignant. The part at which Paul says that the police will kill him if Flan and Ouisa don't deliver him to them may have played like hyperbole nearly 30 years ago, but knowing now what many of us might not have known then, it was such a gut punch for me.
My reaction about theater versus cinema was very different than yours!
The movie allows us to *see* Cambridge, the Strand Bookstore, the Sistine Chapel, etc. We get to visually experience the rooms and crowds this story plays to—country clubs, garden parties, etc. In my opinion the film adaptation enriches the text.
Janney gave a fine performance and the whole thing felt like a tribute to the Stockard Channing iterations of Six Degrees. Viewing it that way made it possible for me not to nit-pick. And I really wanted to nit-pick over line readings, in particular.
Reading your review I quite agree that, while Janney's performance was incredible, her "key moments" monologue felt just a bit out of nowhere, given the pace of the play ... Maybe this "out of nowhere" feeling was why emotion took me by surprise. So maybe it was a good thing after all ...
I was in NYC for a few days last week and got to see this! The film is a favorite of mine so I was afraid I would be disappointed, but I loved the play, too, just in different ways. The play was much, much funnier than I remembered it to be. Janney has a way with the rat-a-tat-tat dialogue, making her the perfect screwball comedy heroine. However, I agree that the final dramatic monologue comes a little out of nowhere. She starts off superficial, privileged and self-involved and still feels that way at the end. If they had given the play a little more time and room to breathe, her character arc would have been clearer. I also think it's harder to convey that kind of internal change on the stage, as opposed to film, which benefits from close-ups.
The film feels much darker to me. Stockard Channing's performance is amazing. You believe the connection she has with Paul is real and life-changing. The realization she comes to at the end is one of my favorite screen moments of all time and should have won her the Oscar.
Given that Janney and Channing worked together on the West Wing, I wonder if they ever discussed the character and the play.
Vai cair!
Clement -- John Slattery would have been a great casting choice for this revival.
I'm madly in love with the movie version. I know 93 was a crowded year, but it should have been up for best adapted screenplay.
I'm only familiar with the film version which I adore. Stockard Channing was delightful in so many ways, thank god she was at least nominated. Love that movie.
"Chaos, Control"
I'm with Hayden in that the film allows for an "enriched" text - but I liked this production quite a bit. Janney and Hickey are great, but to me what really stood out was (in addition to the knockout set and lighting design) how most of it is a comedy. I think that, more than the speed, is why Janney's key monologues don't land quite the same way Channing's did on screen.