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).