Nicholas Martin has taken over the helm of the Williamstown Theater Festival, and the first show of his first season is as good as can be.
My previous encounter with Beyond Therapy was the workshop production at the Manhattan Theater Club, starring Sigourney Weaver as Prudence, in 1981. It wasn't very good, weighed down by the playwright's apparent anger at its satiric targets, and a leaden comic touch by all involved.
My memory isn't sharp enough to detect the changes in the script since then, but suffice to say that whatever sank it then, it swims and soars in this new production, which heads to Sag Harbor in July and then, one hopes, to Broadway. This production, directed by Alex Timbers, recognizes that in its heart, Beyond Therapy is a farce. Mousetraps are set in Act I, and they go off, repeatedly, in Act II.
The story is about Prudence (Katie Finneran) and Bruce (Darren Goldstein), who meet (twice) through the personals, and share their troubles with their respective therapists, Dr. Framingham (SNL's Darrell Hammond) and Mrs. Wallace (Kate Burton), while tormenting Bruce's live-in boyfriend, Bob (Matt McGrath).
Katie Finneran, the master farceuse who won a Tony for her performance in Noises Off, gives one of the most finely honed comic performances I've seen in years, with a rubber face that conjures SCTV's Catherine O'Hara, while sacrificing none of the depth or realism required to make us care deeply for her character.
Darrell Hammond, the master impressionist, seems only to be doing an impression of a scheming, predatory therapist. If the first rule of playing a villain is to believe in the justness of his cause, Hammond's self-conscious performance lacks only a twirl of a Snidely Whiplash moustache in its lack of empathy for the character. It's hard to believe Finneran's Prudence would fall for such a transparent creep. He's very funny nonetheless, and is part of the exquisite ensemble that holds this play together, but if he can find his way inside his character by the time this production moves to Sag Harbor, the payoffs will be worthwhile. But in truth, I found myself fantasizing how someone far more unself-consciously loopy (Dan Butler - Bulldog from "Frasier" - comes to mind) might match Finneran's uncanny artistry.
The weakest link in the production, though, is Darren Goldstein's Bruce. How to describe a very good performance in the midst of a masterful ensemble? He's a strong weakest link, but his emotional range is simply too limited not to be shown up by his fellow players' virtuosity.
And what fellow players! Matt McGrath, as the shafted boyfriend, redefines the stage upon his insidious entrance. He is a man wronged, he is furious, and he slowly finds routes for his rage as the play unfolds. I've been a fan since he was paired, maniac for maniac, with Jack Black, as homicidally devoted Republicans in Tim Robbins' "Bob Roberts" 16 years ago. Now in his late 30s, he has matured into an actor of staggering range and subtlety.
McGrath's scene with Kate Burton, as the other insane therapist, is the high point of the play. I've seen Burton play roles of nearly every description, but I've never seen her so over-the-top mad as she is throughout this production. Utterly lost within her own world, narcissistic beyond belief, and well beyond incompetent, her Mrs. Wallace manages at once to be the most mature character onstage while being absolutely childlike. This therapist's incompetence isn't criminal, like Dr. Framingham; she's merely out of her mind.
Caring, concerned, responsible, loving, and as untethered to reality as one can be while still having two feet (occasionally) on the ground, she's a joy to watch.
But this review would not be complete without taking special mention of the cherry atop this frothing sundae of a production. Bryce Pinkham, as the waiter in an otherwise waiterless restaurant, doesn't appear until the end of the last act, but when he does, he explodes, as if this were a film
and all his lines were shot as closeups. Mild-mannered to a fault, until activated by the attentions of McGrath's Bob, Pinkham's leather-bar secret identity is part of a screamingly funny climax that pulls together Beyond Therapy's central theme: how the desperate longing for connection is so easily and immediately subsumed by the arbitrary nature of lust, regardless of how preposterously inappropriate the object of desire might be.
