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Review
A Naked Girl on the Appian Way
American Airlines Theatre
September 30, 2005
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
In Richard Greenberg's latest, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, the author has stepped into the world of sitcom and the fit is a rumply one at best. In fact, during the first half hour one finds it difficult to reconcile that this playwright is the same person who wrote Take Me Out.
In a high end suburban enclave, a well-to-do couple, the Lapins (she's a sometime t.v. guest who writes cookbooks, he's a cultural and business essayist in the middle of writing a book himself) await the arrival of their now grown-up adopted son and daughter from their year in Europe. Into their midst comes instead a doddering, old curmudgeon who apparently is their neighbor - an entailed mother-in-law to a divorced woman (the actual neighbor) who is also a writer of some acclaim. When the young adults, Juliet and Thaddeus, finally do arrive (her roots are Dominican Republic, his are German), they have a secret or two about their travels. To go further would ruin it for those who like their surprises unspoiled. There is also another adopted son, Bill, a bisexual whose roots are Japanese, embittered by always feeling left out. It's clear the Lapins are liberal in their desire to have a multi-cultural family and that Mr.Greenberg is jumping on the intercultural adoption theme bandwagon that seems to be occupying a number of playwrights of late.
The first scene so painfully yields its exposition that the actors, Jill Clayburgh and Richard Thomas as the parents, strain to make any of it natural. With the second scene, the play picks up some when Mr. Greenberg allows his intellectual wit to find its footing despite going down the "mom and dad always loved you best" recriminations avenue. By the third scene, the laughter comes frequently when Mr. Greenberg's smart comments on several topics are allowed to run wild and he caps it all off with a warm, fuzzy feeling in true sitcom fashion. What his intentions are with this play, however, is anybody's guess and his allusion to the sculpture of a naked girl on the Appian Way is not only forced but vague. It has something to do with allowing love to blossom.
As with the playwright, one wonders if Doug Hughes is the same person responsible for the precise and enlightening direction of Doubt. Here, he has his actors sit, stand, go up and down staircases, and walk through doors without reason or behavior almost as if the characters had never lived in the beautiful home designed by John Lee Beatty.
Though the actors struggle to come alive, it's Mr. Thomas who has the most trouble. Even when Mr. Greenberg gives him the old standby asthma affliction bound to go off in crisis, one doesn't buy it for a second. In the easiest role of Thaddeus, Matthew Morrison is winning and Ann Guilbert with her years of good sitcom acting, is the only who feels right at home and gives us the most fun. ...end |
